Could be, but Scot must also realize that if Gruden is that good in the pass game he shouldn't stifle it.
Not saying depend on it but somewhere in the middle where both elements of Jay and Scot's vision and forte become go to's.
The smash mouth run first also protected the QB position which neither had a handle on.
Both are still learning each other and from what I hear is Gruden agrees totally with the big tough guy vision but he still gets balls to Crowder, who is a little tough guy.
I think both just want football players with smarts and want-to.
Scot was pretty pumped after the Tampa game too, might be more of a getting the win type thing regardless of how the game revealed itself.
Just been catching up on this thread.
Agree with this.
I've said in another thread, this year feels different to me because I think FINALLY we're seeing culture change. This is a team that I think is learning that you have to earn wins.
2012 for all it's glory was a year that set us back alot. Team came back in 2013 thinking it would be easy, truth was that Defenses caught up to what we'd been doing with RGIII the year before. RGIII was a shadow of his previous year and the team was generally badly made up and quit on Shanahan (I'd also say Shanahan quit on the team too).
When ShanaClan left town I think the coaching job here was seen as a bit of a poisoned chalice. The expectation here is sky high and HC's don't last long without success. Plus they were likely to be hamstrung by Snyder and Allen in what they could and couldn't do. They'd tried it Shanahan's way and now there was a feeling that they'd interfere again more than they already had with the RGIII malarky.
Enter Gruden.
Last year he looked like a rookie Head Coach. I think he underestimated the role and it's demands, especially in Washington. I think he had no idea what he was getting into with the media and press spotlight. He had the difficult job of dealing with the team and with Management with no go between and he had a skip full of trash left behind by the Shanahans in terms of both players, coaching staff, culture and bad habits.
I think being a HC in Washington is a very difficult job. I mean we've seen superbowl winning head coaches flounder here let alone a rookie.
This year McCloughan has stepped into the gap between himself and the Management. He's changed the coaching staff to jettison the old regime and put some new people in positions that will take the strain off him. Some of those coaching additions are VERY well regarded. They've also jettisoned players who didn't fit what they wanted the culture to be and drafted in ones that do fit. They instituted the culture that the players who start are the ones who are the best, not the ones who are the highest paid. They've changed the style of the offense and brought it in slowly to give Cousins (who hadn't got many starts and in experience on the field terms was almost a rookie) a breathing period to get used to the team and win it over as his. He's also started to focus attention at some f the fundamentals of football to get them right first.
Tackling has broadly been better this year. The replaced Forbath with Hopkins which was massive. Here's another fundamental...
(Disclaimer: I'm a stat whore! I've been crunching numbers all season on a spreadsheet for our trends in all types of catagories. I'll share it in a thread one day soon as it makes for interesting reading in some cases. Alot of the trends are really good, really positive. But here's a key one...)
The grey line is our ranking per week for Penalties during the 2014 season. We got steadily worse over the first few games and then ended up 31st out of 32 teams by seasons end. Currently this year we've fixed that issue and risen consistently over the past 5 games to our current place of 3rd best in the league. Not sure we'll stay third but this is a MASSIVE improvement for a team that last year was always nulling good plays with stupid penalties.
How many yards does that currently represent?
Well last year we averaged about 70 yards per game across the season. That's 70 free yards we gave to the opposition or took off ourselves. This year we're down to an average per game of just 49 yards per game. 2014 saw us commit 1200 yards in penalties across the season. This year we've only committed just under 500 and are on course to finish the season with around 850 to 900 yards if we keep this pace.
The reason I focussed on Penalties is because this has been an area on this team which has been bad for ages. It displayed a lack of basic fundamentals and discipline. The fact that this is a trend which is heavily reversing bodes extremely well. If you want to do the fun stuff you gotta get the basics down first. I feel that this is what we're finally doing.
If this was a movie then we should be winning the Superbowl this year. Gruden on board with his new QB and a fairytale season brought about by McCloughan at the helm. But this is real life and in real life it takes time. Lots of it.
Gruden ain't perfect. Is he a good coach? I think so. Is he great? No idea. Will he win a Superbowl with us? Who knows.
But I'm personally happy with the direction we're going. This team is starting to look sound in the fundamentals. We're limiting stupid penalties and turnovers. We're fighting all the way to the end of games. We're not looking outclassed by teams worse than us, and if we do (like the Tampa Bay game) we come out swinging and don't give up. We didn't look intimidated by the Pats and I don't think we'll look intimidated by the Panthers. We've got good character guys across the team, we've got rookies looking sound if not spectacular yet and you can see the bones of something to build on. For the first time in a along time I feel like we're getting somewhere.
Now Gruden could yet make a fool of me. But I like what he's doing thus far. I'd like to think he'll grow and learn along with the team and maybe in a couple of years we'll start being consistent contenders for playoffs and dare I say the Superbowl. Long way to go but everything looks like it's trending that way to me.
I feel like this year he looks alot better.
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