The Offense Was Too Conservative

[hurrykaine]

Ramseyfan, I think a big reason Gibbs wouldn't come out throwing in the first half is cuz our field position sucked. We started (on average) from our own 10-12 yd line on our first 6 possessions. In the rain, with a wet ball, you don't take chances when you're backed up like that.

Derrick Frost was huge today. I think Tupa's history.

Brunell has been a servicable QB, but with Portis banged up and Randy Thomas out, Brunell's play simply wasn't good enough to win. I think the O-line has been the problem the last 3 games. They didn't play as good as they were against St Louis, AZ, Dallas and NY.

[FirstandTen]

Originally Posted by Ramseyfan

I'm sorry, but to get 3+ turnovers and lose is a disgrace. To get the kind of offensive performance we did in the first half is inexcusable. 3 first downs? 3 first downs? We weren't going against the Bucs, so we can't blame it on the defense we were playing.

Our defense limited one of the best offenses in the league to 20 points at their home. With the turnovers we should have been able to seal the deal.

SHUT UP!

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by FirstandTen

SHUT UP!

Apparently, some people cannot debate intelligently. Instead, they react with pure emotion and no logic. I should have figured that people would attack me personally. Given Wilbon and Kornheiser's articles, which also note the offense's poor performance, I guess we should burn them in effigy.

I understand the thread was ill-timed, but given the offense's performance I thought it would be ignoring the 500 lb. gorilla not to talk about the offense. Isn't this site supposed to discuss things? Perhaps I was wrong?

[FirstandTen]

Originally Posted by Ramseyfan

Apparently, some people cannot debate intelligently. Instead, they react with pure emotion and no logic. I should have figured that people would attack me personally. Given Wilbon and Kornheiser's articles, which also note the offense's poor performance, I guess we should burn them in effigy.

I understand the thread was ill-timed, but given the offense's performance I thought it would be ignoring the 500 lb. gorilla not to talk about the offense. Isn't this site supposed to discuss things? Perhaps I was wrong?

Sorry man didn't mean to attack you maybe its just me but these kinda threadsis what I didn't want to see tonight. I have read your posts in the past and usuall respect you thoughts but as you said I thought is was Ill timed. We are not Tony K. or anyone else in the media whos job it is to criticize we can give at least this one night to be happy where we got this year and look back on a great season. We have six months to think about the future. Again I didn't mean to attack you and appologize if you took it the wrong way.

[Daseal]

Ramseyfan - I agree. I've been complaining about the conservative offense all year. It seems until we're behind by 10-14 it's not worth being aggressive. If we do get out to a lead we squat on it, get our offense out of any sort of rhythm they had created, and all around suck and force a tired defense to squeak out a win instead of attempting to put it out of reach earlier. Im certainly not asking for 3 throws when we're up by 10, but at least attempt to get the first downs.

Today our defense was pathetic, I don't care what you say 3 first downs is pathetic. Portis couldn't get going due to their D swarming he run and also, in my opinion, due to a hurting Chris Samuels and absent Randy Thomas.

Playcalling hasn't changed from most of the season, but if the games you're referring to are the games where we actually played some great offense (Giants, Dallas) then look again. Granted, in these games Brunell hit wide open targets. But in these games we tried deep, we hit Cooley with mid range plays a lot, and we mixed it up a lot more. Granted, the sample sizes between these games varied quite a bit, but regardless we still weren't calling the same game.

I love Gibbs as a head coach, the motivation, confidence, and aura of winning he brings to the team cannot be denied. The players would jump off a cliff like a gaggle of lemmings (what do you call a group of lemmings? Maybe a flock!) for him, but I have not agreed with a lot of the playcalling and offensive decesions this year, including Brunell. While Brunell had some amazing games this year I really liked what I saw from Ramsey in the first game and feel bad he never got a shot, while Brunell played good, and in some games great, Ramsey deserves a legitimate shot at showing what he can bring to the team.

Adaption is a must in the NFL and I didnt see it from us today until the 4th quarter when the "Oh shit, we better do something quick" mentallity set it. Then all of a sudden we could move the ball. Did the players all of a sudden decide to execute? I'm voting no for that one. I feel this loss (and what maybe should have been a loss in Philly, and what should have definitely been a loss in tampa -- luckily we squeaked those out.)

I know the common theme on this board is that Gibbs is infallible and god forbid someone have an opinion that isn't sucking the Redskins organization off, but I feel we could have gone a lot farther this season and post-season with a little more balls put into your playcalling. If it's true you really have to scale back your offense that much for Brunell then he doesn't belong in the game.

In closing, I'm happy with the season, we made a playoff appearance which is rare enough, let alone an actual win. I feel the franchise and success will only grow from here and I can hardly wait till training camp coming up. However, that doesn't mean our team is short of problems. I'm willing to bet Gibbs is trying to think right now how to improve the offense and team.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Ramseyfan

Apparently, some people cannot debate intelligently. Instead, they react with pure emotion and no logic. I should have figured that people would attack me personally. Given Wilbon and Kornheiser's articles, which also note the offense's poor performance, I guess we should burn them in effigy.

I understand the thread was ill-timed, but given the offense's performance I thought it would be ignoring the 500 lb. gorilla not to talk about the offense. Isn't this site supposed to discuss things? Perhaps I was wrong?

What's unintelligent about this? It is short, concise and gets the point across completely. My English teachers would think it is perfect! j/k

[hurrykaine]

Originally Posted by Ramseyfan

I understand the thread was ill-timed, but given the offense's performance I thought it would be ignoring the 500 lb. gorilla not to talk about the offense. Isn't this site supposed to discuss things? Perhaps I was wrong?

Dude, you have no reason to apologize to anybody. In fact, I applaud you for having the jewels to bring this up. Funny thing is if we had lost by a smaller margin (say 3 points), you'd have a lot more people agreeing with you. I just think the reason we were conservative for most of the first half is cuz we had piss poor field position and it was pouring - there was no way Gibbs was going to pass more in that situation.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by FirstandTen

Sorry man didn't mean to attack you maybe its just me but these kinda threadsis what I didn't want to see tonight. I have read your posts in the past and usuall respect you thoughts but as you said I thought is was Ill timed. We are not Tony K. or anyone else in the media whos job it is to criticize we can give at least this one night to be happy where we got this year and look back on a great season. We have six months to think about the future. Again I didn't mean to attack you and appologize if you took it the wrong way.

No problem. In light of today's loss, it was understandable.

As you may know (if you have read my posts recently), I have repeatedly praised the Redskins coaching staff. I said just this morning how no matter how we fared today, our season was awesome. We did extremely well this season and we have many things to look forward to.

I just posted the thread because, as I said above, to not discuss the offense's woes would be to ignore the 500 lb. gorilla/elephant in the living room.

[FRPLG]

Ramseyfan I think you're right about it being too conservative but I think the reasons are personell related. Brunell isn't an air it out QB anymore. We can't win with him in at QB winging all over the place. Not saying we could with Ramsey either but I am pretty darn sure that's a disaster for us with Brunell. I hate to sound like I am railing on the guy everywhere on the board but to me it is more a discussion of where do we need to improve? QB is a place we need to upgrade somehow if possible. Get someone who can allow us to open the playbook.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Ramseyfan I think you're right about it being too conservative but I think the reasons are personell related. Brunell isn't an air it out QB anymore. We can't win with him in at QB winging all over the place. Not saying we could with Ramsey either but I am pretty darn sure that's a disaster for us with Brunell. I hate to sound like I am railing on the guy everywhere on the board but to me it is more a discussion of where do we need to improve? QB is a place we need to upgrade somehow if possible. Get someone who can allow us to open the playbook.

I hope that the play-calling is simply a function of the personnel. If so, we're primed to have a monster 2006 season.

[htownskinfan]

I was a brunell hater,but his play this yr turned me around,yes the off has sucked the past 3 games,is that brunells fault,I dont know,without looking at the coaches films and being able to see who was open downfield that maybe brunell didnt hit,I cant judge him,his play is one of the reasons we got as far as we did,would ramsay have done better,we'll never know,but without any other kind of threat besides moss and cooley it was easy to defense us.Before this game,since we've been on our winning streak,in 6 games the wr's stats besides moss are:thrash 1 rec 41 yrds,jacobs 2 recs for 6 yrds,theres no way theres another team in the nfl whose other wr's sucked that bad,theres a reason jacobs has never been able to be a starter before patten went down and thrash was let go by us and philly.We were running on fumes today,with thomas out and r brown out we did what we could,I cant criticize anything we did today,we just didnt have enough qaulity players left to finish the job
Wish list for next yr
1.qaulity # 2 reciever
2.reliable punter,frost did come around at the end,but his poor punting probably cost us a couple games this yr and could have cost us a couple more,and apparently he cant kickoff or it seems they would have had him doing it
3.fg kicker,halls short kickoffs gave the other teams great field pos all yr,he had 1 tb all yr,I dont have a big problem with his fg accuracy,but his kickoffs are killing us,with our def ,if teams were starting from their 20 instead of the 35-40 yrd line,who knows what are record might have been.
4.Pass rushing def end
thats a lot to get,but we should be able to get at least 2 out of the 4

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Ramseyfan

I hope that the play-calling is simply a function of the personnel. If so, we're primed to have a monster 2006 season.

Everyone talks about this being "Joe Gibbs football" but I remember us being an air it out type team back in 90-91. We threw the hell out of the ball because we could. Gibbs will throw it when he has the personell to do it more safely in his mind.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Everyone talks about this being "Joe Gibbs football" but I remember us being an air it out type team back in 90-91. We threw the hell out of the ball because we could. Gibbs will throw it when he has the personell to do it more safely in his mind.

That's actually a pretty good observation. I hope that you are right.

[dgack]

Originally Posted by LadyT

The offense has been the weak link in this team for 2 years now. The last two games were truly awful, from an offensive standpoint. Our "D" is a championship calibre defense and was the same last year. It's sad to see them play so well, game in and game out, only to be undone by an offense that sometimes shows up and many times does not.

Would love to see another competition at QB at training camp next summer, but my guess is that Gibbs will stick with his man. Brunell played well (even great) for spurts this season, but he has been awful these last few games. The O's poor play and total inability to even move the ball is why our season ended tonight. Bottom line is - Brunell will never take us to a championship.

We also need to upgrade our kicking game. A new punter is needed and John Hall just cannot kick off worth a d*** anymore. On a regular basis, our opponents were starting from the 30 yard line and even more, mostly due to his poor kickoffs. A good kicking game is crucial for the Skins to improve.

Having said all that, this was still a season to be proud of. I, for one, believed they were through when they were 5-6, but they fought back with a lot of guts. Makes you wonder how far we can go if we can only get a higher level of play from our QB?

I guess I don't understand why we're calling for heads to roll when we closed out the regular season with the #12-ranked offense in the league, a 3000 yard passer, a 1500 yard rusher, the #2-ranked WR in the league, and two H-Backs with 7 TD's each. Not to mention breaking several team offensive records.

Two underwhelming showings in the playoffs from a fatigued and gimpy team don't make me question the offense, they make me question our depth.

Totally agree on Hall and the kicking game though. Frost was pretty decent today but has not been terribly reliable this year.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by dgack

I guess I don't understand why we're calling for heads to roll when we closed out the regular season with the #12-ranked offense in the league, a 3000 yard passer, a 1500 yard rusher, the #2-ranked WR in the league, and two H-Backs with 7 TD's each. Not to mention breaking several team offensive records.

Two underwhelming showings in the playoffs from a fatigued and gimpy team don't make me question the offense, they make me question our depth.

Totally agree on Hall and the kicking game though. Frost was pretty decent today but has not been terribly reliable this year.

All I am saying is that while everything you sad is all well and good I think that's as good as it can be for us. That's the ceiling. Can't be any better. Not saying they didn't make vast improvements this year and have some real good moments but I can't see this becoming a standout offense on a consistent basis with MB as QB. Just can't. We need to take another equal size step next year with this offense as we did this year but, to me, it is clearly not going to happen unless somehow Brunell gets even better than he got this year. What the answer is don't know but I think Gibbs is the coach who'll figure it out.