A New Look Offense or the Same but Better?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by 30gut

Here's a question I asked Dbag earlier in the thread:

Do you think Cam would have been as productive in a traditional pro-style offense?

I should have lettered or numbered the options but I think you're leaning more towards option A because option C involves a shift in the playcalling tendency towards more running or a return towards balance.

Option A is basically status quo.

An overlooked question from the OP: Do you think Griffin they'll feature Griffin specific RZ packages?

I don't think basic passing principles really play to the strengths of Cam Newton. He didn't play well in the 2010 BCS National Championship game against a defense that had the speed to challenge him, didn't play well in the NFL Preseason, looked lost in the Pro Bowl.

But in the context of what Carolina was doing with him, he showed off critical downfield accuracy and pocket awareness you wouldn't have known he had watching college tape.

Cam Newton is a pretty huge conundrum. I think if you took him out of the Carolina offense and made him play in Jacksonville, he would be a huge projection at this point. I think if Carolina took the Jags approach to making it "easy" for Cam Newton, Newton would look lost and even when he completed passes the Jags wouldn't really be using their passing game productively. But with Carolina, every passing play has a chance to go for 20+ yards, and Newton basically was out there showing defenses that the only guy who can stop Cam is Cam.

To answer your question, I think Cam could have been just as productive at the start of the 2011 season playing in traditional pro-style sets and plays, so long as the focus of the attack remained downfield at the safety level. You can challenge a defense out of base personnel, obviously. But I think defenses would have caught up to him in the second half like they did with Dalton, because I think every challenge that can be raised by a pro style scheme has been answered at some point in history by a pro defensive coordinator.

I don't doubt that spread plays will eventually be answered by defensive guys, and that Cam will have some tougher days in his future, but I think the Panthers successfully put off to tomorrow that learning experience by not giving opponents a book to go to in order to shut down Weapon 'Cam."

[30gut]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

he showed off critical downfield accuracy and pocket awareness you wouldn't have known he had watching college tape.

Or that some didn't see.
I thought Cam's skillset including downfield accuracy and pocket awareness was clearly evident in college.
But, that's besides the point.

I think if you took him out of the Carolina offense and made him play in Jacksonville, he would be a huge projection at this point.

I agree that Cam would have struggled in Jacksonville, in many ways they're a bad example.
I watched a number of Jags games and I thought their offense was mind numbingly static and predictable.
It would be one thing to have a static offense if your WRs could consistently 'win' on the outside, but their WRs didn't/couldn't.
Playing in that type of offense, would be difficult for any QB let alone a rookie QB forced to play early.
I bet dollars to doughnuts that Mike Mularkey will improve the Jags offense and help change the current perception of Blaine Gabbert as a QB.

To answer your question, I think Cam could have been just as productive at the start of the 2011 season playing in traditional pro-style sets and plays, so long as the focus of the attack remained downfield at the safety level.

I don't know.
I agree that Cam would have been productive in any downfield passing attack that featured play-action and 5-7 step drop Hi-Lo reads.
But, I think Cam's record setting season 4,000 yard season was only possible because of Chudzinski forethought and innovation.
Look at Cam's domination in the RZ, I don't think that is possible without featuring Cam's run-pass threat.
Which would be hard to produce with traditional pro-style plays.

Which leads me back to the RZ question from the OP that I asked in the previous post
Do you think Griffin will/should change they're RZ gameplan and play concepts?



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Using Kubiak's interview as a jump off:

What specifically (formation/play concepts) does Griffin do best from Baylor's offense?