First off, keep the ball in Chad Pennington's hands. I would like to scrap the wildcat,and play straight up football. This way we don't force the play calling to have so many wildcat plays. Give Chad the lee way to call the plays more if he see's something that will work better to what the defense is showing then the play called. If Ronnie struggles with the run, then let's give Ricky and Cobbs more touches. If need be put Ronnie and Ricky in the same back field, and put Ronnie in motion since he has great hands. Try for a miss match, and see how the defense reacts. Put Pat and Ricky or Cobbs in the back field, and put White in motion. This play book needs to stretch the field more. It is very important to help this Oline by completing 15-25 yard passes to keep the opposing defense playing us honest and not stacking the box. In my own opinion, I believe Ricky needs to get the most touches at running back. I know it was one game, but Ronnie would go a few yards, and would go down. I love the tanisty that Ricky brings to the game. He doesn't like to go out out of bounds, and would rather turn it back inside again, to hit someone on defense. Ricky, Cobbs, Hartline, and Camarillo need to get more involved in this game if we are going to be successful.
I see it pretty much the same way, only I'd go with two Te's and a Fb formation and just pound the ball with Ricky and Ronnie. Sparano has done a great job so far, I do wonder if he has overthought things and moved away from what the base offense personnel can do to win games.
That is what I was going after Brother. Let's play power running the ball football. It just like the wildcat was a round peg in a square hole on Sunday. I like Ricky running the ball more then I do Ronnie. Cobbs needs to touch the ball as well running, and catching.
lets watch Ginn streak down the sideline for 40 yards wide open for the rest of the year with nobody to throw the ball to him and then watch post after post pop up saying he sucks. Thats my vote.
What amazes me is we have one of the creators of modern power running football as the offensive coordinator, Dan Henning was a part creator of the One Back offense, we could ride Ronnie like Washington rode Riggins and Gerald Riggs and George Rogers to playoffs after playoffs. It's boring to watch though...really boring..not quite Wannyball but close, the did take more chances than Wanny ever did.
I think Ricky would be the one to ride, and let him go wild. I am sorry but I am not as high on Ronnie Brown as the rest of the family is.
Well, the cool thing would be is the offense would be designed to facilitate whichever running back had the ball, even Pat Cobbs. As for Ronnie, he takes some time to warm up, like 7 carries then he starts rolling, which is a bad thing with Sparano's dedication to splitting carries.
We have Ricky, Patrick, and Lex to use if Ronnie is not having a good game running. Plus we could use Ronnie as a receiver as well. We need to keep defenses guessing, and right now we are not doing that at all.
I agree that RW is deserving of more touches and is out playing Brown.....however, the last thing I wanna see is us putting more pressure on Penny and asking him to do more. Unless it's asking him to hand the ball to Henne and be a coach..
Lexxy would be the H-Back. And the 1 Back does not really keep defenses guessing, so that would be a drawback, but our Oline is supposed to be our strength and some good smashmouth football would allow them to form some cohesion. BTW, "Whoo's"? Is that meant to be "Woes"?
I want Chad to feel comfortable that with a succesful run ning game, he just has to manage, and keep the defense by playing honest. I want to see some medium range passes completed, and not all dink and dunk that the defense can just sit on.
Hear ya Bro, I got an unexpected min vacation myself...which means no money coming in...not so good really. As for the offense, I cannot believe we will be as unprepared for the Colts, not at home and not on MNF.
This week will be important to get Jake back on his feet, and prepared for Fenney. I think Jake will bounce back.
Carey had a crap game as well, for all the focus on Jake, VC gave up two sacks as well, to me we should run at those DE's to get some hits on them and slow them down a bit. And it helps that they are not on Turf this week and it will have been two weeks since the semi legendary 2.5 hour final practice...the one Erik Walden passed out after...the players should have their normal legs back by Monday.
Honestly, I just don't think you can expect much more from him than what you have been seeing. Even on the intermediate stuff, the WR has to have some serious separation for the ball to get there before the defender can close on it. I think that's why u see Penny just standing there like that in the pocket....he's desperately trying to find a window he can fit the ball into.
I've never been a big proponent of the Wildcat. I know many here are, and that's cool. Is it a fad, or is it here to stay? And, I don't just mean The Dolphins, I mean the NFL. Well, I reckon we'll just have to see how it all shakes out. I think when it's used sparingly, and under the right circumstances, it can be very effective. But, I just don't know that it works as a staple of your offense, every game. But, that's just one man's opinion. And, really...what the hell do I know? As far as Ronnie vs. Ricky, and while Ricky may have looked better last Sunday, there is absolutely no doubt (at least in my mind) who the better RB is. Thing is, regardless of who is better, they're each gonna have games in which one of them is gonna have the hot hand. So, you ride the hot hand. In that respect, I think they are arguably the best RB tandem in the league. So, guess what...run the ball baby! Like FFIC said...let's play power run football. And, when opposing D's start stacking the line, then you challenge them through the air. But, like I said before...what the hell do I know?
Carey is really the one that scares me the most.....he looks lethargic out there at times. Like he's just not into it Long if nothing else, should be serviceable even in the worst case scenario. Carey hasn't impressed me in a long time....even last year I thought he was under-achieving
That O Line needs to be stuck together like glue this week. During, and after practice as well. Need to put some extra time in. They need to get better together and give Chad some time to do his thing. At the same time, Chad has got to get rid of the ball.
When he had time he had poor vision. Chad needs to pull it together as well as the rest of the team. Receivers were open the entire game.
I think they have a view of what a RT should look like, and Carey has put on weight to fit their template, in 07 he was an okay LT, since he moved back to the RT he has really porked up and it effects his mobility too much imho. But that is also all the more reason to run the ball more often, why have tap dancing bears when they could be mauling people instead?
I also think Smiley and Thomas are not fluent in the offense, if Surferosa's stats thread is accurate, both had horrendous games last Sunday. Thomas has the pec issue and Smiley is coming back from a compound broken leg so they may need time we don't have to get up to speed.
I like all of your suggestions except scrapping the wildcat. It was the best thing we did on O last year, and may still be our best thing this year. We only ran 4 plays of it this past game, so I don't think it was our problem.
Not sure what the responsibilites were for Smiley, but he appeared to be a step late and not real physical vs Atlanta.
I wish you guys all the luck in the world getting what you wish for. Just a suggestion but maybe we should send this to Tony Sparano and have him read it to Dan Henning though I think it will do no good as they seem to be in lock down mode with run, run, pass, and punt. Plus the WC showing up for one series, oh well.
I think when we run we need to run inside more and stay away from the edge this game. It was a big mistake against the Falcons IMO, in that they were a defense built on speed and so it played into their strength. The Colts are almost a mirror image of the Falcons and I would rather attack their vulnerabilities than their strengths. I dont have a problem with the Wildcat per se. I think they got an idea of how teams will play the formation with Pat White so if they come up with a way to exploit a weakness go for it. (If Pat White hits Ginn...the call was right but the execution stunk) Defensively, I'm going to be watching Smith and Bell. After Gonzalez's performance I know Manning will be looking at Bell all game long. Smith is probably going to go up against Wayne. If we can stop at least one of them, Wayne or Clark we should have another good defensive outing.
I disagree a bit Adamp, our best run blockers in atlanta were the Tackles, and running off tackle with Polite and a Te will wear down Freeney and Mathis later in the game. And Gonzo was held in check, 5 for 74 and a TD is not exactly dominating our Secondary, the field position the turnovers gave the Falcons were a big part of their success against us. And at least this week we don't face the "other" Gonzalez.
i can see going after freeney's side. he tends to sell out quite alot on the pass rush but i think we can have alot of success running up the gut against daniel muir, antonio johnson, gary brackett and melvin bulitt. the colts can run side to side with anyone. i think they'll have trouble stuffing the run when it comes right at them. they did a good job against maurice jones drew so we'll see
Well, OT dives are not exactly big plays in the making, 3 yds, 5 yds, 2 yds, but to me they also open up the play action pass a bit more than running up the gut as the DE then has to read the play before just pinning their ears back. And to be sure, Sparano and Co are working on it, with the Pats losing Mayo (while retaining Bacon and Lettuce and tomato) now is the time to make hay. If we win, we keep pace with the Jets or Pats, I'd hate to fall 2 games back already to either of those teams already, we are a 3.5 point underdogs...at home...on Monday night...sheesh..we are the Rodney Dangerfield of the NFL.
They drafted big Fili Moala to help shore up the inside as well. Imo, unless we can keep those extra defenders out of the box every play, it wont matter. We have GOT to attack vertically at some point. I know Penny isnt built for it, but you still need to take a shot or two early. Get a second and 4-5 yards and let Ginn run and Penny can air it out. Then try and hit some 15-20 yard patterns, enough to make the safeties stand back a few yards. The Pats and Chargers both showed how to do it on MNF. Dink, dunk then exploit the middle deep. When the defense plays back, hit the dinks again.
he's in the rotation behing Muir i believe. They actually did a good job of containing maurice jones drew so who know how easy it will be to run on them. I agree with you on the formula to beat the colts defense. sadly I just dont have faith in Pennington being able to exploit the deep and intermediate throws consistently. If he can do just that I think we'll win but my feelings are we are going to have to run to win
If we have to run we have to run, I do think if Penny is given more time he can hit those deeper routes. As for running the ball, you say that like it is a bad thing, running the ball doesn't go into slumps and it eats clock and avoids turnovers...more running please.
i agree and not sure why it sounded like a bad thing. i think we're built to run so lets run. if we establish the run we have a chance of getting the playaction working and also slowing down the pass rush some. win win if we can do it. personally i think we have to be a run dominant team to succeed this year
Yeah, to a point, there are teams on the schedule that are dominant defenses that we will have to pass to set up the run, that is where we are missing David Martin though, he was a seam splitter and created match up problems. Losing Dmart and Cutting Wilford has left us thin at receiving Te as Nalbone has proven nothing and Haynos has proven nothing as well.
I wonder if part of the problem is Henning not having confidence in our players or our players not having confidence in Henning. He doesn't appear to do well in game planning or making adjustments. As far as the success of the wildcat, it was a novelty last year, something new and teams had not designed defenses to defend agains't it. This year teams are better prepared for it and you know they have studied game films to copy teams defenses who were successfull agains't it. You can bet New England wont be embarrssed by it this year. As we all know, Pennington is limited by his arm and if we can't run the ball we can't play to Pennington's strengths IMO.
I believe the wildcat was put out there just like Sparano said in a presser to see how the other team reacts so they have a handle on what they can do later. If pat white passes that ball properly then we would have been all over the news.(im mean all over and NFL network would have shut up about Favre and Con-Vick for a day lol)
