RUN. THE. BALL. (1 Viewer)

[Trey W.]

You can’t run the ball when you’re trying to catch up and the opposing team isn’t getting stopped. There was no choice but to throw the ball the entire 2nd half

What do you mean "Catch Up?" We were up 10-0 at the end of the first and tied 17-17 at half. Had we continued to run the ball and manage the clock while we were ahead then the game could have turned out much different. Wear there defense out with clock management instead of them wearing our Defense out.

 

[Antib551]

What do you mean "Catch Up?" We were up 10-0 at the end of the first and tied 17-17 at half. Had we continued to run the ball and manage the clock while we were ahead then the game could have turned out much different. Wear there defense out with clock management instead of them wearing our Defense out.

And to add to that, we were down by 7 until mid 4th quarter when they scored again. In which we promptly responded cutting it back to 7...you can and absolutely should still run the ball when down one score. Especially when your runs were damn near averaging what your passes were!

 

[saints68]

Agreed!! Run the Dang Ball!! Somehow I was hoping Carl Smith would whisper in Payton's ears "run the ball".

 

[B_doggman47]

We avg. 5.8 yds. per carry running the ball. Don't tell me that we couldn't run the ball because we had to pass to catch up. That's just a bunch of bull butter. Payton got pass happy in the second qtr. while we still had a lead and practically abandoned the run game. All we had to do was keep pounding the ball and wear down their defense and the play action would have opened up for us.

 

[SpeckKillerII]

Difficulty: Sean Payton

Sean Payton loves calling pass-happy games. The more he struggles, the more he defaults to trying to pass his way out of it, which worked in the days when his QB wasn't over 40 and the guards could keep a pocket clean.

Somebody needs to tell Sean that their are 3 things that can happen on a pass play and 2 of them are bad.

 

[sfidc3]

We have that many yards per carry because of when we do run. You are just assuming that you get the same average if you run the ball all the time but that's not the case. You can't just assume that you will get 6 yards per carry every time. If that was the case, they should never throw the ball and just run on every down, but we all know that wouldn't work.

Disagree, we had that many yards because the offensive line was pushing the smaller Raider dline around. Both Kamara and LM had space....consistently.....of course you have to sprinkle some passes in there....but 6 yards a pop and only 19 rushes? You honestly don't see something wrong with that picture????

 

[Saint Droopy]

Its not like Payton doesn't know how to call run plays. When Teddy was in last year for those 5 games Payton called more running plays than he's probably ever called in a stretch. It probably killed him inside to call those plays too.

 

[Nolan]

This crowd is basically splitting hairs over the decision to pass the ball on 2nd and 5 on our third drive of the game in the 2nd quarter. We possessed the ball 5 times in the first half and scored on 3 of them. We only had 9 possessions for the entire game including our last garbage time possession when the game was iced.

1st drive - heavy ground game, resulting in FG.
2nd drive- heavy ground game, resulting in TD.
3rd drive- run on 1st down, 5 yard gain -- 2nd down wide open Deonte Harris drops the ball, taking us off of schedule. 3rd and 5 incomplete, punt.
4th drive- pass heavy drive, resulting in TD.
5th drive- obvious passing drive, 2 minute drill -- interception.

If Deonte Harris catches that ball and we score on that drive, either bringing us to 17-0 or 13-0, this is a different ballgame.

I don't even want to talk about the 2nd half, because it makes me sick. We only possessed the ball 4 times, and only once in the 3rd quarter.

1st drive- 2 pass plays for 36 yards. 1st and 10 from our 39, we run it -- both a Kamara fumble and a holding call. 1st and 20, 4 yard pass. 2nd and 16 is a 12 yard pass setting us up for a manageable 3rd and 4.. wait, Ramzcyk gets beat, holding. 2nd and 26... 15 yard gain on 2nd and 26, but we get a very questionable blindside block call. I really don't know what running more on this drive would have accomplished, especially from the 1st and 20 point. We were rolling on this drive until we hit a sequence of 4 plays that included 2 holds and a 15 yard blindside penalty.
2nd drive- This is a drive I could see us maybe strapping up and running more -- 1st and 10 Kamara runs for 5, 2nd and 5 we pass for 5. 1st and 10 Drew misses a wide open Josh Hill, 2nd and 10 we run for 3, 3rd down incomplete. But if Drew hits Josh on 1st and 10, we're not having this conversation.
3rd drive- Down 14, fast tempo, we score in 3 minutes.
4th drive- Garbage time.

I'm breaking this down to showcase that it's not just as simple as 'rah rah, run the ball' -- Oakland literally held the ball for the entire game after their 2nd drive. What we were calling on offense was working, both runs and passes, but at a certain point players have to execute. There can't be 4 wide open drops (Sander x2, Harris x1, Montgomery x1). There can't be a sequence of 3 penalties in 4 plays. Our quarterback can't miss wide open guys and throw a devastating interception before halftime. And the biggest culprit, our pass defense, needs to be held accountable for not being able to get off of the field on 3rd and 4th down. Beginning with Oaklands 3rd drive, they went 10-15 on 3rd down and 2-2 on 4th down. That's 12 conversions that our defense allowed. Can not happen. This team is usually fantastic with mid-game adjustments. We came out with the right gameplan, because Oakland was looking to push it down the field and we shut that down. But when they adjusted and went to a quick passing game, we literally were clueless.

I've criticized Sean for not sticking to the run before, so I'm not an apologist in that regard. But this isn't the game to call for his head for that. Penalties, drops, a deadly turnover before halftime, and last but not least an absolute terrible showing by our passing defense are the reasons we are leaving Vegas with the L.

 

[St. Widge]

1st and 10 Drew misses a wide open Josh Hill, 2nd and 10 we run for 3, 3rd down incomplete. But if Drew hits Josh on 1st and 10, we're not having this conversation.

Great post. This is the point I was trying to make, but you did it much better than I did.

Anyway, on the Brees miss of a wide open Josh Hill, according to Underhill, Josh Hill cut his route off short which is why it looked like Brees was so off with that throw. No idea if Hill or Brees made the wrong read on whether or not to cut off the route.

 

[Nolan]

Great post. This is the point I was trying to make, but you did it much better than I did.

Anyway, on the Brees miss of a wide open Josh Hill, according to Underhill, Josh Hill cut his route off short which is why it looked like Brees was so off with that throw. No idea if Hill or Brees made the wrong read on whether or not to cut off the route.

Yep. Regardless of who holds the blame for that miss, it needs to be fixed. Even when we're running well, we have to pass the ball to extend drives and take advantage of the eventual stacked box.

 

[St. Widge]

Yep. Regardless of who holds the blame for that miss, it needs to be fixed. Even when we're running well, we have to pass the ball to extend drives and take advantage of the eventual stacked box.

Yep. I read a stat yesterday that like 39% of Kamara's runs were against an 8 man stacked box. It seems like the Raiders were basically daring us to pass the ball on them but the timing was off for the entire offense. I'm sure not having Mike Thomas hurt since Brees hasn't had much time with Sanders, but it doesn't explain the issues with Hill and Jared Cook. If there is any good news about the offense in that game, Kamara looked like the Kamara from year 1 and 2 again, and Tre'Quan Smith looks like he might actually be a decent receiver.

 

[Nolan]

Yep. I read a stat yesterday that like 39% of Kamara's runs were against an 8 man stacked box. It seems like the Raiders were basically daring us to pass the ball on them but the timing was off for the entire offense. I'm sure not having Mike Thomas hurt since Brees hasn't had much time with Sanders, but it doesn't explain the issues with Hill and Jared Cook. If there is any good news about the offense in that game, Kamara looked like the Kamara from year 1 and 2 again, and Tre'Quan Smith looks like he might actually be a decent receiver.

Totally. There shockingly were positives from the game.. Trequan showing out with a beast-like effort, Kamara back to form, Deonte proving viable in the passing game with nice YAC (despite 1 terrible drop), the run defense continues to be incredibly stout. Something is definitely very off with the timing of our passing game, but I'm not ready to just blow it up quite yet. Let's see if they get in sync in these next couple of games. But truly, this defense needs to get stops. What happened on Monday night cannot happen every week. The secondary is too talented. I didn't see much press man, which when Carr is getting the ball out as quick as he was, you would think disrupting their timing would be ideal. But we made zero adjustments, and just let them have whatever they wanted.

 

[sfidc3]

Its not like Payton doesn't know how to call run plays. When Teddy was in last year for those 5 games Payton called more running plays than he's probably ever called in a stretch. It probably killed him inside to call those plays too.

Killed him all the way to an undefeated record with Teddy at the helm of a run heavy offense....

I've criticized Sean for not sticking to the run before, so I'm not an apologist in that regard. But this isn't the game to call for his head for that. Penalties, drops, a deadly turnover before halftime, and last but not least an absolute terrible showing by our passing defense are the reasons we are leaving Vegas with the L.

I'm not calling for his head, I'm just hoping he knows that right now this team's strength offensively is running the ball. Drops and turnovers are part of a pass happy offense....again 19 rushes only at 6 yards a pop....and some see nothing wrong with this?? It would be different if one run was a 65 yard TD and the rest were 1-2-3 yard carries but our backs were consistently getting 5+ yards and the Raiders never really stopped them...SP stopped them.....

 

[Shadeaux]

Easy peasy

 

[sfidc3]

Easy peasy

I know right?

AK and LM averaged just under 5 yards a pop and we ran it 30+ times. Finally, SP stuck with the running game. Had Ram not gone out with a concussion we would have put 200 yards on them and the game wouldn't have been close....

The rook (Ruiz) was road grading out there.....