Offensive Philosophy

[Schneed10]

Daseal, why in the hell would you want to throw deep against Minnesota when you are up on them the whole game?? Even if the receivers are getting separation, that doesn't mean it makes any sense to throw 45 yard post patterns to them. When you're up on them, you keep the chains moving. The Skins won that game with conservative play calls down the stretch.

Against the Steelers, there wasn't time to throw the ball deep. Gibbs didn't send the receivers deep at any point because he knew the Pittsburgh blitz would be all over Ramsey in a friggin heartbeat. They don't call 'em Blitzburgh for nothin.

And that goes right to the heart of my next point, the separation receivers get isn't the only factor here. For one thing, in the beginning of the season the line was a freakin sieve. Brunell was getting chased all over the place. It doesn't help that he forgot how to throw a football this year, so I'm fine with criticizing Gibbs on that personnel move, but running limited pass routes was necessary because the QB was getting hassled all game.

The playcalling was not the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem was poor offensive line play, receivers that couldn't run deep routes, receivers that couldn't catch the ball consistently (Gardner), a QB who forgot how to throw the football, and a general lack of familiarity with the offensive system. Gibbs adjusted to the team's problems by making the playcalling more conservative. His playcalling was one of the results of the root problem: generally poor play by the entire team.

[56FAN]

the number one reason he didn't go deep is the offensive line couldn't hold a block long enough for the play to develop. add to that the dropsy twins and you've got an offense unable to get any momentum and any down field catches. we can only hope that these wr hold on to the ball and that the line is blocking. because if the line isn't we will be no better.it's won in the trenches guys, with the big uglies. not the pretty fast guys.but the frustration everyone feels is that it's right there. but it sin't fireing properly.

[firstdown]

What do you mean we had no deep threat? Remember that Pass Brunell through 10 yards to Gardner who made a diving catch to save the ball from hitting the ground and he didn't even drop it. LOL

[Balmerskinsfan]

Firstdown- Yeah, that was friggin awesome. Great post.

[GoSkins!]

Obviously I am a defender of Gibbs. I think that he did things last year for reasons we will never truely know, but some things we know are...

1. Our offense was not that good and took half the year to get in sync. We lost games on penalties and turnovers early in the year. Gotta blame players and coaches for that but most of that falls on Gibbs and his adjustment to the speed of the game. Good news is those problems were solved by the end of the year.
2. Injuries caused us to pull guys off special teams and put them in the starting lineup. This made our special teams weaker than they should have been.
3. Coles hurt his finger and dropped a few passes in the middle of the year that stopped drives. Yeah, Gardner did it all the time, but we had to be able to count on one of them and with a dislocated finger, he just couldn't hang on a few times.
4. Gibbs ran the same plays over and over. BUT... this is not the bad thing that it has been made out to be. Gibbs won his superbowls by running a limited number of plays to perfection knowing that when it started clicking, defenses could not stop it. I know this is true because I watched almost every game the man ever coached the Redskins in.
5. Gotta agree with Daseal about this one troubling point. Gibbs did not adjust at halftime last year the way he did in his first stint. He used to get his butt kicked in the first half, go back at halftime, and dominate the rest of the game. For him to be successful, Superbowl successful, he has to learn to do that again. Maybe it's just that he needs to get truely comfortable with his core group, but this is the one thing that has worried me.
6. Like it or not, 7 points more a game last year would have put us in the playoffs. Ramsey knows what he is talking about. You start by scoring 7 more points, then 10, then 14 ..... I'm all for that way of thinking.

[skinsguy]

Nothing wrong with the offensive philosophy of Joe Gibbs. There were many times where we were in the red zone and either had to settle for 3 points or no points because of some stupid penality, turnover, or somebody simply dropped the football. Sure, there were some games where the play calling was rusty, and yeah we can complain about his clock management...which is pointless to argue considering the fact that the game clock time was longer in his first tenure. Gibbs hasn't lost it. He hasn't forgotten anything. The game hasn't passed him by. When I hear that..I have to laugh at how ignorant that sounds.

[Daseal]

Daseal, why in the hell would you want to throw deep against Minnesota when you are up on them the whole game?? Even if the receivers are getting separation, that doesn't mean it makes any sense to throw 45 yard post patterns to them. When you're up on them, you keep the chains moving. The Skins won that game with conservative play calls down the stretch.

Maybe, just maybe if you read my post you'd see I never once mentioned us throwing it deep on MN. If you would have bothered to look I said we had good playcalling that game. So, please read before you ignorantly spout shit that I didn't say. I said our receivers were getting plenty of seperation. Since I went to 1/8th of the Redskins games last year, and the WRs had seperation in both I can assume that those aren't the only two games the receivers had decent seperation on.

The cause of the problem was poor offensive line play, receivers that couldn't run deep routes, receivers that couldn't catch the ball consistently (Gardner), a QB who forgot how to throw the football, and a general lack of familiarity with the offensive system.

The O line had a horrible center and an old backup Tackle who is no where near the calibre we're used to. Granted, but ask Portis how bad the line was behind being the 3rd (?) rusher in the NFC. The line played well enough to throw the ball. As I said, most of the times the receivers WERE getting seperation. Problem was the game plan was too conservative to toss it. You need to establish an intermediate passing game, get a rapport between your QB and WRs in game situations, then go deep. Coles and Gardner both had their share of the drops, but if that's why we stopped throwing the ball completely that's stupid. Both of them caught it more often than they dropped it. Brunell was horrible.. who was it that left him in the lineup? That's right! I think lack of familiarity had partial credit too. However, there were other teams under new coaches that did very well offensively, so I can't use that as a total cop out. I'm sorry, but the problems came 75% coaching 25% playing.

Neither of you mentioned how SIMPLE the system was. I'm sorry, but even if it's a new system you need it to be complex enough so other teams don't know what plays you're running. What do you guys say about that?

Could you step back for even one moment and consider the thought the play calling was a direct result of the lack of offensive talent last year?

FRPLG - couldn't I easily flip this around? Could you stop dry humping Gibbs long enough to realize that he would run three times up the middle in the red zone? What makes you think our offensive talent will be superior this year? The fact that our supposed top WR isn't even working out with our QB? Besides the upgrade at the Oline - which is significant, we've degraded or stayed the same elsewhere. I think Portis will do better because of the line, slightly. Unless they start blocking to his style.... that and he has a tendency to run all over the AFC West.

It's not like we had Indianapolis type talent or anything close to it. I would imagine that maybe, just maybe, we didn't run certain types of plays becasue WE COULDN'T.

Am I asking for a pass-happy offense? Nope. I'm perfectly content to let Portis carry the ball to his hearts content. However, every team MUST be able to throw the ball. I'm sorry, but this isn't the 50s. The passing game is KEY. I'm not asking for a balls to the wall passing attack. Just from time to time. Are you telling me the only plays we COULD run were WR screens and curl routes? If so we should have picked up some people off the street to play, because routes get more advanced than that in pickup games.

If you can tell me why our offense was so bad based solely on the play calling of Joe Gibbs with absolutly no other direct causation from any other player or coach then you will convince me.

I haven't said it's 100% Joe Gibbs fault. It's not. I put 25% on the players, and 75% on the offensive coaching staff as a whole. They plain did a poor job. Playcalling and clockmanagement are absolutely critical in football. I love how in years past we've always blamed the coaches and not the players. Now Gibbs comes back and the players suddenly suck, whereas they just didn't have the correct guidance before? He handcuffed the offense by scaring them with turnovers. Turnovers aren't something you want, but they also can't be something you fear to the point of no return. With a defense like we had, we could afford to take chances, especially in the redzone. We saw how his last batch of strategy turned out -- why not try something new.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Daseal

Maybe, just maybe if you read my post you'd see I never once mentioned us throwing it deep on MN. If you would have bothered to look I said we had good playcalling that game. So, please read before you ignorantly spout shit that I didn't say. I said our receivers were getting plenty of seperation. Since I went to 1/8th of the Redskins games last year, and the WRs had seperation in both I can assume that those aren't the only two games the receivers had decent seperation on.

Why would you assume that because you saw it at 12.5% of the games, it was the case for all of them? That just seems asinine to me. The bigger issue was the drops anyway.

Originally Posted by Daseal

The O line had a horrible center and an old backup Tackle who is no where near the calibre we're used to. Granted, but ask Portis how bad the line was behind being the 3rd (?) rusher in the NFC.

Another asinine statement. Portis was high on the league's rushing list just from sheer number of carries, not because the line blocked well for him. His rush yards per carry ranked in the lower half of the league, and that stat more accurately shows the blocking performance of the offensive line than the total rushing yards stat.

Originally Posted by Daseal

The line played well enough to throw the ball. As I said, most of the times the receivers WERE getting seperation. Problem was the game plan was too conservative to toss it.

This depends on which part of the year you're talking about. If you're trying to tell me that the line gave Brunell enough time to throw in his starts, you're nuts. He was CONSTANTLY on the run. But, perhaps you didn't realize that since you didn't attend any of those games, since apparently that's the only way to analyze football games.
As for Ramsey, the line grew more cohesive later in the season. They still had trouble giving Ramsey time to throw against the Eagles and Steelers, but who doesn't. In all of Ramsey's other games, his yards per completion was up, which is reflective of both better offensive line play giving Gibbs enough confidence to call more intermediate passing plays.

Originally Posted by Daseal

Brunell was horrible.. who was it that left him in the lineup? That's right!

I'll give you that one, I woulda pulled him sooner.

Originally Posted by Daseal

Neither of you mentioned how SIMPLE the system was. I'm sorry, but even if it's a new system you need it to be complex enough so other teams don't know what plays you're running. What do you guys say about that?

I say that the system worked in the '80s when the players were EXECUTING. The Skins ran the same damn running play 10 times in a row against the Giants in one playoff game, 50-gut, to run out the clock. It got funny to the point where Lachey was telling LT it was coming, but they couldn't stop it. The issue isn't the playcalling. The issue is execution, because even when you know it's coming, if you do it right, it's very hard to stop.

Gibbs adjusted his playcalling to fit the team. They were playing shitty, so he had to limit what he could do. Then when the team started playing better towards the end of the season, he began to go with more intermediate passing. And now that he has new WRs and a better O-Line, I think you'll see that he'll adjust and open it up even more.

[dirtbag2112]

Maybe now that Jack Burns will be upstairs with Don Breaux there will be a slightly different approach to calling games...remember, It's not all Gibbs.

[Schneed10]

NFL Rush Yards per carry. The offensive line was not good enough to do much of anything, running or throwing.

RNK NAME AVG
1 Michael Vick QB, ATL 7.5
2 S. Jackson RB, STL 5.0
3 T.J. Duckett RB, ATL 4.9
4 Chris Brown RB, TEN 4.9
5 Larry Johnson RB, KAN 4.8
6 S. Alexander RB, SEA 4.8
7 Corey Dillon RB, NWE 4.7
8 Tiki Barber RB, NYG 4.7
9 Fred Taylor RB, JAC 4.7
10 Kevin Jones RB, DET 4.7
11 E. James RB, IND 4.6
12 B. Westbrook RB, PHI 4.6
13 Curtis Martin RB, NYJ 4.6
14 D. Blaylock RB, KAN 4.6
15 Priest Holmes RB, KAN 4.6
16 R. Droughns RB, DEN 4.5
17 Ahman Green RB, GNB 4.5
18 C. Taylor RB, BAL 4.5
19 O. Smith RB, MIN 4.4
20 Duce Staley RB, PIT 4.3
21 Jamal Lewis RB, BAL 4.3
22 M. Pittman RB, TAM 4.2
23 Warrick Dunn RB, ATL 4.2
24 Julius Jones RB, DAL 4.2
25 Rudi Johnson RB, CIN 4.0
26 D. McAllister RB, NOR 4.0
27 W. McGahee RB, BUF 4.0
28 M. Faulk RB, STL 4.0
29 Sammy Morris RB, MIA 4.0
30 Thomas Jones RB, CHI 4.0
31 L. Tomlinson RB, SDG 3.9
32 D. Davis RB, HOU 3.9
33 C. Portis RB, WAS 3.8

[dirtbag2112]

Atleast Ladanian and Dominick were down there with Clinton. LOL

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Speaking of Stephen Jackson, he is a perfect example of how your running game can improve if you have a passing attack.