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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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I don't have every piece of game film from last season at my immediate disposal so I can't offer undeniable proof that we didn't run designed screens early on, but I'm guessing neither do you. I do, however, distincly recall asking myself early on in the season why we weren't running more screens in warrented senarios when I thought it should have been a weapon in a balanced offensive attack. What I do know is that in the win loss column McNabb was 4-4 (not superlative, but not wretched either) prior to the week 8 move into a more frequently used screen attack afterwhich his record plummeted to a feeble 1-4. In the 4-4 early stretch when we weren't running as many screens only 1 of the 4 games you could say was determined by RB output. In the other three we never rushed for 100 yds. Anytime an offense becomes one demensional and predictable you're going to get your card pulled.
I don't think the designed RB screens or the flanker screens or RB wheel routes or single read quick check downs are the way you win football games. I believe that they are simply a tool that should be used situationally to keep a defense off balance and guessing. When we became a predominant screen team it tended to be more pandering and excessive then it should have been. It became a central focal point and not a finite aspect of a larger concept. If you could win with McNabb prior to a screen game and without a dominant run game, which his record proves possible, why can't you win with him after employing a screen game. Perhaps it's because the play calling changed and it became overkill in Kyle's gameplan. I don't know for certain. I don't think McNabb was in the huddle changing plays or audiblizing to screens at the line.
You can't justifiably give a very generic and basic overview of every game and exclaim with any true conviction that we could have used screens in this game, but not in this one. The screen is a situational call. Just like a series of specific conditions must be present to brew the perfect storm. You can't just say, oh, look it's cloudy out there's probably going to be a tornado.