The Gruden Files - Year Two

John Keim ‏@john_keim · 10h10 hours ago
2 big tells for the O: If Ryan Grant in game, 70 % chance of run; if DeSean Jackson in game, 73 % chance of a pass.why it helps if WRs block
 
I get all that Henry, and to an extent I agree. My frustration with the coaching staff stems from the lack of in-game adjustments, that frankly we've seen all season long, as well as the feeling I got (take that for what it's worth) that the team wasn't prepared or fired up.

You didn't think the defense was fired up? Were we watching the same game?

3 turnovers, one goal line stand, and vicious hits being dealt out all over the field? That may have been the most fired up our defense has been since the Monday night game in Dallas a year ago.

Ian Rapoport ‏@RapSheet · Dec 7
Starting to understand why coaches say the #Redskins are the most physical team they face. Holy cow

The defense was incredibly fired up. Now the offense, except for the usual guys like Trent and Garcon, may have been a different story.
 
I freely admit I'm not the sharpest tack in the box when it comes to the X's and O's of pro football, but when I can look at the Skins O line up, and call the play 80% of the time, it tells me that opposing D coaches who study film for hours on end can easily come up with a plan to shut down our offense.
 
So, in other words, get your best offensive weapon out of the game and that'll confuse the defense?

In other words, Desean needs to block better, or we need to actually throw the ball when Ryan Grant is in the game.

I know the coaching staff is screwed. We have no TEs that can block. Jordan Reed is a 50-50 for a penalty flag on any blocking attempt he makes, and Carrier was injured.

So they only thing they could do was to bring in OTs to play the TE position. Well, obviously the defense isn't scared that an OT playing the TE position might actually catch the ball, so he goes uncovered. That just gives the defense another guy to blitz our QB.

Solution 1: Scot, sign another TE immediately if Carrier is injured again.

Solution 2: We have to actually throw the ball when those extra OTs are in, and throw when Ryan Grant is on the field. And we have to run the ball away from Desean 50% of the time when he is on the field.
 
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It would also help if our TE could block.....or at least attempt to block, without a penalty.

That Niles Paul injury has really hurt us this season. Even Paulsen could block, but he wasn't worth $2 million a year.

When you think about the chess part of it, we are at a huge disadvantage before the ball is even snapped.

If Desean is on the field it's a pass. Drop back and cover.

When Grant is on the field load the box.

And good luck on screen passes to Desean's side of the field. If Desean catches the ball then Reed has to try and block for him. If someone else catches the ball then Reed and Desean have to try and block. Defenses don't even need to worry about screens to Desean's side of the field before the ball is snapped.

You ever notice how quickly Desean gets tackled when we throw a screen to him? That play never works.

Desean's incredible. He's a great player. But he's similar to Kai Forbath in that Kai was great on field goals, but his kickoffs were a huge liability to STs and coverage.

Rightly or wrongly, Desean's inability to block is made even worse when Reed can't block either.

That entire side of the field is screwed. Defenses know this.
 
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McD5, considering the dilemma you just presented, you think we could benefit from some trick plays, to throw off the predictability of our runs, due to our weaknesses and predictable formations ?
Maybe a HB-Option Pass, or a Double or Triple Reverse, Flea-Flicker, Draws, etc ?
 
McD5, considering the dilemma you just presented, you think we could benefit from some trick plays, to throw off the predictability of our runs, due to our weaknesses and predictable formations ?
Maybe a HB-Option Pass, or a Double or Triple Reverse, Flea-Flicker, Draws, etc ?

I was thinking the same thing Monday night. Coach needs to get creative, because sticking with the plan that's not working is dam near moving backwards.
 
McD5, considering the dilemma you just presented, you think we could benefit from some trick plays, to throw off the predictability of our runs, due to our weaknesses and predictable formations ?
Maybe a HB-Option Pass, or a Double or Triple Reverse, Flea-Flicker, Draws, etc ?

I definitely think we need to go in that direction. Especially a flea-flicker. Historically, we haven't had great success here with reverses, so I tend to believe a flea-flicker is the answer.

Could you imagine if we had run a flea-flicker on one of the 300 times that Matt Jones ran directly into the D line off the left side? It may have looked exactly like this below. This is from the last game that we played when Jay was the OC for the opposing team. They beat us 38-31. First play of the game:


[video]http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-cant-miss-plays/0ap2000000064724/WK-3-Can-t-Miss-Play-Bengals-open-with-a-bang[/video]

This is why we hired him. Let him call the plays. Let McVay work on the TEs blocking. And let Callahan work on the O-line.
 
I don't do espn 'insider' but if someone does maybe they can put up what this is all about.

During one of the pressers, heard that he was listed at four (as in fourth best)

Gruden among best in-game strategists

Jay Gruden struggled with the clock in 2014, but he's been much better this season. Pair that with his fourth-down decisions and challenges, and Gruden ranks highly on Football Outsiders' list. Best HC strategists (Insider)
 
Jay has a lot of time to focus on game management issues, he doesn't waste any on in-game adjustments.
 
Ah, thank you for that thorough explanation and insight.
I was thinking that column or whatever it was might include something like 'adjustments' as part of strategy, guess I was wrong.
 
I don't do espn 'insider' but if someone does maybe they can put up what this is all about.

During one of the pressers, heard that he was listed at four (as in fourth best)

Good morning Tom.

Healy released his best and worst decision-makers among NFL head coaches Wednesday, and he believes Gruden is helping the Redskins in a big way (or at least not hurting them) when it comes to in-game strategy.

Healy rated all 32 NFL coaches by a metric he calls a “Strategy Score,” which takes into account three categories: fourth-down aggressiveness, challenge mistakes and clock management mistakes. Each coach gets assigned a numerical value that represents the additional number of times he elected to go for it on fourth down while facing the same in-game situation compared to the league’s most conservative signal-caller. The final score for each coach is his fourth-down aggressiveness rating minus his total number of miscues.

Gruden’s strides are part of the reason the Redskins sit atop the NFC East (albeit in a three-way tie at 5-7). But hey, this same team won four games all of last season. The Redskins coaching staff has come a long way in the decision-making department.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-the-best-decision-making-coaches-in-the-nfl/
 
The 'low bar' was set by this team over the last decade or so, if you want to just use the bar set by a first year HC that's fine but if I'm reading what McD5 put up correctly they're comparing Gruden and staff to the current group of staffs league wide.
Might not mean much in the grand scheme of things right now but it's something and a lot better than our staff sucking at those metrics, is it not?

BTW thanks McD5 and good morning to you too.
 
It's amazing how I should dismiss what I see with my eyes and accept some stats to tell me we're getting better. Well maybe we're 'getting better' but in comparison to what? The disaster of last year, or the year before?

Low bar.

weeeeellllll...I find the whole story rather funny!

1) A coach paid multi-millions knows how to manage the clock! make him earn those big bucks there!

2) The staff in the box usually calls challenges and radios it down to the field.

3) 4th down aggressiveness: does this track the percentage that lead to scores? and the percentage that failed leading to opposing team scores?

I found the comments following the article amusing.

In the event...who really cares? as long as McL continues to restock the roster with credible talent...a league as thin razored as the NFL is talent-wise should witness a resurgent Skins team........
 
You can be as predictable as Brady and the pats if you can't stop them it does no good
or you can be the one of the hogs and tell a cowboy dlineman the play you are running 4 or 5 times in a row does no good if the other team can't stop them
London fletcher would study the opposing teams formation and know what play was being run better than 80 percent of the time but if we didn't execute the play was a success
 
It's amazing how I should dismiss what I see with my eyes and accept some stats to tell me we're getting better. Well maybe we're 'getting better' but in comparison to what? The disaster of last year, or the year before?

Low bar.

Yes...it's called progress. We aren't going to win the Super Bowl this year no matter how hard you wish for it. 7-8 wins this year should be considered success for a team that was an absolute laughing stock 2 seasons in a row. I know you are angry because other teams seem to turn it around faster, but how many of those teams are there that were nearly as pathetic as we were?

tr1, the sooner you accept this is a mutli-year process to even win consistently after the wreck we were, the better.
 
I agree we're not talent laden and that it's going to take Scotty a couple more drafts with an above average hit rate to get us above board.

The things that bothers me the most though, is with our talent razor thin and things having to go our way to win, you have to play smart and not dig yourself a hole to start out with.

Take the Dallas game (the game that's really bothered me) where out of 20 first downs,we ran on 15 of them. You gotta mix it up a little better than that...don't you think? Just to give your guys some kind of an edge, as small as it may be?

That's what's bugging me with Jay and McVay: help your guys out.

Don't run exclusively out of the Jumbo package and totally give your intentions away when you pull the extra linemen off the field.

It's little things that turn out to be big things that I see the team just give away.

You guys understand what I'm trying to say here?
 
Crystal clear DP and I think we all agree with that. Dallas game should have been a W. Really odd play calling IMO
 
Meant to bring up Kiem's take on the Dallas playcalling conundrum earlier.

There are 'tells' all the time, available talent and proper execution play a big part too...... but we all know that already, just that when it happens in a horrible Monday Night loss against effen Dallas, we suffer that 'sharp stick in the eye' pain referred to occasionally around here.



Predictable play-calling has been a topic this week: Do the Redskins have too many tendencies? If you re-watched the Dallas game, despite some cries of predictable play-calling, there were definite plays available that were missed, or that penalties wiped out, or that could have been executed better. That’s why it’s not as easy as to say they’re simply too predictable.

“You’re not going to catch them by surprise too many times,” Redskins left tackle Trent Williams said. “We get looks where we know what’s coming and they get looks that they know what’s coming. It all comes down to execution. You’ll see the same thing across the league. If you’ve got five receivers on the field, you know it’s a pass. If it’s seven linemen, you know it’s probably a run.”

The Redskins self-scout this every week, seeing what their tendencies are, and if the percentage of, say, runs with a certain grouping is too high. With tackle/tight end Tom Compton and receiver Ryan Grant in the game, for example, the Redskins run 74 percent of the time, according to ESPN Stats & Information. It doesn't help that they're sometimes having to use two tackles (including Ty Nsekhe) as tight ends because of injuries. It limits what can be called -- and the effectiveness. A tight end will be quicker to blocks in space than a backup tackle.
Washington Redskins offense hurt more by execution than play calling - Washington Redskins Blog- ESPN
 

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