JTB":h1uogsrf said:
The play call had Graham in single coverage with a LB. That's a huge advantage schematically. Wilson made a bad throw without any pressure. How is the OC responsible for that?
I can certainly question the SB 49 play call/design more so than this specific one that Sherman had the meltdown over but it's a fact that if run properly Lockette would have been wide open for a TD.
He's not in the former but more so in the latter. In the former, as you point out, you have your top offensive talents in a 1 on 1 situation and a unforced bad pass subverts it. In the latter you have a ST gunner as the pointman on a play where another is boxing out a CB who has more than passing familiarity with us and the physical tools to disrupt those kinds of plays in the biggest 'must stop' situation imagined. All credit to Butler for being a better CB than Ricardo at WR.
It does raise the top level conversation in my mind which is "Are our current players good enough for Bevell's current offensive playcalling" If it is merely a question of execution then I feel this is the natural extension of where breakdowns between playcall intent and playcall success occur.
Let's just say that latter half of 2015 was 100% of potential output. Last year was at say 75% of that realized potential. Is the gap on peak potential caused by players being unable to execute through inherent talent levels, lack of preparation and coaching, being system mismatches, injuries or other?
An even higher level question is how far off from peak performance can the offense be at and cross various performance thresholds in the playoffs and how much does regular season quagmires (like Tampa, shudder) reflect on forward expectations in those situations?
I know the old axiom goes "you don't adjust how you call a game until it's executed very well and still comes up short". I suppose the quibbling point here is between the belief that we're executing the gameplan very well and still coming up short (and don't the stats bear out that we do execute efficiently in aggregate to our peers?) and we're not executing the gameplan very well and that simply needs to be better.
What are the mechanisms for getting a player to 'execute' better assuming inherent talent is relatively sticky?
Now I expect the answer to be fuzzy and I recognize that. I take it for granted that players can always play better to a certain extent. I just don't expect it to happen organically by their own gumption. And I want to solve the puzzle around why 2016s players didn't perform like their predecessors to a large extent because this is mostly the same exact team we're seeing in the future. Injuries were that significant and the OL that raw that they couldn't possibly hope to approach peak performance levels? And it was merely an aberration? That we should expect less integral injuries to QB, RB and WR going forward than last year and thats most of the difference and absent those we will have anywhere from "good enough" to "better than good"?
To me, it seems like if you're all in on players mostly being responsible for the dropoff in 2016, then there are deeper systemic issues vis a vis talent and depth on offense given very few changes to how Bevell and Pete want the offense to operate going forward. I tend to think more of our players inherent talent but hey, I've been wrong about stuff before and I could be underestimating just how much our current offensive players need to improve and remain healthy to see an offense that takes care of business.
I am curious though - how does a team that overall is efficient on offense have such middling red zone efficiency for 4 years and a steep dropoff in the 5th? Do players just execute worse the closer they get to the endzone inherently? Systemically? Specifically RW? Specifically his height?! In 5 years of playing in with his OC there are no answers on how to goose red zone efficiency with him as QB? Has our roster around RW actually gotten worse for the tasks of the red zone assuming a fairly static Bevell?
And that's what almost all these questions assume: If Bevell's ability as OC is mostly static and inherently good and the variable that controls output is player ability, what can be done really than pay and pray?
Sure its easy to pile on Bevell for the play and I do it because I get a small cathartic release every single time I do but I do think there are some deeper inherent issues in flexibility and adaptation vis a vis Bevell and smaller extent PC where he's calling plays for the team he wants or wishes he had, not the team he in fact has.
ukeface:
