Quote:
Originally Posted by artmonkforhallofamein07
I have a comment and a question.
What we have been fed in the media, and what we have seen here in DC, is our offense is more of a MS scheme then KS.
In Houston, KS's offense required the QB to throw the ball down field out of the pocket predominantly rather than throwing outside the pocket by design?
So what is our philosophy? How does KS run our system correctly if he has his own way of doing things?
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SmootSmack will probably have a slightly different take on things, so I hope that this is taken as a second answer to a good question, instead of just me trying to state his opinion.
This is Kyle Shanahan's offense. Kyle Shanahan's offense uses a lot of plays that you have seen Denver use over the last twenty years.
Philosophically, Kyle is a lot more "college" than Mike ever was. By that I mean: a lot of Kyle's tendencies as a coach suggest that you can prep a very high percentage of your coaching during the week, and that preparation will show on game day. The quarterback's work is done predominantly in practice, not at the line of scrimmage. The Redskins have a game plan going into the week, and they will stick with that gameplan until the game situation dictates they need to wing it.
They can (and do) take a lot of time in the huddle, because on a lot of their passing plays, the quarterback knows where he is trying to get the ball before the defense even gives him a look. I'm not saying the Redskins don't have secondary reads, because that would not be accurate. The Redskins are a 1 -> 2 -> throw away/check down team like most in the NFL. It's just that: the Redskins don't determine the play progression at the line of scrimmage based on the defense. They already had it set on Wednesday in practice. Kyle's plays attempt to act foolproof to defensive wrinkles.
The problem that Kyle has run into as Redskins OC is when defensive coaches decide they are going to man up on the Redskins receiver or man-press the Redskins receiver and dare a quarterback like McNabb, Grossman, or Beck to find a better matchup while the play is happening, or throw the receiver open. When Grossman or McNabb has been locked in, they were able to do this, but a majority of the time, the Redskins have struggled with man coverage defenses.
Grossman's biggest problem is that when he identifies man to man coverage, he often forgets that the defense still has two "free" players on the field he needs to account for. So he'll throw away from the man to man defender to help out his receiver, and possibly will still get him killed.
Philosophically, Kyle believes in his passing game. He doesn't always believe in the running game (whether you believe this to be a talent issue or a coaching failure is entirely up for debate -- but do consider that he believes in his passing game and in Rex Grossman despite no playmakers on the outside). That's a big difference between Mike and Kyle. In Mike's best coaching days, he could force a defense to tip it's hand and cheat to either stop the run or the boot passing game. When defenses cheat on Kyle or queue into something the Redskins are trying to do that is gameplan specific, I don't think Kyle sees it as quickly as some other coordinators, which is why you won't see a lot of screens or draws in the second quarter if the Redskins offense is struggling. Maybe that's something that will come with experience. It's something Zorn did very well, although you could argue that Zorn's base offense would be abandoned entirely after the play script was exhausted.
Kyle runs a largely effective, but highly risky play action passing game off of play action as a staple. The problems have always come when defensive coordinators cheat and start to send two defenders (blitzers) to the same gap in the protection in an obvious attempt to blow up the Redskins pass protection, based on their tendency to not adjust always at the LOS. Obviously, if DCs are cheating often enough, that means that they simply will not have enough guys in the front to stop the run.
But if the Redskins believe they don't have the personnel to run the ball in passing downs, or worse, they have the personnel, but the coordinator can't dial up the correct rushing play to attack a cheating defense, then this is a worthwile gamble by the Rex and Rob Ryans of the world.