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Originally posted by jonnydel:
Originally posted by pwillis52beasty:
Originally posted by ace52:
Johnnydel, maybe the 49ers should let Mangini go and hire you as a consultant.
Yeah screw mangini. Or he should take Mike Mayocks job.
While that would be super awesome, I do really like Mike Mayock, I've learned a lot from all his different breakdowns
Originally posted by thl408:
Great takes, jonnydel. There was discussion in the Roman thread about the reasons the offense is lagging this season, and there were a few factors considered. In your observation, how would you break down the 'blame' as to why the offense is lackluster this season?
- Play calling
- Quarterback
- WRs
- Oline
Feel free to add more factors, but do not remove any. I posted my percentages in that thread, but want to hear your breakdown in percentages.
Originally posted by thl408:I think it's hard to isolate these factors separately.
Great takes, jonnydel. There was discussion in the Roman thread about the reasons the offense is lagging this season, and there were a few factors considered. In your observation, how would you break down the 'blame' as to why the offense is lackluster this season?
- Play calling
- Quarterback
- WRs
- Oline
Feel free to add more factors, but do not remove any. I posted my percentages in that thread, but want to hear your breakdown in percentages.
Originally posted by theduke85:
I think it's hard to isolate these factors separately.
For example, most people have at least some degree of frustration when it comes to our playcalling. However, how much does Roman throttle back the play selection because of how awful our receivers were at the start of the year? If we went into the year with a healthy Crab/Boldin/Manningham, the playcalling may have been opened up considerably. I mean, I get very frustrated with Roman, but our offense was a juggernaut last year in the playoffs.
Same thing with Kaep. Very hard to isolate once again. At times, he has looked very bad out there. Is it because he is working with crappy receivers / bad playcalling, or was he just playing poorly?! Some things are clear-cut to me -- like earlier, when I said he is bad at hitting his checkdown options. Don't see how you can blame anyone but Kaep on that play. In fact, that brings up another good point: if Roman is designing plays with "security blanket" checkdown options but Kaep isn't utilizing them, then it's hard to blame Roman...
It's all sort of a chicken-or-egg type of thing...
Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:
Ok, first like everyone else I want to thank you johnny for continuing to post your and observations here. I think that this is only thread many of are reading right now. i can't recall any other thread where I have literally read every word, much to the detriment of my job performance. So thanks for your time, observations and analysis. I hope you continue to post.
I think we can get a collection bucket going if you need money to subscribe to coache's film package for all games.
Anyway, I had just written this huge huge post and lost it all due to explorer hiccuping before i could hit the post button.
ARGGGGGHHHHH!
However I will proved the short version here.
SUMMARY: We are underperforming on Offense by a wide margin. Why? Like other posters i am suspicious of it's a little thing here, a little thing there.
Speculation:
1) We do not focus on down and distance as a driving force for play selection. You mentioned that Roman is an OC who is concerned about getting first downs and moving the chains -- that is the opposite impression that I have. We don't approach play sequencing with the fundamental notion that we have three plays to advance the football ten yards. It's more like, we have three chances to get a play longer than ten yards. So that strikes me as fundamentally risky, not conservative, and anti-WCO. Is this accurate?
2) You mention that our OC likes to use plays to "set up" one or more defenders throughout the game for a big play. I think this is consistent with item 1) above. Could this be a risky influence in our play design because relying on any one play is risky on a professional football field. Too many things can go wrong to have, say, 3 or 4 players make movements on 5 or 6 plays throughout the game just to "set up" one or two kill plays. It could be a risky, low reward strategy that takes the focus away from the offense's immediate down/distance objectives.
3) using 50 formations to run one play -- this has been commented on for over a year know. Is this more or less helpful than having one look from which you run 50 plays? I think both have their place. does all this emphasis on formation shifting and personnel specialization shorten the amount of time the qb and OTHER PLAYERS have to orient themselves to the field and also reduce the cohesion, the communication of the offensive personnel among themselves on the field. Maybe this is playing into the effects you so often quote of having " little things " go wrong to kill this play or that play. You mention that quite a bit.
Also, it seems like the eclectic formation approach has lost effectiveness in getting the other team to show pre snap looks -- I don't see a lot of panic or confusion on the other side when we do all our shifts so much. They sometimes see the formations as a tell, seemingly, then blow up the play that they have read. Sometimes, that's what looks like is going on.
I am pressing the post button now so I DONT LOSE THIS TOO.
At the end of the day, we are very near the bottom in statistical categories with an excellent defense. This has to be corrected if we're going anywhere. I am not optimistic about being 13 weeks into the football season and still being in correction mode.
As other posters have requested, please look at last weeks browns pats game and let us know what you think of what norv did. especially the 1st half.
thanks!
Originally posted by jonnydel:
A lot of great stuff in there. I'll try and give my two cents on a couple of those.
I'd show more examples but I don't think I have time before the game, but as far as down and distance. Is that Roman has plays called against the predictable base defense of the opposing team throughout his sequencing. On first down, 95% of the time we see a variation of a cover 3 defense with an "over" look. The multiple shifts are to try and force teams to do one of two things, play left handed, or shift into a favorable alignment.
We shift a lot so that teams have a harder time scheming against our run systems. Our run systems run a lot at the 3 or 4 technique side. We have a lot of different type of runs that will keep it mixed up, but, other D's are trying to get their best run stopping tackles into the 3 spot against us. So, we look at how a defense reacts to shifts, are they swapping players back and forth from the strong side(sometimes when we shift you'll see the entire D switch places) or are they just sliding everyone over(meaning the 1 Technique player moves to a 3 technique and the strong side DE becomes the weakside DE etc) We look at that early in the game to see how we can take advantage of that later.
When Bill Walsh started the whole, "scripting out the first 15 plays" thing. The reason he did it was he picked the plays that would best reveal the defenses game plan. He'd look at how the D was going to play a 3 WR set, how they were going to cover Roger Craig or Tom Rathman out of the backfield, how do they react to certain shifts, are they doubling Jerry on a deep route? And so on. All of those questions were things he wanted answered by the end of the first quarter.
As far as the using plays to "set-up" a big play later, that's also a Bill Walsh philosophy. I remember watching an intereview with one of the coaching staff talking about that in an interview, as well as Jerry Rice. They said Bill always included 3 or 4, what he called "strike" plays. plays that got set up early in the game to hit a big TD strike later. During the Mariucci years I remember watching some NFL films on a game we won where TO had a 40 yard TD and Mariucci running over to Bill Walsh and saying, "that was one hell of a play you designed!" In another show Mariucci talked about that exact play and said Bill had come in to his office that week with that play drawn up and said, it was one of his "strike" plays.
In the end, would I like to see better performance on O? Heck yeah. Do I think Roman is screwing us up by being too complex? no.
Someone mentioned it earlier too, Kaep has to start hitting his check downs. This keeps the offense on schedule. I know there were a lot of people who hated how Alex Smith always hit check downs, but it does work. I'm ok with him taking a shot every once in a while when it's open, but, you have to hit your check downs. That's what makes the Saints' offense so effective. When you have everyone covered Bree's knows when to hit his checkdowns to the backs.
Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:
Interesting reply johnny D. Thank you so much.
What does it mean to "play left handed"?
Do we script our first x number of plays? If so, do we share the sequence with the offense starters?
i hate monopolizing you. i know you have a game to get to.
I will read your post again. I still am conflicted about my philosophical point of having three plays to make ten yards as opposed to having 3 chances to get ten yards or more. I thinkwe do more the latter than the former. That is not so much a point about scouting the other team.
Originally posted by jonnydel:
Originally posted by thl408:
Great takes, jonnydel. There was discussion in the Roman thread about the reasons the offense is lagging this season, and there were a few factors considered. In your observation, how would you break down the 'blame' as to why the offense is lackluster this season?
- Play calling
- Quarterback
- WRs
- Oline
Feel free to add more factors, but do not remove any. I posted my percentages in that thread, but want to hear your breakdown in percentages.
- play calling: 15%
- QB: 20%
-WR" 15%
-OLine:15%
-TE: 15%
Opposing Defense: 20%
Remember, the other guys get paid to play this game too, and we've played some good defensive teams with a lot of talent on that side of the ball.
Originally posted by theduke85:
I think it's hard to isolate these factors separately.
For example, most people have at least some degree of frustration when it comes to our playcalling. However, how much does Roman throttle back the play selection because of how awful our receivers were at the start of the year? If we went into the year with a healthy Crab/Boldin/Manningham, the playcalling may have been opened up considerably. I mean, I get very frustrated with Roman, but our offense was a juggernaut last year in the playoffs.
Same thing with Kaep. Very hard to isolate once again. At times, he has looked very bad out there. Is it because he is working with crappy receivers / bad playcalling, or was he just playing poorly?! Some things are clear-cut to me -- like earlier, when I said he is bad at hitting his checkdown options. Don't see how you can blame anyone but Kaep on that play. In fact, that brings up another good point: if Roman is designing plays with "security blanket" checkdown options but Kaep isn't utilizing them, then it's hard to blame Roman...
It's all sort of a chicken-or-egg type of thing...
Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
Variety is only good if its actually effective. You can try 1000 formations or 5, but volume by itself doesn't make you more effective. What frustrates me with Roman is that he tries to outsmart himself seemingly. In the Indy game, the 49ers had very good success running the ball early, which is is something he completely got away from in the second half of that game. I'll take a narrow playbook if its applied consistently. Bevell might not have as big of a playbook as Roman but he understands where the strengths of his offense lie and where the weaknesses of the other defense exist. Those passes to Wilson weren't something that they pulled out of thin air, that was clearly a weakness that they had diagnosed on tape with Reid coming up to aggressively, creating a hole in the coverage. If you look back at Seattle this season, they have the same basic approach, heavy running, playaction passing, swing passes, corner routes, Wilson running around behind the line of scrimmage, waiting for someone to get open.
I don't see enough of this offense consistently attacking the same weakness on a defense. They'll run a highly successful play....and then move to something else and something else while other offenses will run same play over and over again until the defense shows that they can stop it. One of the few times I've seen that from the 49ers this season was against the Cardinals where they utilized the same basic running play over and over and gashed them down the field, that was all their best drive of the season on offense.
In the Rams games last season as well as several games this season, you had teams loading up the box, coming full speed at Kaepernick while you had cornerbacks playing 10 yards off the line of scrimmage. Instead of some quick passes, slants...etc, we saw long dropback's and long-developing passing plays. The screen play may not be a strength of this offense but its still something they should try to incorporate into the gameplan more regularly. Teams haven't done a lot of exotic stuff against the 49ers this season, load up the box, dare them to run, play press coverage on the receivers and dare them to throw. The return of Crabtree has put a dent in this sort of defensive approach but I'm still not seeing enough consistency, particularly in the passing game.
Offenses don't have to be complicated to be effective, if anything, this offense being as complicated as it is could very well be a negative with plays consistently coming in late, going on almost 3 seasons now. When the QB is snapping the ball with 2 or 1 seconds on the playclock, it is a detriment to the offense and a huge boost to the defense. You look at a team like Green Bay and they don't do very much that's fancy, basic WCO derived passing attack, target deep, target intermediate, short, checkdown..etc. But it works, all their guys are on the same page, they execute at a very high level and it is an effective, QB friendly offense.
I also don't see the improvement at wide receiver over the past few seasons, looking back at plays throughout the season, the receivers don't really do that much to help out the quarterback downfield. What was wonderful to see against Seattle was Boldin actually coming back for a pass after Kaepernick started scrambling. That's one thing you see consistently with all the Seattle receivers, they move towards the ball and get open to give Wilson targets when he starts to scramble. I saw enough of guys like Kyle Williams running around, oblivious to what was going on, with Kaepernick getting chased down with no targets to throw to. With Crabtree and Boldin this should improve but once more, I haven't seen anything to make me think that Morton is doing a quality job with coaching guys up.
Originally posted by ninerjok:
I know it's been alluded to before but I still find it fascinating & annoying at the same time just how much the Niners and Seahags are mirror images in quite a lot of aspects. The stats from yesterday's games (which were played exactly the same time) are eerily similar. Seadderal vs NYG - offense/327 yds to 180+, TOP/about 34 to 26 min, Turnover/0 to 5, Wilson/18-27 206 yds pass & 8 for 50 rush. Niners vs Bucs - offense/380+ yds to 180+, TOP/about 39 to 21 min, turnover/0 to 2, Kap/19-29 203 pass & 4 for 42 rush. Now the stats are a little off but not that much. NYG & TB are similar quality opponents who both had big surges mid-season but ultimately are subpar. In fact they run almost the same offense which helps account for the similar stats from these games. The mirror image thing's been discussed before but still interesting.
Originally posted by crabman82:Originally posted by ninerjok:I know it's been alluded to before but I still find it fascinating & annoying at the same time just how much the Niners and Seahags are mirror images in quite a lot of aspects. The stats from yesterday's games (which were played exactly the same time) are eerily similar. Seadderal vs NYG - offense/327 yds to 180+, TOP/about 34 to 26 min, Turnover/0 to 5, Wilson/18-27 206 yds pass & 8 for 50 rush. Niners vs Bucs - offense/380+ yds to 180+, TOP/about 39 to 21 min, turnover/0 to 2, Kap/19-29 203 pass & 4 for 42 rush. Now the stats are a little off but not that much. NYG & TB are similar quality opponents who both had big surges mid-season but ultimately are subpar. In fact they run almost the same offense which helps account for the similar stats from these games. The mirror image thing's been discussed before but still interesting.
its annoying but yet great. always going to hate your main competition, but by the same token by them being so good, it forces us to always keep our edge sharp. baltimore made pittsburgh better and vice versa. samething is happening here.
