BGO.C.D.: Slaying Goliath - One Down

Heading into a brutal 2 week home stretch facing both the 3-1 Packers and the always daunting Peyton Manning-led Colts, I identified 5 crucial...

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Nice write up Boone. Only thing I disagree at all on is the running game. We need to pound it 27-30 times a game. Take more pressure off McNabb. We were running great to the outside early, then decided to run up the middle late.

To beat the Colts, we are going to have to run more, imo.

I agree as you know, since I was harping on it repetitively in the chatroom. Only thing I was trying to make note of was that we did not become one-dimensional in the 2nd half, when one might have expected us to totally abandon the run. We continued to commit to trying to run it, albeit with limited success, all the way up to the final seconds.

But I agree. We need to do what Green Bay did today, establish an effective running game. Hard to argue with a 100 yard individual rushing effort as Jackson had today.

Hate to disagree again, apparently I'm contentious tonight. GB didn't establish anything, IMO. Take away his 71 yard run, and Jackson didn't do squat against us. One long run does not mean they established anything.

And I don't think we stuck with the running game in the second half. 8 carries inn the second? That's brutal. Were McNabb's two draws included?

Not sure why we went away from it. Don't want to be accused of being negative, i am thrilled to peaches that we are 3-2, who woulda thunk it? But I would like to see us run more.
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An interesting note-apparently Rodgers called a lot of audibles-that Packer forum was furious at the lack of run game attack by the Packers and were mightily upset with McCarthy for not emphasizing it more.

Goaldeje said:

Hate to disagree again, apparently I'm contentious tonight. GB didn't establish anything, IMO. Take away his 71 yard run, and Jackson didn't do squat against us. One long run does not mean they established anything.

And I don't think we stuck with the running game in the second half. 8 carries inn the second? That's brutal. Were McNabb's two draws included?

Not sure why we went away from it. Don't want to be accused of being negative, i am thrilled to peaches that we are 3-2, who woulda thunk it? But I would like to see us run more.
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Not sure I follow the 'take away his 71 yard run' logic there Goal - there are a lot of plays I'd like to take away, but they happened The Packers tripled us on run yards, 151 of them. That's not insignificant.

On your point about the Redskins 2nd half commitment to the run, looking at the play-by-play, I'd have to say you're right. My argument there wasn't that we were doing anything special on the ground, just that in light of the fact that we looked to be in dire straits early in the 2nd half, we didn't entirely abandon the run. I said we did enough on the ground to at least keep them guessing, and I think we did. I agree though, we could have run a lot more.

Then again - we won. Would we have been able to come back had McNabb not thrown twice as often as handing off? I don't know. History says, run and you have a better chance of winning. Today, we might just have stolen one in the face of the odds.

Boone said:

. History says, run and you have a better chance of winning. Today, we might just have stolen one in the face of the odds.

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I wonder if part of it might possibly be that History, instead of having a "Cut in Stone" status is more situationally dependent as the game has changed over time? The run game as a fluid tactical decision based on game situations-run to set up the pass and/or pass to set up the run being decided by matchups and opponent tactics with the pass/run percentages amenable to game situation-based adjustment rather than say "we are going to run x percent and pass y percent of the time".

Just a question I'm pondering.

Boone, my argument is not that e 71 yard run didn't happen, merely that it didn't do that much to establish run. The Packers didn't run the ball that often or successfully, if yu remove that one run. The one run inflates their stats and makes them look a little more dominant than they were, IMO.

And Serv, i agree with your situational analysis. I guess I just think I know more than the coaches. And I'm wondering why they aren't calling me asking for my advice.


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