Circling back on this, since we're a quarter of the way there and just beat the most challenging matchup left on our schedule. I pointed out some things that I was hoping to see, some of it was accomplished, some of it was ugly. Defensively, once again this is a short and easy discussion. The secret sauce is back (Chauncey), we have all 11 starters healthy, and we have the Bucs number. Even when Godwin/Evans/Fournette were all in, they weren't moving the ball. If we make the playoffs, it'll without a doubt be because of this unit.
Offensively, it was really bad. We did some things well early, but then it turned really really ugly. Taysom started out with some accurate balls. Kamara had a solid average in the first half considering the defense we were going up against (6 for 18 but one carry was a weird toss for -3 yards), but we moved the ball a little, only had 1 three and out, played the field position game well, and scraped together 6 points. But in the 2nd half, it was so bad to watch. 4 straight three and outs. Too much early down dropback passing. Kamara was getting solid yardage in the first half off of inside zone, yet we started trying to get him out on tosses which I even said going in would be ineffective versus this defense.
Here's what I want to see less of, and what I want to see more of going forward:
Early down dropback passing: Just why? It doesn't make sense given our roster makeup right now, even when our tackles comeback healthy. Everything we do, until we get to a 3rd and long, should be set up off of the appearance of a running play. Taysom started out relatively accurate and decisive with the ball, but even with the positive throws early, it was still an overall negative performance. He was inaccurate with the ball frequently on throws to Kamara, Marquez, and TreQuan. He had two balls that should have been intercepted if not for an insanely smart heads up play by Marquez and then a terrible drop by the Bucs safety Adams in their territory that would have kept it a 1 score game when all we needed was a FG to make it a 2 score game. The third down miss to Kamara on the option route was terrible, it's an easy throw. He didn't even give him a chance on the shot to the endzone in a 1 on 1 matchup. His pocket presence still isn't there yet, and has a hard time escaping when it breaks down. Even that being said, I still think he can be effective but we need to a better job of putting him in a position to succeed. Dropback passes without the threat of a run on early downs? Please no more. Show the threat of a run play until it's 3rd and long.
Zone read with AK?: Yes! They finally went to some more zone read plays with him and Kamara, I've been SCREAMING for that. The designed QB runs (power, sweep, etc) have been effective with him, but eventually teams will sell out to stop it. With the threat of him putting it in the halfbacks belly, they really can't do that. I'd love to see a lot more of this, and less QB power/sweep. Still run them, but not nearly as much. When we were trying to put the game away, we went with three straight QB power plays. What? Why? It netted us -1 yard in the three play sequence. At least make the defense think about what might be coming. Telegraphing what you're doing makes it really easy for them. I understand the defense that we were going against, the likelihood of us icing the game even with traditional runs was slim, but running that same play 3 times in a row was downright silly. Especially when the zone read was effective, and Taysom was getting 6-8 yards on every keep.
I'm super pumped about the W, an amazing performance all around. Not trying to poopoo on our offense, just highlighting what worked and what didn't.
Going forward?
-Less dropback passing on early downs.
-Everything should appear like a run until we get to 3rd and long.
-Stop telegraphing QB runs.
-MORE zone read with AK. It's insanely effective. 11 on 10 football when the QB makes the right read.
We control our own destiny, let's do this thing.