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Originally Posted by NLC1054
Well I don't think it's like we didn't run screens at all before then. We just didn't run them with the frequency that we did later in the season.
You have to look at the circumstances of the game. The first Dallas game was just a struggle no matter what was the case. Versus the Texans, we were ripping their secondary to shreds, so the screen game becomes less neccessary.
Versus the Rams, the run game was functional enough that they did need to use the screen game. Torain exploded versus the Eagles the next week.
The Packers killed us defensively, and maybe using more screens would've been key there. But then you have Torain running for over 100 yards for Indy the next week (where they still ran some screen plays), and then he rushed for 100 versus the Bears in a team that's not suspetible to getting fooled by screens.
I think the Lions game is where we start to see them used more frequently, which is apparently where all the trouble really started to take place.
The screens worked to great effectiveness versus the Titans the following week, but the Giants were ready for it the next week and completely killed the screen game, which seemed like it was our whole gameplan. The same thing goes for the Vikings game the week after that. And then the next week you have Torain bulldozing every one in Tampa.
So when you go back and look at the game situations and how the team did and looked offensively, McNabb had trouble running the offense that Kyle wanted. And then when Kyle implemented more things McNabb was more comfortable with, McNabb still had more trouble with it.
Once teams figured out we were going to be running more screen passes, they did a better job of stopping us from using them. And that forced McNabb to play more within the regular offense, which he couldn't execute.
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Also the screen is usually used against teams with aggressive defenses. The reason it was used more frequently might have been that other teams realized our OL sucked and they had pretty good chances at getting to the QB so the QB might have changed what ever play was called to a screen if he saw the rush was coming.
Might also be why KS favored Grossman over McNabb.