Smoot Lays the Smack Down (Redskins vs. Dolphins)

I see that he gets guys open, too. But someone who designs nice pass plays is a "play designer," not "offensive coordinator." To be the latter also requires play calling and scheming which is suitable to your talent.

I am not on the "fire Kyle" bandwagon. But to me, this year he has been a great play designer but poor offensive coordinator.


This is the way i see Kyle too; more as a play designer and not a complete coordinator.

Because Kyle doesnt game plan to exploit an opponent’s weaknesses, and combined with our offensive play and some of the questionable play calling weve seen i think its fair to assume that Kyle also doesnt call plays based on our own teams strengths and weaknesses. Its almost like we could only see Kyles offense come to full fruition if he was in a highly talented vacuum, like coaching the probowl or playing Madden. But while his offensive philosophy make work in vitro when you take it out in the field it seems to stumble.

I agree that the QB is the most important player on the field and that if we were able to switch Grossman for Aaron Rodgers our offense would instantly look better and Greenbay’s would immediately be worse. But I think Green Bay would do things differently with Grossman under center to mitigate the drop-off in talent, while I see Kyle calling the same players with Rodgers that he has with McNabb/Grossman/Beck/Grossman. NFL rosters and positions are dynamic and I think the best coordinators are too.

Im not on the fire Kyle bandwagon either, but i am for Mike taking controll over the offense and/or demanding that Kyle do things differently.

It's Monday, and I'm looking to stir the pot a little bit. Does anyone want to present the argument for, "the Skins are moving in the right direction?" What is this being based on?I wish I could, but the best I can come up with is Vinny & Zorn are gone and Snyder doesn't appear to be playing FF with the team anymore with BA as GM.

As long as MS/KS/Haslett are here, no matter how we upgrade talent, on O we'll struggle in the Red Zone thanks to the heavy reliance on the pass and the ZB scheme. There's obviously an unwillingness to tailor the scheme to the talent available.

I think Haslett has done a B/B- job with what he has on D. I still think we're beter in a 4-3 alignment with Rak & Kerrigan being able to focus full time on their strengths (hand-in-dirt, get after QB) than in the 3-4 with those two learning new techniques. We still have no true NT. If we're staying 3-4 I'd love a more one-gap attacking style, which we won't do.

I think we'll improve if we hit on a true franchise caliber QB (but what team wouldn't). With the current coaching staff and philosophy, I don't see us ever progressing to be an elite team.

Also ive defended them before so i will continue...... I love Larry, Sonny and Sam. You have to treat the senile/drunk/sleepy/wrong things that Sam says as part of his persona or celebrity. If you try to compare him to traditional color commentators hes going to look awful. Hes there for comic relief. I absolutely hated Denis Miller and Tony Kornhizer, but think of him along those lines. Just like they were in the booth to be funny (even though they wernt and were just painfully horrible) think of Sam’s role as the same but unintentional.

What talent is there to tailor the scheme to?

Seriously though, we do make adjustments to the defense (case in point, screens to Helu against the Niners). But, what team goes changing their scheme week to week? You have to have a philosophy and stick with it for the most part.

Also ive defended them before so i will continue...... I love Larry, Sonny and Sam. You have to treat the senile/drunk/sleepy/wrong things that Sam says as part of his persona or celebrity. If you try to compare him to traditional color commentators hes going to look awful. Hes there for comic relief. I absolutely hated Denis Miller and Tony Kornhizer, but think of him along those lines. Just like they were in the booth to be funny (even though they wernt and were just painfully horrible) think of Sam’s role as the same but unintentional.

Huff is plain awful. I can't find any way to defend him

I agree with SmootSmack. Moss and Davis were the focal points of our passing game. We ran to the left because Trent and Lich blocked well for us.Now Helu, they should be featuring more. Other than that, what do we really have? Our right side of the OL is just passable in both run blocking and pass pro. Rex is inconsistent and Beck is a scrub.

Also, the ZBS does take some time to settle in. Houston used to have a completely awful running game before 2010. Now they are tops in the league with almost the exact same OL.

What talent is there to tailor the scheme to?

Seriously though, we do make adjustments to the defense (case in point, screens to Helu against the Niners). But, what team goes changing their scheme week to week? You have to have a philosophy and stick with it for the most part.A couple of the Grossman INTs this year have been the result of poor play design. I get not being able to win with John Beck at quarterback, but we've been underwhelming offensively in 5 out of 6 Grossman starts this year.

Our play action game this year has been particularly dreadful. We're putting a max of three receivers in the pattern against play action, and the goal is typically some form of vertical stretch to one side of the field. But by staying deep on the play, the defenses are forcing us to throw in front of the safeties, and the timing of the plays are creating interception opportunities for the linebackers.

We're not manipulating the defense with crazy formations because thats not what Kyle (or Mike) likes to do. Clearly the offense is timing based. And the timing of our passing plays falls right into the hands of opportunistic players. I don't think Kyle is at fault because we can't get behind the safeties, except in one way: we never see single high safety looks because teams aren't afraid of being hurt by the run.

You can win football games by attacking in front of the safeties, but we don't ever win the risk-reward conundrum. Kyle's offense doesn't get receivers open. The receivers get themselves open. Unless they don't.

What talent is there to tailor the scheme to?

Seriously though, we do make adjustments to the defense (case in point, screens to Helu against the Niners). But, what team goes changing their scheme week to week? You have to have a philosophy and stick with it for the most part.You have an offensive philosophy, but you put emphasis on where the opponent is weak and tailor the gameplan to exploit the weaknesses. Screens against the 49ers were fine, but outside of that we've seen little creativity in O gameplanning this year. (17rush - 32pass yesterday)

The talent here is weak at QB and WR, but we had three solid runners and had two strong TEs...yet we continue to work the pass game and almost ignore the run/PA game. We pass on almost every 3-2 or 3-3. If the goal is to win, you can't put weak talent in a position to fail, again, and again, and again. If the goal is to prepare for next season, keep the offensive philosophy in place "talent level be damned", and get the young guys used to the system, then we'll be dealing with a 3-out/no TD offense the rest of this year.

It's very clear to me a decison has been made that Kyle's system from Houston is the way we're staying....but what if we don't get the QB next year? What if we get a QB and he busts? I think the reliance on the current system (puts too much pressure on the QB position while we have no QB), reluctance to use a more balanced attack, and vanilla ZB run scheme is mistaken.

All fair points. I agree that there's no way to know if a QB will bust. It's a risk you take. I guess we won't really know until we get that QB.

I wish I could, but the best I can come up with is Vinny & Zorn are gone and Snyder doesn't appear to be playing FF with the team anymore with BA as GM.

As long as MS/KS/Haslett are here, no matter how we upgrade talent, on O we'll struggle in the Red Zone thanks to the heavy reliance on the pass and the ZB scheme. There's obviously an unwillingness to tailor the scheme to the talent available.

I think Haslett has done a B/B- job with what he has on D. I still think we're beter in a 4-3 alignment with Rak & Kerrigan being able to focus full time on their strengths (hand-in-dirt, get after QB) than in the 3-4 with those two learning new techniques. We still have no true NT. If we're staying 3-4 I'd love a more one-gap attacking style, which we won't do.

I think we'll improve if we hit on a true franchise caliber QB (but what team wouldn't). With the current coaching staff and philosophy, I don't see us ever progressing to be an elite team.

Wow, this is almost exactly the way i feel, but said much better then what i could have typed out.

I truly believe that that solely relying on a ZB running scheme can only work if you have a top 5 QB, otherwise defenses will consistently beat you in the redzone and short yardage situations. Unfortunately finding and developing a guy into a top 5 QB is a rare and long process.

I also think the change from the 4-3 to 3-4 was a much bigger issue then people generally acknowledge, primarily because of the opportunity cost associated with making the switch; the entire rest of the team was put on hold and possible even set back to fix something that wasn’t broken. “Fixing” the d was a luxury that we wernt in the position to have.

But to me it’s less the coaching staff and more the current philosophy, maybe those are one in the same but I think philosophy can change and that’s why I see room for improvement. And imagine if we brought in a new coaching staff that wanted to change the d back to a 4-3 base and do entirely away with the ZB system, we would be just as bad in 2 years as we are now, maybe worse. So now that we wasted 2 years on fixing our D I think we can put less effort in upgrading it and focus on the offense a little. Id also love to go to a partial ZB scheme that incorporated plays suited for short yardage situations, but most importantly id like to see our coaches become more adaptive and less uncompromising in their philosophies.