Mike Macdonald Explains Decision to Fire OC Ryan Grubb

[Hawkpower]

he hasn’t said whether or not Huff will be back. On top of that, their offensive line has been bad for years now. It didn’t just start this year.

Fair.

But if we are giving passes due to past poor play and personnel issues, then shouldn't that apply across the board?

 

[pmedic920]

I'm guessing MM wants a Chuck Knox/Tom Catlin-type offense. Defensive coaches loves them some ball-control offense!

As they should IMO

 

[Hawkpower]

I'm guessing MM wants a Chuck Knox/Tom Catlin-type offense. Defensive coaches loves them some ball-control offense!

I'm old enough to remember when Pete was being "passed by" because he favored that kind of offense.

Wonder what the reaction will be here if we do indeed go back to it

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

This somewhat, perhaps rightfully, so, beg the question: Does Mac want a modern era Pete Carroll style offense….?

You know, control the clock with an impose your will run game and play action explosive deep shots?

is Mac walking into the shadows of Pete Carrol but as a young current modern era version of Carrol?

Does Mac even know what he wants on offense?

Even a bigger question, is Schneider the GM that can assist Mac on doing whatever it is that Mac wants?

Time will tell.

 

[Spin Doctor]

I'm old enough to remember when Pete was being "passed by" because he favored that kind of offense.

Wonder what the reaction will be here if we do indeed go back to it

Pete Carroll's issue is he hired garbage coordinators. Bevell, Bates and Waldron are either not coaching or are positional coaches. The only guy still coaching as an OC is Schottenheimer.

Carroll's issues also were amplified by having a QB that couldn't play within a proper system. Everywhere he's gone since Seattle, they essentially just copy pasted the Schottenheimer passing game.

 

[Spin Doctor]

This somewhat, perhaps rightfully, so, beg the question: Does Mac want a modern era Pete Carroll style offense….?

You know, control the clock with an impose your will run game and play action explosive deep shots?

is Mac walking into the shadows of Pete Carrol but as a young current modern era version of Carrol?

Does Mac even know what he wants on offense?

Even a bigger question, is Schneider the GM that can assist Mac on doing whatever it is that Mac wants?

Time will tell.

I think he wants a balanced attack. Look at where he comes from, he's spent his whole career with the Harbaughs. He came up around Greg Roman types.

 

[seabowl]

Fair.

But if we are giving passes due to past poor play and personnel issues, then shouldn't that apply across the board?

One year and taking over a line that lost both tackles, had the center retire, and horrible guards? Again, I’m not saying Huff is good, but he was handed a pretty crappy situation.

 

[CouchLogic]

I'm old enough to remember when Pete was being "passed by" because he favored that kind of offense.

Wonder what the reaction will be here if we do indeed go back to it

Yeah, but he also changed to a soft @$$ defense that was predictably bad. Can't have a ball control offense and a defense that allows chunk plays as an average. Not for a lack of trying though, he was great.

MM, just needs to get that offense on the field. We're not even sure this DEF is capable of doing that,because the OFF kept dropping the ball. A great year to see what players fit the system,but not great evaluating everything as a singular, working machine [my .02].

 

[Hawkpower]

One year and taking over a line that lost both tackles, had the center retire, and horrible guards? Again, I’m not saying Huff is good, but he was handed a pretty crappy situation.

I’m not either.

But the irony that much of those same issues not only plagued the offenses overall performance, as well as the ability for them to be balanced, isn’t lost

MM didn’t hide his disdain for Grubb during the season. His snark was evident. It played a role

 

[Hawkpower]

Yeah, but he also changed to a soft @$$ defense that was predictably bad. Can't have a ball control offense and a defense that allows chunk plays as an average. Not for a lack of trying though, he was great.

MM, just needs to get that offense on the field. We're not even sure this DEF is capable of doing that,because the OFF kept dropping the ball. A great year to see what players fit the system,but not great evaluating everything as a singular, working machine [my .02].

Oh I agree, but the mantra on .net was specifically that Pete was not innovative on offense and that a run first offense doesn’t work in todays NFL

 

[Shane Falco]

I remember Knox being fairly balanced run/pass despite being known as "Ground Chuck". I'd have to go back and look at actual numbers. But I didn't get the feeling back then like I did when PC would go ultra conservative.

Remember one of the mic'ed up shows where Marshawn was asking Pete on the sidelines if they could score some more? That was some funny shit.

 

[stack55]

I think Grubb should have got another year. You can’t run the ball if it doesn’t work. MM is the coach, if he told Grubb to run the ball, he would call run plays.

simple as that, speak thru his mic, run the ball.

 

[GemCity]

Johnson will be a HC soon. I’m sure.

No doubt

 

[GemCity]

I think Grubb should have got another year. You can’t run the ball if it doesn’t work. MM is the coach, if he told Grubb to run the ball, he would call run plays.

simple as that, speak thru his mic, run the ball.

Not quite the way it works. Both ways exists. Some head coaches do call offensive plays. Many do not.

MM calls D…not O. Most games are scripted offensively with some ability to audible into variations of those plays.

As MM is defensive minded, I don’t really see him ever calling O.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have ultimate responsibility. He does. And perhaps this year, he starts to take on more of the offensive play calling.

For now, he exercised power within his rights and removed a big hindrance off this team.

 

[FreshBoxLive]

I'm totally speculating of course, but I have this weird feeling that those running formations and plays that were implemented mid to late season were added to the playbook by someone else.

Again, I am totally speculating but that's just my gut feeling after watching every snap of this 2024 team.

 

[Lagartixa]

Yikes. For those that don't read Xitter, that xit suggests Huff might staying even though Grubb has been shown the door. I just don't see anything in Huff's work in 2024 that suggests he's ready to be an NFL OL coach.

But why wouldn’t you fire a guy who’s unit was a huge part the reason why the offense struggled?

Makes it seem as if the decision was less about results and more personal.

Because if it’s just results based, the oline coach should have been first, right?

I dunno about first. The 2024 offensive playcalling actually looks worse to me than the awful line play, especially given that Grubb should have been taking into account the team's OL problems in his choices of plays to call, but he did not appear to do that. So I agree that Huff should also be looking for a new job, but I'm not sure he deserved it more than Grubb.

For those giving Macdonald props for "not throwing Grubb under the bus," it's not like he's actually helping the guy. Other NFL teams have access to every camera angle from every game, so they're all very aware of how unready Grubb is for an NFL OC job, no matter what Macdonald says or doesn't say about him. Grubb can still have a successful and well-paying career in minor-league ("university") football. He might even become a head coach there.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Mike has a way he wants the offense to be run, it didn't happen, he moved on. I think we all know that if Mike isn't happy, he won't hesitate to move on.

 

[Spin Doctor]

Yikes. For those that don't read Xitter, that xit suggests Huff might staying even though Grubb has been shown the door. I just don't see anything in Huff's work in 2024 that suggests he's ready to be an NFL OL coach.



I dunno about first. The 2024 offensive playcalling actually looks worse to me than the awful line play, especially given that Grubb should have been taking into account the team's OL problems in his choices of plays to call, but he did not appear to do that. So I agree that Huff should also be looking for a new job, but I'm not sure he deserved it more than Grubb.

For those giving Macdonald props for "not throwing Grubb under the bus," it's not like he's actually helping the guy. Other NFL teams have access to every camera angle from every game, so they're all very aware of how unready Grubb is for an NFL OC job, no matter what Macdonald says or doesn't say about him. Grubb can still have a successful and well-paying career in minor-league ("university") football. He might even become a head coach there.

Depends. A big part of structuring an NFL offense is coming up with blocking schemes for both passing and run blocking. The offensive line not playing good might not necessarily be a Huff issue. It could've been a Grubb issue all along. How an offense structures it's presnap, blocking schemes and how to call out where the defender of interest is going to be is all something we don't see as fans. There is a lot of movement behind the scenes and we only get a small snap shot.

The line playing bad might not be an issue with Huff, so much as it is with the QB and the OC. The QB actually controls A LOT when it comes to calling out protections and adjusting the play at the LOS. I'm not saying it's Geno's fault, it could be something with the way Geno interacted with the offense, it could also be the way that Grubb structured the protections. There is a lot that we don't know being on this side of things.

What we do know, is that the offense called some plays that were questionable given the down and distance. We also know that with one failed run, Grubb would completely abandon the running game. He was still coordinating like he was at the collegiate level. The fact we saw as much pistol as we did blows my mind. You can get away with this stuff and be an elite collegiate play caller. The NFL punishes this kind of thing with extreme prejudice.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Shoot, he called shotgun from the END ZONE in the 2-safety game. Ridiculous. Then he doubled down and did it a 3rd time and got lucky we didn't have 3 safeties in the 1st half.

 

[CalgaryFan05]

But again, if MM is holding his assistants responsible for performance, then one has to wonder why Huff (and to a lesser extent Harbaugh) are still employed.

This.