Today's second half against the Raiders has helped convince me Philbin and his staff are competent. Halftime adjustments are something great coaching staffs do well. Show me teams who play better in the second half than their opponent, and I'll show you good coaching staffs. Sparano and his staff were bad at halftime adjustments. Philbin and his staff appear to be good at it. Agree?
Absolutely agree! Even last week, the team came out in the second half and showed grit and determination.
Well, it didn't hurt that the Raiders were bushed (no pun) after travelling, and then Reggie single handedly took over the game. The 23 yarder where he refused to go down was nothing short of amazing.
Cautiously agree. We have done the same thing to better teams in the heat in September. The Raiders were at such a disadvantage today the NFL should be ashamed of the schedule makers. I'm not complaining though.
Can't argue with the results. Feeding Reggie was the right move and they fed him Raider stew all 2nd half
Agree totally. There seems to be more player support at least from what I noticed from coaching. Put together that second half with a rookie at QB. Being conservative can pay off at times. Good adjustments on D.
Let's keep it in our pants. About this time on our last go-round Sparano out coached Bill Belichick as bad as its ever been done.
totally agree. i just mentioned that in another thread and didn't see this thread til now. To me, that was the most impressive thing in a good list full of impressive things!
That's a true statement. It's also a true statement that most of the time if Tony did not ENTER the game with a winning gameplan, there was little hope of him or his coaches improvising one on the fly. Sideline and halftime adjustments left the building while Sparano was in town. Other NFL opponents werre even QUOTED saying they were surprised we didn't adjust at halftime to things they were doing to us that were working against us. I mean, literally, other players coulddn;t believe the staff wouldn;t bother making changes to stuff that was obviously getting us beat. Whether it was lack of communication, lack of actually knowing enough to think of a soultion, or just lack of caring enough to bother adjusting the fact is Sparano's staff was poor at gameday adjustments. This staff has shown otherwise. In Houston, we saw fewer issues with tipped passes in the second half. In this game... welll. EVERYTHING. Now the heat helped, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that this staff made successful halftime adjustments twice in two weeks. I think that's as many as sparano's crew did in two years.
Certainly better than the Sparano coached teams on making HT adjustments. I was worried going into the half... really worried. I know everyone is happy for Reggie, etc, etc, but you also have to give the o line credit as well as Tannehill and his receivers. Those passes to Hartline couldn't be stopped. Raiders kept trying to put 8 in the box, leaving Hartline covered one on one and they couldn't cover him no matter who they lined up out there. And it was virtually the same out route every time Also have to thank Reshad Jones for getting that INT or else I would have looked pretty stupid (I posted in the game thread something about if we didn't force a turnover in the 2nd half, we'd lose).
My only knock on the staff is its continuing insistence on playing Naanee so often. I even watched him miss a block on a screen to Reggie where Reggie got tackled for a loss. That must have been the only time Reggie lost yards today. Thanks Naanee. Can;t catch. Can't block. Now what?
he did make a nice special teams tackle and reminded me probably why he's on the team. Disappointed Matthews didn't get any offensive reps (I don't think).... would have liked to have seen him out there at the end of the game.
I like that when the running game had taken over with a 21-10 lead, they trusted Thill, while using his strengths, to drive the team down for the deal clincher.
Right, but this obvious givens like travel time and heat were not always apparent under Sparano and I think that is the comparison
Philbin coaches from a play to win mindset, not an I'm afraid I'll screw things up and lose mindset. Thus we will see fewer 3rd and long draw plays to set up punts, or FB plunges on 1st and 2nd down at the opponents 25 to set up the fist pumparooni.
That's the only play I noticed him on as well. The guy is a complete waste of a jersey. Totally half assed effort on the block, hardly gets his hands on his man.
I honestly hate Sparano with a fiery passion. The man is about as intelligent as a box of rocks in my opinion. His philosophy was if the square peg doesn't fit in the round hole you grab a hammer and pound at it like an infant monkey trying to make it work. In my opinion he embodies just about everything wrong with society today in the way he approached problems. Most of all though he wasn't a teacher at all to younger players. Obviously position coaches are important in this as well but you expect your head coach to be able to help develop talent. To Sparano when a player hit a wall, the fix was to run at it harder. It's why no talent every truly developed under him except in extreme cases like Cameron Wake who did it by himself.
The most enjoyable part of game was being up only 21-13 and then watching them move it up the field to put increase the lead, because they weren't going to try and run out the clock with the majority of the fourth quarter left.
Love the coaching attitude, playing to win, not to lose. Great half time adjustments. Also, have to give credit to Long and Tannehill for recognizing defensive tendencies, and then, more importantly, loving the coaching staff letting these players make their adjustments and run their play and not forcing a check out. Very impressed with Tannehill's pre-snap reads and adjustments all season. Looks like someone who gets it and isn't overwhelmed by NFL defenses...yet. Playing some more complex defenses like the Jets will be a good test. EDIT: Got that sulia link from this tweet;
That's a good thing but at the same time I thought the way they came out fast in their first few drives against both the Raiders and Texans was a very good sign for the offensive staff. Those are the scripted plays. They often tell you whether your game plan is onto something or not.
Another thing that speaks well to Joe Philbin as a coach, in a roundabout way, is the fact that right now that Green Bay offense looks nothing like what we're used to it looking like. I'm not saying you can assume that's all on Philbin. That would be assuming that they won't ever really get back to that level which is a bad assumption already and then even if they don't then you have to assume the reason is Philbin and not something else...but even so, it does certainly suggest that they may be missing him.
Of course. But I already expected that, being used to Sparano entering games well prepared, for the most part. It's a good point, though. We could have traded better halftime adjustments for poor game planning, but instead it appears we have both well in hand. Now I want to see if we can score more points against the Jets than the Bills did.