The Gruden Files - Year Two

[MikeSr619]

I can agree with that....

maybe we need to hire Lee Emery to come in at halftime and "motivate them" USMC style!!

 

[micks113]

It would be great to know why the team has started each 2nd half so damn flat. It's easy enough to simply say it's up to the HC to get his guys fired up again, and no way to prove that isn't it. Surely that's part of it anyway. Captain of the ship and all that.

I keep thinking some of it has to come from the players themselves, though. Can't recall ever seeing a HC in the middle of one of those "Let's Go Kick Some ****ing ASS!!" scrums at the beginning of a game or half. It's certainly hard to envision The Genius of Foxboro ever being that guy. It's always a player--one recognized as a team leader.

On this young team, with a bunch of newer FA vets sprinkled in, I wonder if that isn't partly what's going on; the leaders on THIS particularly team are still sorting themselves out and (hopefully) rising to the task of getting the blood boiling again after those 15 minutes in the crapper and meeting with position coaches.

Guess we'll find out as the season progresses.

Its like this Mr OM. You dominate the first half, why would a coach be inclined whatsoever to make adjustments to what is working? Once the score changes, then you adjust on the fly. That's coaching.

I give Gruden an A. Take that haters (not you om). I think we are way ahead of where I expected and most pundits expected. Plus Miami has proved to be a wannabe. We should have won that one too. Arrow pointing up. Gruden has righted the ship. See if he can keep momentum and attitude. No time to celebrate anything.

 

[Om]

Its like this Mr OM. You dominate the first half, why would a coach be inclined whatsoever to make adjustments to what is working? Once the score changes, then you adjust on the fly. That's coaching.

Not sure I agree. I'd bet there's not a coach in the NFL who doesn't go in at halftime planning to address issues from the first half. Even with a lead, things get sideways in certain areas that need correction, and coaches will have seen certain things the other guy is doing or not doing that you might be able to take advantage of in the 2nd half. You might not see wholesale changes when you're up 13-0 at the half, but at the very least, in the 3rd quarter you should probably see a staff that has covered contingencies.

But mostly I was thinking about the team looking so lethargic coming out of halftime, not the X's and O's. It's like someone's sneaking Nyquil into their halftime Gatorade. And then it takes until the 4th quarter for the trail mix of uppers the coaches have slipped in there to take effect and the team to remember there's a game on.

I give Gruden an A. Take that haters (not you om). I think we are way ahead of where I expected and most pundits expected. Plus Miami has proved to be a wannabe. We should have won that one too. Arrow pointing up. Gruden has righted the ship. See if he can keep momentum and attitude. No time to celebrate anything.

I don't think I'm quite ready to give him an interim A grade. Still seeing too many penalties and inconsistency. For now I agree the trend is going the right direction, but I need to see at least another quarter of the season.

Teams all have their 4-game film packages on each other now, and the next four weeks (and beyond) will be about teams going after the weakest links they see in the 2015 version of the Skins. If we're .500-ish after eight games, and still looking like a team that's beginning to find itself, at that point I may start to think we may have a guy we can win with for a while.

An opinion I'm sure Scot M will value greatly, btw.

 

[fansince62]

A to McL. he's methodically fixing one talent problem after the next. it'll take another year or two.....but he's the proverbial missing ingredient.

 

[micks113]

All true in what you say OM. Maybe its that tentativeness of playing with a lead. We haven't been there that much, we are just now figuring it out. I have to give Gruden all the credit for that. That's why I give him an A. This is not a good team yet. But he has got them overachieving. That's exactly what we want from these guys, and confidence. Its not a feeling, I can see it. The naysayers don't have to see it. I don't care about them. I know what I see and I know football. I don't like giving any type of grades, that always comes back to haunt you. But 2-2 with a bonified running game, leading the league in time of possession I presume that deserves an A (at least compared to last year for sure, if you want to look at in terms of improvement.) Plus.....anytime you have so many starters lost on IR, and get the results we got thus far, well, where I come from, that's coaching.


edit: forgot to add, the best defense is a good offense. Just keep your eye on the points allowed in the standings. As long as we stay less than the other division teams, I think we'll finish at the top. This week may do some damage to that.

 

[Chris]

I don't think this team is overachieving. It is 2-2 and we have talented players at many positions.

It's not uncommon for young players to play well, that happens all the time. I give more credit to the selection than the coaching of them.

 

[stevenaa]

Young teams have to learn how to win and how to come out strong in the second half. A big part of that comes with veteran leadership. Those who claim it's all the added additions and nothing Gruden's doing are smoking something. He's the Head Coach. He's orchestrating the team. He is part of any improvement, and part of continued failings. It's all or nothing. You can't blame him for the problems and not give him credit for the successes. It's disingenuous.

 

[Ax]

Young teams have to learn how to win and how to come out strong in the second half. A big part of that comes with veteran leadership. Those who claim it's all the added additions and nothing Gruden's doing are smoking something. He's the Head Coach. He's orchestrating the team. He is part of any improvement, and part of continued failings. It's all or nothing. You can't blame him for the problems and not give him credit for the successes. It's disingenuous.

Agreed. Which is why I gave him a C- for the 1st quarter of the season. Seems quite accurate, to me.

Best win. Squeaking out a division win against the Eagles. But, left points on the field. Almost gave it away.
Other win, against the Rams, was a result of Callahan and his Merry Men up front. And the defense.
Never should have lost to Miami. Never.
Worst loss. Primetime pummeling by the vaGiants. Old Man Coughlin left him with that Ned Beatty look in his eye. Horrible. Embarrassing.

 

[Bulldog]

Let's face it, part of the challenge in putting a lot of younger players on the field is their penchant to take penalties when caught out of position or missing an assignment.

That will change as players get experience, that's the thing to watch.

How quickly do they learn?

One guy that is problematic is Jordan Reed. He seems to get called for at least one penalty a game. Yes, he makes plays in the passing game, but he has taken some bad penalties, including one holding call where his matchup was nowhere near the action on the ball.

He has to become a smarter performer. As a third year player, you expect that improvement sooner rather than later.

 

[TomE]

Think Reed had a penalty for an illegal pick earlier in the year, those picks get done all the time and it's a 50/50 call.

(according to the tv guy)
The experienced vet makes it look like inadvertent contact, no call
Reed, doing the same thing, hesitated and sized up the second defender coming across and moved into the way, call
Coaches need better prep for the next acting seminar.

Some of those roughing penalties were called with our guys doing what they were supposed to do, the refs just made bad calls.
The inexperienced guys get bewildered in wtf mode and don't re-focus in time for the next play, usually resulting in further mishap.
The coaches need to hold a re-focus group for the youngins.

Of course that down field penalty on Trent, negating another good play, was just bone head on his part and he knew it.
Coaches need to give him some timeout in a corner next O line meeting.

Coaches gotta teach Garcon a new stiff arm technique too

 

[MikeSr619]

lol...that "stiff arm" was kind of funny to me. He obviously went for it and it just looked like his hand got caught in there. He tried to get it out but once he realized he was facemasking and it was going to be caught he went with it fully. I dont mind that.

 

[Ax]

D+ coach.

Poor play calling at the most critical times, continues. Flip-flopping RB's for no good reason.

Bit troubling that after only 5 games as our DC, Barry and his defense are playing much better than Gruden's offense. Now in it's 2nd year.

 

[Elephant]

D+ coach.

Poor play calling at the most critical times, continues. Flip-flopping RB's for no good reason.

Bit troubling that after only 5 games as our DC, Barry and his defense are playing much better than Gruden's offense. Now in it's 2nd year.

Poor execution plays a much larger role in the lack of success on offense than coaching. We've called some brilliant plays that don't get executed very well, a throw behind Garcon that causes him to bobble it straight to the defender, over throwing the wide open WR on the sideline, missed blocks by the RB's, dropped passes by the TE's, holding calls at the most inopportune times.

Not saying the coaches get an A, but D is stretching it to the opposite end of the spectrum.

 

[Elephant]

Oh yeah, the coaches are always brilliant. If only the personnel was better. Except that Gibbs made souffle out of dog shit almost every year.

Yup...and those players executed. Instead of being a straight up troll, how about representing what was said instead of your own convoluted ideas.

There have been some brilliant play calls that saw receivers wide open in critical times throughout the game only to have a pass dropped, a holding penalty negate the gain and put us in a hole. I did not say the coaching staff is exempt from responsibility, but the fact that we've had so many poorly executed plays, has a much bigger effect on the games we've lost than play-calling. We've yet to get blown out of the water.

 

[Ax]

Poor execution plays a much larger role in the lack of success on offense than coaching. We've called some brilliant plays that don't get executed very well, a throw behind Garcon that causes him to bobble it straight to the defender, over throwing the wide open WR on the sideline, missed blocks by the RB's, dropped passes by the TE's, holding calls at the most inopportune times.

Not saying the coaches get an A, but D is stretching it to the opposite end of the spectrum.

Kind of my point. Barry, in a fraction of the time, has the defense executing better than the offense.
And, that Gruden's lack of execution as head coach, mirrors his offense's lack of execution.

We'll see how it goes from here, but so far, Barry has done a better job than the head coach.

 

[Elephant]

Kind of my point. Barry, in a fraction of the time, has the defense executing better than the offense.
And, that Gruden's lack of execution as head coach, mirrors his offense's lack of execution.

We'll see how it goes from here, but so far, Barry has done a better job than the head coach.

I can see your point, but you cannot pin dropped passes by one of the better WR's in the game on coaching. You cannot pin inconsistency from your QB on coaching, can you? The holding penalties? Maybe...but that would be on Callahan and all I've heard was how Callahan has done a masterful job with the OL. The dropped passes in the EZ? You can coach up better focus?

Come on Ax, at some point you have to say, the players are simply not good enough..not executing. You can only coach them so far.

As was mentioned, Gibbs got blood from a turnip in 2005, but we still couldn't win a Super Bowl...we just didn't have the talent who could execute. Would you blame Gibbs for that loss in Seattle when the team just couldn't get the ball in the EZ? That was poor coaching?

 

[MikeSr619]

Did anyone see how big Andy Dalton came up against the LoB? And then won it in overtime?

I think we can stop acting like Gruden is the reason for that. The Bengals are 5-0 and Jay is nowhere in sight.

 

[Goaldeje]

I can see your point, but you cannot pin dropped passes by one of the better WR's in the game on coaching. You cannot pin inconsistency from your QB on coaching, can you? The holding penalties? Maybe...but that would be on Callahan and all I've heard was how Callahan has done a masterful job with the OL. The dropped passes in the EZ? You can coach up better focus?

Come on Ax, at some point you have to say, the players are simply not good enough..not executing. You can only coach them so far.

As was mentioned, Gibbs got blood from a turnip in 2005, but we still couldn't win a Super Bowl...we just didn't have the talent who could execute. Would you blame Gibbs for that loss in Seattle when the team just couldn't get the ball in the EZ? That was poor coaching?

No, I blame that one Carlos. And thank you so much for the memories.

Are you saying you think Gruden will take this team on the road for a playoff win this year?

 

[Ax]

I can see your point, but you cannot pin dropped passes by one of the better WR's in the game on coaching. You cannot pin inconsistency from your QB on coaching, can you? The holding penalties? Maybe...but that would be on Callahan and all I've heard was how Callahan has done a masterful job with the OL. The dropped passes in the EZ? You can coach up better focus?

Come on Ax, at some point you have to say, the players are simply not good enough..not executing. You can only coach them so far.

As was mentioned, Gibbs got blood from a turnip in 2005, but we still couldn't win a Super Bowl...we just didn't have the talent who could execute. Would you blame Gibbs for that loss in Seattle when the team just couldn't get the ball in the EZ? That was poor coaching?

Well, my point is, that Barry's defense, with no more talent than the offense, has performed better. Call it whatever you want. He's getting more out of his unit, learning a new system I might add, than is Gruden. Who's in the 2nd year of his system. Granted, the players ALL need to execute better, more often. But, as has been said by many, a team can be a reflection of it's head coach. And ours is consistently, inconsistent.

While the team, overall, has improved a little, the defense has improved, more.
Gruden's grade, in my mind, reflects a continuing trend of poor play calling in critical moments. His flip-flopping RB's. And, if things don't change soon, a likely return to flipping QB's again. Just an opinion.

I've said previously this year, that Gruden has improved, so far, over last year. But, the bar was sub-terrible. So, he SHOULD be showing improvement.

 

[Elephant]

Well, my point is, that Barry's defense, with no more talent than the offense, has performed better. Call it whatever you want. He's getting more out of his unit, learning a new system I might add, than is Gruden. Who's in the 2nd year of his system. Granted, the players ALL need to execute better, more often. But, as has been said by many, a team can be a reflection of it's head coach. And ours is consistently, inconsistent.

While the team, overall, has improved a little, the defense has improved, more.
Gruden's grade, in my mind, reflects a continuing trend of poor play calling in critical moments. His flip-flopping RB's. And, if things don't change soon, a likely return to flipping QB's again. Just an opinion.

I've said previously this year, that Gruden has improved, so far, over last year. But, the bar was sub-terrible. So, he SHOULD be showing improvement.

Haslett gone is enough to make any defense better. Couple that with the fact we upgraded with proven veterans at many positions, unlike the offense where much of the turnover has been from youth...you will see a drastic difference.

Look, I am not saying Gruden is a great coach, I am just saying a handful of plays that went against us (dropped passes, poor throws, penalties),
we're looking at possibly 3-2...maybe even 4-1. Coaching has not been D+ level...more like B-, C+.