Maelstrom787":3f6g9n27 said:
Spin Doctor":3f6g9n27 said:
Pete Carroll refuses to hold himself accountable, that is the main issue at hand. He adheres to a style of football that quite frankly isn't viable anymore. In his words, he thinks the only way to beat the two deep is a run game. That is just one way to beat it, but you can also do that through the passing game. You beat the two deep through short passes, and passes up the seam with the TE or slot receiver. How many times have teams dink and dunked their way, or used YAC to completely destroy our defense when we used that scheme? The answer is a lot.
We've beaten several teams this year through the short passing game, and dinking and dunking. Against Atlanta the offense looked like something Holmgren would have drawn up. The problem wasn't Schottenheimer, earlier this season he dialed up dynamic offenses, the main problem is Pete. He's looking at the game through an extremely reductionist viewpoint, especially in terms of the offense. The run game is just one tool to beat that coverage, he failed to see the other tools at his disposal and has quite frankly admitted it in press conferences.
Why force the short passing game though? It just doesn't fit. Russell doesn't take the short stuff. As much as I love Russ, we need to acknowledge his weaknesses - he holds the ball and looks for the deep shot, and consistently looks off his short options that usually are open on frequently-called techniques like mesh. We've seen it time and time again that he holds the ball and misses the short stuff, so why not provide the run support to make his job easier and let him focus on his strengths? We've seen him have massive success with it in the past, with no meltdowns like 2020.
Teams are having massive success with rushing attacks that fulfill the same role as a short passing attack - reliable yardage to keep the chains moving and sustain drives. Avoiding getting behind schedule with incompletions and setting up hard third downs. Indirectly helping your defense by keeping them off the dang field.
Schottenheimer did facilitate a passing attack and philosophy shift that worked early on, but teams adjusted and they absolutely befuddled Russ. Which is the easier route to take - trying to develop a better rushing game that rushes more often for similarly efficient yardage, or trying to change Russell as he is quickly approaching the 10 year mark?
We always talk about adjusting the scheme to the quarterback. Well... this is that, and as much as we'd love for the Let Russ Cook Madden-attack to work for a full season, it's easy to shut down without the ability to make teams pay for parking their safeties up high.
Love every part of this take because i think it's right on. Everybody on this board who is pro 'offense' assumes Pete wants to run despite the fact that he has a HOF qb under center who when he goes sandlot at the end of games, shows just how good the team might be. I personally think Pete is advocating for a stronger run game because he knows better than anyone else who Russ is. He, and anybody who has done any reasonable analysis of his game will tell you that Russ is not a methodical qb, and that his short game is flawed. I mean good lord, it's flawed right off the bat because it's been studied to death and is common knowledge that Russ takes some ofnthe deepest drops in football, play in and play out. He needs to set up deep so that he can see the field. But if you're throwing the ball from 8 to 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage, that makes it really hard to run a consistent, quick hit pass game. And if Russ, because of his height can't consistently hit a cross section of other short or medium routes simply because he cant see them, it would seem the next best alternative to going out and getting somebody who can, is adapt an offensive strategy that masks your QBs weaknesses and let him do what he does best, throw the long ball... and avoid the sacks that come with the compromised short game .
Why is that sooooo crazy? Bevells playcalls outside of Seattle look nothing like what he called here. I don't think that's because Pete MADE him call the plays he wanted. I'm sure as he's the coach that he expressed a desire to limit risk, or trend to a certain playcall here or there, but Hes a defensive coach and im pretty sure that if the offense is putting up points, controlling the clock, and not turning it over, Russ and the OC woukd be free to do whatever they wanted. Maybe the reality of the situation is that Russ is what's making thr playcaller's job difficult.
What if all the 'run more' talk from Pete that sounds so crazy to most isn't the ramblings of a coach past his time, but as has been his strength and talent in building men and teams all along, Pete finding a way to take the best of what a person brings to the table and helping him to fill in those parts of his game that are lacking. Thats what great leadership is about. Putting people in a position to succeed. That's what hawks culture is about under Pete. You come here and do your thing and Pete will help you with the rest. It's been proven at every other position. Look at the performance of our prized free agents once they left the nest. Earl Thomas? Good, not great. Maxwell? There are many. It's a pretty good list of players that made a lot of money based on the perception of what they might be based on their play in seattle.
Another clue thst this might actually be the case is that Russ for the last few years has been in the MVP talk at thr beginning of the season. Mahomes v RW one year, Lamar v RW another year. This year, RW V Allen / Rodgers. But every year, the performance waines and by seasons end , he's out of the picture. Maybe it's just always been that we've had decent coordinators developing solid schemes in the offseason to position him for success but for whatever reason, and you have to at some point entertain the idea that it might be Russ, defenses catch up and the QB struggles to adapt within the system. And maybe thats in part because it's always been so easy for him to just take control and do it on his own.
Listening to nfl talk today there's a ton opinion out there that supports this idea. That Russ needs discipline because he's been free to run around making magic, but hasn't perfected running a system. If you arent running the system properly and you fail as aresult, it's easy to look at the system if you don't know any better and from the outside, blame it. Especially when there is a pattern of success when going outside the system and winging it. But this year thr magic wasn't there.
All I'm saying is that this move in canning Schotty might not be the 'well its about time PC wakes up' moment and rather the ultimate show of support for his QB in helping him to succeed by changing the character of the offense so that his weaknesses aren't so consistently exploited. I don't think Pete wants another QB. HE and Russ are linked for life. He's gotta make it work. This just might be him trying to do that.