the VG board football thread

The Mongoose said

I think playcalling, or tipping your hand, or scheming, or creating advantages, makes a huge difference in o-line play.

This was always my beef with Carl Smith. There was never any misdirection or threat of being tricked presented to the defense. People in the NFL are too good to just telegraph what you're doing.

While I don't disagree that our o-line often looks incapable, I think we would have had a much better chance to convert those short yardage plays against GB if we had made them respect more threats.

I think teams are relieved when we go to heavy formations - we are essentially taking weapons off the field. 4th and 1 should be scary for them. With Brees' accuracy, we should keep the field spread a bit. If they stack the box, brees can easily hit a short little hook or slant. If they play it honest, our guards should be able to get enough push for a one yard gain. Why make it easier for the defenses?

But, I'm not Payton, and he's actually a football coach.

Click to expand...

I mostly agree with Sack on this issue, but I do agree that McCarthy was the better play caller on Thursday night. Who is the better play caller overall, I don't really know. But, all of the things you give credit to McCarty for are things Payton does too. But, since the rash of running back injuries and our lack of a great WR, he is a bit handicapped in his play calling.

As far as Thursday, both 4th down calls were questionable. The first one, he telegraphed the play action when he brought in Thomas and with the formation on the second one he telegraphed it by putting in Ingram and with the formation. That being said, Payton has new toys to play with this year in Graham, Ingram and Sproles, with little time to work with them because of the lock out, so it is going to take some time for him to get some rhythm with using them correctly. In addition, I'm not sure he yet trust Ingram to pass block for Brees on a play action near the goal line. Of course, as it turned out, the line got blown up anyway. And, yes, part of that is because they knew we were passing, but the line still has issues and they should have done better than that even if GB knew exactly what we were doing.