Quote:
Originally Posted by Mattyk
Lost in all the focus on the struggles of the defense is the fact the offense is coming up short in two critical categories, 3rd down conversions (18% - last in the league) and red zone offense (22%, 2 TDs out of 9 possessions - again last in the league).
Improving in these 2 categories will keep the defense off the field and lead to more points. Just wanted to bring this topic up since the defense is receiving such a huge brunt of our criticism, but it's obvious the offense needs to shoulder some blame as well.
Thoughts?
|
Great topic, its been on my mind.
My take:
This trend is major part of why the Skins are 1-2.
The 3rd down coversion rate is more troubling to me then the RZ rate but imo both are certainly fixable.
Its troubling because it speaks to mindset.
It seems like Kyle/McNabb are content with playing boom or bust football at the sacrifice of ball control and time of possession.
Kyle is an ultra-aggressive playcaller.
He attacks on 1st down and we're No.1 in the league on 1st down yardage.
But, the 1st down aggressiveness has a flip side, because when it result in an incomplete pass it puts the offense behind schedule.
Now its second and long and because we're not married to the run nor are we running the ball well we seem to end up in 2nd and long more then we should which results in too many 3rd and longs.
Which bring us to our terrible 3rd down conversion rate.
To sum up i think part of the problem is that Kyle and McNabb are both very aggresive offensive thinkers.
IMHO Kyle needs to scale his aggressiveness back to accomdate McNabb's own aggressiveness and call more plays geared toward effecieny then quick strike.
For example look at some of the long bombs McNabb has thrown in situations where a high percentage throw with a chance of converting a 1st down and milking the clock would have been more beneficial then a low percentage TD ball.
Being that Kyle and the running game haven't got on track i'm not advocating that Kyle become run 1st (although i wouldn't mind if were able to become a successful running team)
No, i think that Kyle needs to call an offense geared more towards move the chains.
If it means quick-rhythm classic 3-step drop WCO in lieu of the running game, so be it but whatever it should be geared towards putting us in a 2nd down situation that gives us more options (like actually being able to run the ball).
For example at the beginning of the Texans game when Sellers was involved in the short game or the beginning of the Rams game when we ran some quick rhythm stuff from 1 WR Double TE sets.
Oh, and please quit the Zorn-esque WR/TE screen pass on 3rd down.
If there's 1 playcall that makes me scratch my head is a WR/TE screen on 3rd down.
RZ
It seems like Kyle is less aggressive inside the 20 then he is elsewhere on the field. I think they need to throw more into the endzone. I've always felt that once you're in the RZ especially in a goal to go situation you need to throw the ball into the endzone at least twice.
I don't think the problem is personel. I think we have enough people to produce an effective RZ offense. Everyone seems to be hung up on throwing fade passes, but how often do teams throw successful jump-fade in the RZ?