Random Commanders Thoughts

Defense wasn't great. But it wasn't awful either.
Like I said before, one TD was due to a 3rd-string LT.
And then the last TD was just a perfectly thrown bomb by Palmer, and a perfect catch.
The defense by Dunbar on that catch probably could have been better, but it wasn't bad either.
Who was the safety on that ? Duke ? Looks like he just fell down on his own.
This is what stood out to me on defense, which I'm tired of seeing in general : Norman going for the "big hit" on defense, instead of the tackle.
That cost us a critical 1st down on defense. Coaches need to get in their face and tell them quit with the cute stuff, and just tackle.
 
DieselPwr44 said:
Sean McVay's gotta go along with Barry.

McVay doesn't understand the run game: how or when to use it,nor play off of it.
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1st and goal at the 2.

Fake the hand-off, Kelly releases to the outside, the defense completely bites. A play I've been screaming for for weeks. Perfect play call. Easy TD.

Except ... Cousins throws it short, Kelley drops the ball, and there's a holding call on the line.

1st and goal at the 12. We end up kicking a FG.

That was the game in a nutshell.

I honestly couldn't put my finger on exactly what went wrong today, except for the fact that we just got out-played. I don't know who's fault that is. The players. The coaches. Both?

All I know is it can't happen again. Especially against the Eagles.
 
Yea the "Red Zone Dead Zone" reared its ugly head again today.
But I think I have the answer for it.
From now on, on every drive that we march down the field, have the ball-carrier intentionally fall down and stop at the 21-yard line.
Our chances of scoring a TD are exponentially higher at the 21, than if we go any further.
 
Henry said:
1st and goal at the 2.

Fake the hand-off, Kelly releases to the outside, the defense completely bites. A play I've been screaming for for weeks. Perfect play call. Easy TD.

Except ... Cousins throws it short, Kelley drops the ball, and there's a holding call on the line.

1st and goal at the 12. We end up kicking a FG.

That was the game in a nutshell.

I honestly couldn't put my finger on exactly what went wrong today, except for the fact that we just got out-played. I don't know who's fault that is. The players. The coaches. Both?

All I know is it can't happen again. Especially against the Eagles.
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Well there's that and the fact that Kelley was averaging over 4.5 yds a carry and only got the ball 14 times.

Kelley would rip off a ten yd run and McVay would immediately go right back to the pass. I don't believe he called back to back runs the whole game.

Unacceptable.

Jay and McVay talk a good game about being physical and running the football but it doesn't show on the field. Spielman pointed this out during the whole game today.

The Oline was down to its 3rd string LT and McVay decides that a pass is the correct way to go when there was no need to. You run the ball there and see if Nyseke is ready to come back in. You just don't put a third stringer coming off the bench cold, in that spot.

And where's the accountability for Lavaou at when he was the one who gave that sack up and costed us penalties on multiple false starts?

McVay and Jay hate to run the ball period. Neither understand it's importance,when and how to use it or how to play off of it.

Foreign concept to an AFL QB who passed all the time.
 
Damn you Joe DingleBarry...you're tearing this family apart!!!!

Besides a new DC how bout we go with Lawrence Timmons and Calais Campbell as fa pickups for starters.

2017 NFL Free Agents Tracker | Spotrac

Besides a day one starter o-lineman I'm down with an all defense draft too.
 
In my head I do the ""MCVAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!" in this voice...

IMG_2509.JPG
 
I'd be okay with him going elsewhere. He may be a great coach installing plays and whatnot but his actual play calling is skunk shit.

Promote Callahan and call it good.
 
DieselPwr44 said:
Disagree.

We had enough offense to win this game, the defense gave us no help whatsoever.

Same thing in Dallas: we needed two stops in the second half of both these games and the D couldn't in either game.
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I'm with you DP.

Crunching the numbers this morning... I love stats! :D

The Cards scored an Average of 22.3pts per game prior to this weekend. While they allowed their opponents to score on average 20.7 pts per game.

Now even accounting for the fact we fumbled once, had one interception and at least twice had to settle for FG's on drives where we should have got TD's, we still scored 23pts. Which is more than their Defense allowed on average coming in, plus more than their offense managed on average per game. so on the Offensive side, though close, we should have won.

But our Defense... They allowed a team that averages 22.3 pts per game to score 31. That's 8.7 points, which is for practical purposes a TD and a FG more than their average across the other 11 games this season. if our Defense could simply have held them to their average total we'd have won.

It gets worse for the Defense because we knew the threats coming in. Johnson, Palmer and Fitzgerald. Palmer was having a bad year, Fitzgerald isn't what he used to be, but we also knew Johnson was a beast. Stopping at least a couple of these two should have been a priority and or Defense had a long week to focus on this aspect of the game. Game plan to take Johnson out of the game as much as possible. Pressure Palmer. Whatever...

What actually happened...

Palmer averaged 266 yards per game and 1.3 TD's per game coming in. Against us he threw for 300 yards and 3 TD's. (Yardage +12% and TD's up 56%)

Johnson is dual threat. Coming in he averaged 84 yards per game rushing and 55.7 yards per game receiving. Against us he ran for 84 yards but caught passes for 91 yards (Rushing in line with average, but receiving up 38%)

Fitzgerald we kept to his season norms pretty much. HE came in at almost 73 yards a game on 7 catches per game. Against us he was 78 yard on 10 catches. We held him out of the endzone too.

So with 9 days to plan our Defense managed to hold Fitzgerald to his season averages more or less, and allowed Palmer and Johnson to improve on them.

That's not a good Defensive performance at all. All we needed was to hold to those averages, but then that's why our Defense is ranked so low, we just can't do that.

(note: Similar in Dallas game. Dallas went in to our game allowing an average of 18.7pts per game, our Offense scored 26. Their offense averaged 28pts per game, our defense allowed 31)

However assigning blame is difficult...

Knowing the above info, and watching this defense all year we KNOW that it's bad. We know that it's bad because it lacks talent in key areas. The only area I'd say we're sorted is at Corner (as long as Bree rebounds).
We need personnel upgrades at Linebacker, Line and Safety.

We have some nice pieces. I'd keep Kerrigan and Cravens. I'd probably keep Baker and Preston Smith. Norman and Bree are safe. I'd like to see Fuller develop. I'd keep a few of the others too as continuity and backup, but I think we need at least 4 or 5 new starters on defense, even if they're rookies who are going to need bedding in time I'd be happy.

Point is we knew this going in and we knew that the Offense would have to carry this team, so is it fair to blame the defense for coming up short when we KNEW the situation going into this game, indeed this whole season.

So our Offense was going to be carrying the load and it is struggling in certain areas, notably redzone.

So do we blame a Defense we knew was going to be bad for being bad and not even attaining average level?
Or do we blame an offense which is good, but underperforming by it's own measure, despite the fact it's reaching the average number it should need to reach?

Personally... I still blame the Defense for putting the offense in holes that it's struggling to pull us out of. Yes our offense is struggling in places, but at least it's performing and keeping us in games. Same cannot be said of the defense.
 
We're 2nd overall in total offense--2nd in passing offense, 12th in rushing offense.

We're 9th in scoring offense and 2nd in 3rd-down conversions.

On defense, we're 23rd overall--18th in passing, 21st in rushing.

We're 21st in scoring, and 32nd in 3rd-down conversions.

No, the offense isn't perfect. But it's not the reason we're 6-5-1 overall and 2-3-1 over the last six games.
 
Here's a stat for everybody.

Jay Gruden currently still has a losing record as a head coach in the NFL.

And, unless we win out, make the playoffs, and win at least 1 playoff game, he will finish his 3rd season with an overall losing record.

And that's the only stat that matters.
 
Yep, pretty much the same for most HC coaches of the Redskins.

Who was the last one to have an overall winning record again?
 
True he has a losing record overall... but over the last 2 years he's winning.

That first year with him was a mess not of his creation. Think about the issues that were left behind by ShanaClan and by Snyder. It was basically a year of sweeping up the debris and stopping the bleeding.

The result of the players quitting on the coach, the lack of talent, the QB controversy, the bad GMing and the Owner sticking his oar in constantly meant that that first year was an expected 4-12 campaign. Gruden was already 8 games in the hole before he'd started.

I can't hold that first year against him at all, and whatever coach we had would have had to overcome that mess and had a poor first year.

We're 15-12-1 over the last 2 years.

Turning a Franchise that was as dysfunctional as ours was takes time. Time measured in years. We only get one draft and one FA per year. You can't turn a team around overnight, it takes hard work and long term strategy and I think this team has that now. I finally think we GET IT as an organisation.

Our schedule this year was tougher than last year, I'm happy if we can finish with a 9-5-1 record. If we don't make the playoffs so be it.

Give it 2017 and 2018 and I think Gruden will have a winning record. If this offense continues as is and we can see a rise up to just average for the defense next year I think we could see an 11-5 season. Give us another year of FA and drafts and by 2017 we could be looking at maybe 12 or 13 wins and contention.

There's work to be done, but I think it's unfair to judge Gruden on that first year when this team was such a godawful mess after the 2013 season.
 
Ax,

Or one could look at the progression .... ?

Gruden went 4-12 as a rookie head coach taking over a 3-13 historic dumpster fire.

Then went 9-7 in year two.

Is currently 6-5-1 in year three.

15-12-1 over the last two of those three years puts things in a slightly different light, doesn't it? Particularly given he's put together in that time an offense on its way to being among the best in the league?

My only real lingering concern with Jay Gruden is his choice of defensive coordinator. Didn't understand Joe Barry then, based on his track record, and can't reconcile it today given he's proving out to be exactly what he looked like coming in. At very best, a below average game-day coordinator.

I would be shocked if Scot M. is on board with retaining Barry this offseason, and really, really disappointed in our head coach, and worried about his future here, if he turns out to be the reason Barry stays.

*

Edit. lol ... wrote that while Knight was posting his take.
 
Ax said:
Excuses, excuses.

You are what your record says you are, correct?
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Maybe.

But I think context is everything.

Do we really think any coach could have walked in here and posted a significantly winning record in 2014?

On the flip side there's arguments like the old Basketball one... How many wins and championships would Phil Jackson have if he hadn't had Jordan, Kobe, Shaw etc. There's always a context.

Which is why I rate Gibbs so highly. He took 3 different QB's to the Superbowl. You explain his success easily by saying "well if he hadn't had such'n'such he wouldn't have won!"
 
Om said:
Ax,

Gruden went 4-12 as a rookie head coach taking over a 3-13 historic dumpster fire.

*

Edit. lol ... wrote that while Knight was posting his take.
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And that was a HELL of a dumspter fire. We were a laughing stock that year.

Great minds eh Om? ;)

lol
 
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