01-02-2014, 11:44 AM
Well, look, we do have alternatives. Here's our offense:
Plan A: run power/inside zone between the tackles
Plan B: throw deep
Plan C: unconventional running game -- inverted veer; zone-read; jet sweep; end around, etc.
Plan D: whatever novelty we've come up with.
The question is whether we tried Plan "B" and "C" enough -- or whether it behooved us to figure out a Plan "E" (intermediate passing game.)* My belief is we could've done B or C more frequently, but it's not as if we're as one-dimensional as people would like to make it out to be. It's especially difficult to call for more Plan B as it is, by nature, a high-variance game.
The trouble with asking for more Plan E or more spread or whatever is that the coaches have developed a plan and counters to the plan based on power running. They've trained the players, and so on and so forth. It's genuinely hard to: a) possess the requisite expertise to know all the relevant counters to your alternative base play; b) impart that knowledge to your players. Changing your offense in that way is like turning a battleship; asking your coaches to figure out an intermediate game in game 14 is asking for the impossible. You are who you are at that point. Insert Rumsfeld cliche here (army you have, not the army you want or might have in the future...).
In a hypothetical universe it's possible we run a bit more zone-read, have it work for a while, and then discover we've got no counter once Narduzzi starts with the scrape exchange.
Plan A: run power/inside zone between the tackles
Plan B: throw deep
Plan C: unconventional running game -- inverted veer; zone-read; jet sweep; end around, etc.
Plan D: whatever novelty we've come up with.
The question is whether we tried Plan "B" and "C" enough -- or whether it behooved us to figure out a Plan "E" (intermediate passing game.)* My belief is we could've done B or C more frequently, but it's not as if we're as one-dimensional as people would like to make it out to be. It's especially difficult to call for more Plan B as it is, by nature, a high-variance game.
The trouble with asking for more Plan E or more spread or whatever is that the coaches have developed a plan and counters to the plan based on power running. They've trained the players, and so on and so forth. It's genuinely hard to: a) possess the requisite expertise to know all the relevant counters to your alternative base play; b) impart that knowledge to your players. Changing your offense in that way is like turning a battleship; asking your coaches to figure out an intermediate game in game 14 is asking for the impossible. You are who you are at that point. Insert Rumsfeld cliche here (army you have, not the army you want or might have in the future...).
In a hypothetical universe it's possible we run a bit more zone-read, have it work for a while, and then discover we've got no counter once Narduzzi starts with the scrape exchange.