Quote:
Originally Posted by Paintrain
Can you point out a couple of games where that was the case? I've watched most of our games at least twice and I don't remember any games where Zorn tried to open it up and "Campbell couldn't handle it". I remember many games where he was running for his life at times when he tried to pass or catchable balls were dropped. He had plenty of missteps also, not absolving him of all blame.
If we had won the Cincy game, where Cooley fumbled on the 1st drive, Benson had an 80 yard screen pass (which led to Rogers getting beat for an easy TD pass-call back to the Hall/Rogers argument) and Sellers fumbled at the goal line would we be having this discussion?
If we had won the SF game where we had a 17-7 lead at halftime yet pissed it away in the 2nd half (despite Campbell driving us down and tying the game with 1:15 left before the defense gave up the game winning drive), would we be having this discussion?
If anything, Zorn got more conservative as the year went on and took the ball out of Campbell's hand because we couldn't protect the passer. You are taking the same route as the lazy national media and not actually using game based logic, rather just spouting general theory.
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Zorn screwed with the running game the 2nd half of the season, which obviously hurt everything, but go to this link here and tell me you dont see Campbell with more pass attempts in the 2nd half of the season.
Jason Campbell: Game Logs
First 8 games, with one exception, Pass attempts range from 23 to 31 per game. Last 8 games, attempts range from 30 to 38, with a high of 43. We were passing more the 2nd half of the year.
In the first half of the year, we were successful largely because we relied on Gibbs power running game and not Campbell. Campbell was doing what he's best at - managing a game. In the 2nd half of of the season, IMO Zorn got cocky and tried to do more of the pass-happy WCO. We relied more on Campbell and less on Portis. The results speak for themselves. I
am very critical of Campbell, but i'm even more critical of Zorn - great coaches adapt their system, schemes, play-calling, etc to suit the talent they have on their roster. In the second half of the season, Zorn tried to make the talent on the roster fit his system (square peg, round hole). In 2009, Zorn needs to do one of two things: Keep his system and go with another quarterback (unlikely) or look at Campbell; look at the Line; look at our RBs; look at our WRs; and adjust his scheme to suit their strengths and hide their weaknesses. As simple and reasonable as that sounds, most coaches have too much of an ego to adapt. Theyd rather try to change the players than change themselves.