RealSNR |
09-16-2008 11:56 AM |
This offense shouldn't be too hard to fix
The only thing that really needs fixing is Herm. If these guys play together for long enough, they'll get used to the new feel.
Let me back up a bit.
Remember Gunther's 2nd year as head coach? The first year was all about stubbornly running the football 30,000 times per game with the "Dreamteam" backfield of Rashaan Sheehee, Mike Cloud, and Bam Morris. :Lin: Offensive production was absolutely pathetic for the most part in some games. Teams stacked 8 men in the box like they do now because they knew all we would do was run another damned draw play. However, this was also the year that we REALLY discovered what a gem we had in Tony Gonzalez. In Gun's 2nd year, this would only get better.
By the 2nd year, our backfield arguably got worse at the beginning of the season, and the great offensive genious that was Jimmy Raye still had us playing predictable football. It was that Rams game that really turned everything around for us. Then we played the Rams and a change happened. We stretched the field. Derrick Alexander turned into a big-play receiver. Kevin Lockett was an okay slot guy. Tony started the trend of big-play TEs in the league again. All because we started passing more. The running attack continued to die, but we were having A LOT of success throwing the ball and stretching defenses under a knucklehead Elvis Grbac.
Croyle has the arm and he's got the accuracy to lead this team. We need to start taking downfield shots. The only way we got back to running the ball was after we had success chucking it deep. And the only way we had success chucking it deep was if we made several attempts per game. It eventually worked.
We can do this. The problem obviously is Herm's unwillingness to leave the 15-yard zone in front of the offense. It's like if a big play develops outside of that zone, we've become finesse. That's not it at all. I wouldn't call the offense under Jimmy Raye and Gunther Cunningham finesse at all. It was still just as big, dumb, and ugly as ever. But it was EFFECTIVE, and if Gunther weren't so stupid and if the defense weren't already in decline, that would have been a good football team.
What do you think?
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