Why our Play Action Game Sucks...

[Sperrydogg]

The problem is the DCs of other teams and players are smart enough to see the formations and spot exactly what grubbs call is because he has never actually ran the football from those PA formations and vice versa so he is telling the opposing D what's coming and we all know when that happens your O gets shutdown so it's very much a Grubb thing and not our Oline thing
MM either needs to make grubb do it correctly or were toast
I was one of those who was high on grubb before the season and now just wonder if he's one and done as you can't do what he's doing so either change your strategy or get out
The only silver lining is that if he went 180 from all his prior tendencies we could have a huge game against anyone but after seeing it happen this far into the year it's pretty obvious he is one stubborn dude
It's too badf really as he does some things great and then stops doing them like so many OCs we've had in the past , at that point I have to say buh bye felicia

It takes a lot of discipline to be a good coach

 

[keasley45]

Lagartixa went very in depth with his reply to this, so to keep it simple: Having a good running game definitely makes your play action game more effective but you do NOT need it to have good play action.

I literally cited for an example of OUR team, who was good at play action in 2022 and 2023, and we didn't have a great running game either year. (Also, Pittsburgh has a below average play action game despite having Najee Harris.)

This is all very true because the key to PA is not forcing the D to committ wholenheartedly to stop the run, but rather not commit entirely to abandoning stopping the run. 'Effective ' can mean the opposing team's LBs setup a step closer to the line, or safeties hold their spot a tick longer, or take a step or two toward the line before bailing into coverage.

HOWEVER. if a team has shown week over week to be entirely ineffective running the ball, well ... ineffective (at times because we refuse to) is < not great. And if thats the case, defenses wont bite as much and as a result, PA wont be as effective. CiP, defenses seem to have been keying in on rushing us heavy on 3rd and short while not committing DBs to assist in run defense at the snap. They just drop into zone coverage, confident we wont run and key on Geno. Its pretty remarkable we had the big gains on screens to JSN that we have because those passes have threaded a ton of traffic to hit home.

For us, we really do need to run PA to gain whatever advantage we can, given how pass dependendt out O is. I still dont get though why we dont run more motion to help the run and PA. I mean, there is a logic to showing certain plays even if you think they dont have a great chance of succeeding. It makes the D react accordingly to what they think is coming. And THAT is the frustrating thing about Grubb. Its only been on a few occassions that he's been deliberate in setting up multiple plays off of similar looks. When he's done it, its worked. But then, he stops.

 

[DarkVictory23]

There are a lot more than 5 options on PA or RPO. That is why field vision is so critical to success in the scheme. Geno takes one view and makes a decision. That is partly due to his dislike for running, which is understandably for self preservation. The RB presents 3 separate options, handoff, pitch, or checkoff pass. The receivers present 4 passing options. The picks often happen when QB locks in on receiver and fails to compute arrival speed of defenders. QB keeper is another option. QB field vision and ability of defenders to gain instant penetration are the most critical factors to PA or RPO success and failure.

Appy, what is in this response to re: 5 options? Also, as I mentioned a bit in the original post, PA and RPO are somewhat related concepts, but how they are run is different (as are the options they present), and I'm not talking about RPO here at all.

Nothing went wrong with any of these 5 plays due to Geno's field vision. Geno read these fine and they all were successful plays outside of the last which wasn't a misread, it was a misfire.

The question was asked were these plays on one drive or the only ones we ran whole game, and it's the latter. These were the only 5 PA plays we ran that game. On the fifth, the defense was holding for the short pass but didn't bite on the run fake. I haven't looked at our PA game for the Packers game yet but in both Cards and Jets game, nobody was fooled by our run fakes.

This is all very true because the key to PA is not forcing the D to committ wholenheartedly to stop the run, but rather not commit entirely to abandoning stopping the run. 'Effective ' can mean the opposing team's LBs setup a step closer to the line, or safeties hold their spot a tick longer, or take a step or two toward the line before bailing into coverage.

HOWEVER. if a team has shown week over week to be entirely ineffective running the ball, well ... ineffective (at times because we refuse to) is < not great. And if thats the case, defenses wont bite as much and as a result, PA wont be as effective. CiP, defenses seem to have been keying in on rushing us heavy on 3rd and short while not committing DBs to assist in run defense at the snap. They just drop into zone coverage, confident we wont run and key on Geno. Its pretty remarkable we had the big gains on screens to JSN that we have because those passes have threaded a ton of traffic to hit home.

For us, we really do need to run PA to gain whatever advantage we can, given how pass dependendt out O is. I still dont get though why we dont run more motion to help the run and PA. I mean, there is a logic to showing certain plays even if you think they dont have a great chance of succeeding. It makes the D react accordingly to what they think is coming. And THAT is the frustrating thing about Grubb. Its only been on a few occassions that he's been deliberate in setting up multiple plays off of similar looks. When he's done it, its worked. But then, he stops.

Yeah, because we don't run our PA out of our actual run game looks at all. I understand partially why (we run weak-side to guarantee that the RB will be in a good blocking position after the play fake because we don't trust our O-Line... unfortunately, understandable). But we can RUN out of our play action looks then. It's the opposite of how you think of teams doing this, but the idea is still the same (take advantage of defensive indecision) and for a pass first team like us, it makes sense to use the run as the accent to our pass game instead of the other way around.

Why Grubb hasn't done that yet, I have no clue.

And I agree, it seems like every game I see him do something good and then the next week it's not there. Vs. NYJ, we run the Duos run game concept for a lot of success. Vs. AZ, we barely run Duos at all but that's fine, we spam GT counter instead and that's even more successful.

Then we play GB. I only counted 1 Duos and 0 GT counters (we did run some other counters, so I might have misread the pullers on a couple but up until the 4th quarter I saw zero GT counter).

Like, WTF dude?

EDIT: Flipped NYJ and GB previously.

 

[keasley45]

Appy, I'll be honest, I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Who said there are only 5 options? And, PA and RPO are somewhat related concepts, but how they are run is different (as are the options they present), and I'm not talking about RPO here at all.

Nothing went wrong with any of these 5 plays due to Geno's field vision. Geno read these fine and they all were successful plays outside of the last which wasn't a misread, it was a misfire.

The question was asked were these plays on one drive or the only ones we ran whole game, and it's the latter. These were the only 5 PA plays we ran that game. On the fifth, the defense was holding for the short pass but didn't bite on the run fake. I haven't looked at our PA game for the Packers game yet but in both Cards and Jets game, nobody was fooled by our run fakes.


Yeah, because we don't run our PA out of our actual run game looks at all. I understand partially why (we run weak-side to guarantee that the RB will be in a good blocking position after the play fake because we don't trust our O-Line... unfortunately, understandable). But we can RUN out of our play action looks then. It's the opposite of how you think of teams doing this, but the idea is still the same (take advantage of defensive indecision) and for a pass first team like us, it makes sense to use the run as the accent to our pass game instead of the other way around.

Why Grubb hasn't done that yet, I have no clue.

And I agree, it seems like every game I see him do something good and then the next week it's not there. Vs. GB, we run the Duos run game concept for a lot of success. Vs. AZ, we barely run Duos at all but that's fine, we spam GT counter instead and that's even more successful.

Then we play AZ. I only counted 1 Duos and 0 GT counters (we did run some other counters, so I might have misread the pullers on a couple but up until the 4th quarter I saw zero GT counter).

Like, WTF dude?

Exactly.

Its like the problem of the carpenter who has so many tools, he tries to make up random, far fetched projects so that he can use them all, rather than just cranking out really nice tables and benches with a saw, hammer, nails and screws.

Grubb gets off on flash. - thats mine. Dont use it. and the idea of building the widget no one has ever seen before.

Grubb = Delorean, or Fisker Karma - The coolest, most useless car ever.
Grubb = Randall Peltzer - the dad in the original Gremlins and our offense is the Bathroom Buddy

Grubb=
Grubb=
Grubb=...

If only the dude could focus on making the cool sh+t actually work in a sustainable way and give up on being (old) boy genius, he could be great.

Kind of makes you understand why Pete divided Coordinator duties between Cable and Bevell. Too many of these OCs these days get high on drawing up splash plays. Grubb needs somebody working with him who knows the NFL game and can take the burden off of scheming the other half of the offense for him.

 

[warden]

Play action loses all effect if you can’t run between he tackles consistently

 

[MontanaHawk05]

This is all very true because the key to PA is not forcing the D to committ wholenheartedly to stop the run, but rather not commit entirely to abandoning stopping the run. 'Effective ' can mean the opposing team's LBs setup a step closer to the line, or safeties hold their spot a tick longer, or take a step or two toward the line before bailing into coverage.

HOWEVER. if a team has shown week over week to be entirely ineffective running the ball, well ... ineffective (at times because we refuse to) is < not great. And if thats the case, defenses wont bite as much and as a result, PA wont be as effective.

This is where I'm at. You can be mediocre at the run game and be convincing in play action, but you can't be dismal at it.

 

[projectorfreak]

This is all very true because the key to PA is not forcing the D to committ wholenheartedly to stop the run, but rather not commit entirely to abandoning stopping the run. 'Effective ' can mean the opposing team's LBs setup a step closer to the line, or safeties hold their spot a tick longer, or take a step or two toward the line before bailing into coverage.

HOWEVER. if a team has shown week over week to be entirely ineffective running the ball, well ... ineffective (at times because we refuse to) is < not great. And if thats the case, defenses wont bite as much and as a result, PA wont be as effective. CiP, defenses seem to have been keying in on rushing us heavy on 3rd and short while not committing DBs to assist in run defense at the snap. They just drop into zone coverage, confident we wont run and key on Geno. Its pretty remarkable we had the big gains on screens to JSN that we have because those passes have threaded a ton of traffic to hit home.

For us, we really do need to run PA to gain whatever advantage we can, given how pass dependendt out O is. I still dont get though why we dont run more motion to help the run and PA. I mean, there is a logic to showing certain plays even if you think they dont have a great chance of succeeding. It makes the D react accordingly to what they think is coming. And THAT is the frustrating thing about Grubb. Its only been on a few occassions that he's been deliberate in setting up multiple plays off of similar looks. When he's done it, its worked. But then, he stops.

That's been the problem 'When he's done it , it's worked , then he stops
Confusion is a major key to a good offensive strategy and the second we stopped doing what they thought we were going to do , now the opposing knew exactly what we were doing
Grubb had a few great moments but that is the diff btwn an average OC and a really good/great OC
I can see no viable way to going into next season with him as there is no way to (bench test) him like you would a vehicle or mechanical part
It's the real world and now that we actually have a defense just take out the bad mechanism on offense and while we won't go 17-0 we will get much better and pretty sure MM knew that after a few games and really was smart enough to realize mid season there isn't a whole bunch you can do besides embarrass your OC or who knows what else
Unfortunately , onto next year
Go Hawks