zn said:
X said:
DR RAM said:
Don't be confused....Pat Shurmer=GOD.
Josh McDaniels=Douche.
That is all this thread was intended.
If you don't get it, stick around, because it will come around.
Well I wouldn't go that far. Pragmatic vs Dogmatic would be more accurate.
And just like the injuries don't explain the ENTIRE picture, nor does McDaniels' perceived inflexibility explain the ENTIRE picture. What we know from last year is that Spagnuolo had to go vanilla when he lost a bunch of players. We also know that McDaniels tried to base his plan around the opponent's weaknesses every week. We know this because both things are documented with direct quotes from both McDaniels and Spagnuolo.
Here's the thing though. Both were right to do so. McDaniels isn't a bad coach, and he's certainly not a douche. Spagnuolo isn't a bad coach and he's certainly not as bad as people make him out to be either. Shurmur is Shurmur. He's got a very base offense and it's very boring. That's already translated in Cleveland. It works with inexperienced and young players though, so yay for that. But also, glad it's over.
Here's what I believe to be true. If McDaniels stayed on as offensive coordinator, and had a couple of NORMAL years with this team, the Rams would have been juggernauts. His playcalling is really good and his gameplanning is even better. He just had the same handicap everyone else on the 2011 Rams had. Not enough practice. Now again, I don't like him as a person, but that doesn't cloud my understanding of what he's capable of as a coach. I'm also likely to give the players a little ownership of their inability to execute when the opportunity was there. So I don't see McDaniels as the big offender. I mean, what're we talking about here? He could have lined up in I-formation 100% of the time and run the same 25 plays week in and week out, but that's not how you TRY to win games. You just run the gameplan during the week that you intend to run on Sunday, and you hope it works. If it works in practice, then as an OC, you expect it to work during games. But. That's not always the case with a young team. And the opposition doesn't always run the same gameplan they ran the week prior. It's all a chess match, and when you go up against teams that have had the benefit of being in the same system for years, you never have the upper hand.
Not sure how much of that I agree with. We know about McD's thing about gameplans cause that's an old Patz thing that goes back years.
But it doesn't account for his problems early on. You're also supposed to base gameplans on what your team can do. So for example the Patz never act like they have Steven Jackson even if the defense they are facing would be vulnerable to a big power back like that. And, of course, a team that doesn't get an offense at the installation level isn't going to execute gameplans later. I too agree they would have caught on, but in the meanwhile, he was awfully uncomprehending when it came to where his own players stood.
I don't agree about Shurmur, either...in Cleveland and in St. Louis both he coped with limitations on offense by emphasizing ball control. When he had the players to do more he has done more.
Either way that's all moot cause this thread was never about McD v. Shurmur. In fact that had nothing to do with it.
It's about what Brian's offense is going to look like THIS year. So far we're only making guesses. But one good guess is that they really did go back to 2010 film and take some things from that. Why? Cause Bradford was comfortable with it, instinctively and intuitively. Why is that good? Because we want Bradford to have a base to work from that's instinctive and intuitive and comfortable. It's a confidence builder.
Will Brian the S do more than they did in 2010? You would think so. 2010 was very limited in terms of personnel. Jackson was hobbled, Bradford was a rookie, they had no WRs outside of Danny "short pass" Dola and the inconsistent when available DX, and the tackles were young. Now the tackles are more experienced; they are going to bolster the blocking with schemes that worked before with the Titans, Falcons, and Jets; Bradford has a qb coach and is in his 3rd year, which counts for something even if he's not going to be as in-tune with the system initially as he will later; SJ ought to be healthy; and they have lots of promising young WRs to do things with PLUS have DannyDola back. Fisher, Shottenheimer, and Boudreau have all run successful versions of that kind of offense before. Shottenheimer is now on his 6th major qb as a coach (Brees, Rivers, Pennington, Clemens, Favre, and Sanchez) and knows stuff about that.
Yeah it's fine that we disagree, because it would be too creepy if we agreed about everything.
I know what your discussion was initially about, but it's since evolved (like the Coryell system). My contention is that McDaniels' offense WAS scaled back. There was nothing exotic or confusing about the Eagles game from what I saw. It started out with a rushing touchdown and then we lost that guy. It also had several underneath throws to Amendola and then we lost THAT guy. It also had zone busters that Gibson and Kendricks ran only to have the balls hit them in the hands and fall to the ground. Protection was pretty good despite them having to face a wide-9 for which they weren't prepared, but they moved the ball rather well. It was the same game plan against the Giants and Redskins, and those were running well too. What happened was injury after injury after injury that limited what they could do.
Again, I say they could go ahead and use one formation with 25 plays, but that's like mailing in a loss. You can't expect an offensive coordinator to ONLY draw up bubble screens and 5-yard digs. Now, admittedly, McDaniels did do some goofy shyte that defied logic (at the time), but there were reasons for it.
Two examples that keep coming up:
1. The 5-wide sets against Seattle. The argument was that he wasn't protecting Bradford, but not enough people realize that's EXACTLY what lining up 5 wide was supposed to do. Put 5 guys in space, find the hot read or second read and get rid of the ball.
2. Not using Jackson at the goal-line. The argument was Jackson could just pound it in, so why screw around with throwing the ball? What not enough people realized at the time was, there were NO tight-ends available and the offensive line wasn't pushing anyone around the whole game. Execution screwed up what would have otherwise worked, but in the end Jackson came in and punched it in anyway.
So, yeah, he could overthink at times, but it wasn't because he was a stupid coordinator who thought he was smarter than he actually was. He was leaning heavily on the successful practices translating to game day. What derailed THAT was a lack of execution in pressure situations from rookies and a mish-mash of new guys sprinkled in all over the team.
I mean, think about it. Do you honestly believe that the statement "He had no feel for his personnel" holds up to scrutiny? Who would know more about the personnel than the guy who was running them through drills week in and week out? I just feel like sometimes we give professional athletes too much of a pass for being young instead of holding them to a professional standard.
