Alex Smith’s Amazing Comeback(?)

[Warthog]

Originally Posted by SolidSnake84

I'm sorry, but I disagree with you about Brunell. He was one of my favorite players here, along with Stephen Davis, and Champ Bailey. Joe Gibbs' first year back in 2004 was obviously not successful, and Mark Brunell IMO bore a lot of the blame when it wasn't 100% his fault. Compare in 2005, what a great year he had. Over 3K yards passing, 23 TD's, and 10 INT's. He was throwing the ball downfield well. Remember those two bombs he throw to Santana Moss to beat the Cowboys? I'll never forget that game.

I'll still never know why they brought in Al Saunders and his 2 thousand page playbook in 2006. Joe Gibbs' offense was pretty good in 05'. But it made us suck, because nobody knew what they hell they were doing. Cooley has said it many times. Brunell had to go with the dink and dunk because it was the safe easy throw when nobody knew what else they were doing out on the field. I will always believe that Brunell was the scapegoat for an entire team that was underperforming.

You’re right, I forgot about that monster offensive playbook during the latter part of the Gibbs era. Even Tom Brady, the best QB of all-time, and who played 2 decades for the same team only had 800 plays for the Patriots. I think Gibbs felt that he had to bring in the best Offensive Coordinator and that this Uber-complex offensive plan would help Brunnell. It didn’t. I still think Brunnell had a real tendency at this late stage of his career to play it save and keep his passes short - hoping for lots of YAC.

But eventually defenses used the same program to stop Haskins, Smith and yes, even Brunnell (last year as a Redskin). They play “8 in the box” which jams the run and short passing game. The way to beat it if course is the throw it long and successfully a couple times. I’d like to see some long passes from Turner to open up the Giants and to keep them honest.


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