Quote:
Originally Posted by Mattyk72
As we've discussed many times before, yes the offense faltered late in the year but it was an offense that was 11th overall in yardage and 13th overall in points scored. Let's stop citing just the last few games of that year and instead consider the entire body of work.
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Amen.
I maintain that while Saunders' offensive system allows for more growth over time, there has never been anyone better than Gibbs at creating an offensive system that suits the needs of his players with an eye on the here and now.
Our offense didn't perform poorly over the whole body of work through the first 10 games of last season by any means, but we had players that Gibbs had modified his singleback system precisely for in 2005 and it was working. We then blew the whole thing up and went with Saunders' offense, and it just failed to maximize the strength of the players. We had Betts in on 3rd downs when he was a clearly inferior pass blocker, Lloyd and Randle El going down the field instead of working the intermediate range, Cooley in pass pro far too often, and we struggled with pass pro at times.
Although those issues were ironed out by the end of the year, Gibbs' offense could have probably been in the top ten this year, even had we not acquired any receiving help this offseason.