Voice_of_Reason

Let me add to this: 1. If You're going to bring back and count on a bunch of guys who are always hurt to be producers, then you have to have a backup plan. They had no plan. Either in scheme or in players. This is more on Bruce than Jay, but organizationally, it's not an excuse. 2. If Colt McCoy, who has a history of injuries, including in this pre-season I believe, is your backup, you need a 3rd QB somewhere, either on the practice squad or roster. Same as above, somebody's got to be smart enough to know that your backup QB gets hurt a lot. 3. When you have injuries, you have to find ways to scheme around them, or at least try, rather than just crossing your arms, pouting, and saying you have a lot of injuries. If we had seen ANYTHING on Sunday that indicated Jay was trying to do something different, I WOULD give him a pass. But we did nothing different. We called the same run plays that don't work. We ran on first down almost exclusively, which didn't work with the starters either for the last 5 years. We didn't try to be creative with formations. That doesn't effect the guards. What Cooley said, try and run exactly the same easy concepts out of 35 different formations. Motion people around. Even if it's just pre-snap have the TE switch sides. Do ANYTHING creative that can simplify the game. But we did nothing. Since we did nothing, injuries cannot be an excuse.

The culture starts with Dan. The issue with Dan is that he doesn't hold Bruce accountable. Bruce in turn doesn't hold Jay accountable. And Jay doesn't hold anybody accountable. We get "camp Jay," we get not wanting to practice, we get lack of adjustments, we have the same re-tread, uninspiring middle-of-the road or worse DCs, we have an offensive staff that has no structure. It all starts with Dan. Now, it COULD change at any level. Bruce COULD decide to hold Jay accountable, and thus the players accountable, without Dan doing anything. Jay COULD decide to hold coaches and players accountable. Instead of making excuses. But nobody does. Ultimately, Dan needs to fix this, because Bruce and Jay are incapable. I doubt Dan is either, honestly. However, if you're the top guy on the totem pole, then the responsibility falls to you by default. At the very least he has to try something different, because what he's been trying for 20 years isn't working. I completely disagree. Gibbs took over the Spurrier catastrophe teams, and had them at 10 wins in 1 year. That doesn't happen by accident. You know what else he did? He found the best defensive coordinator on the market and hired him immediately. Sure, there were some extremely questionable personnel moves, but his teams were mostly well prepared, and you could argue that he got every ounce of productivity out of the talent that he had. Gibbs had 2 major mistakes: 1. He really shouldn't have given up the offense to Saunders in 2006 after the playoff run in 2005. 2. He really needed a better personnel guy to lean on than Vinny. Gruden's teams aren't prepared, there are no adjustments to anything, and he will miss the playoffs in 4 of 5 years. There's no comparison. That's not entirely true either. In 2016, and to some extent in 2015, Gruden cost the team wins by hiring the worst defensive coordinator in the history of the league. And that's not hyperbole. Barry had THE WORST resume of any DC ever. And then he came here and showed exactly why. Let's go through the 2016 collapse, just for old time's sake: 1. They are completely unprepared for the opener and get blown out by the Steelers. 2. They lose a tight game where they didn't play particularly well against Dallas. Kirk throws a pick in the end zone to basically seal the deal. 3. They win 4 games in a row to get to 4-2. Credit here for getting that done. 4. They lose against Detroit because Gruden is unaware, lacks aggressiveness and doesn't try to win the game on offense, instead gives the ball back to Detroit, and Barry calls a soft defense all the way down the field for a last minute score. This loss is 100% on Gruden not having awareness, game management or balls. 5. They basically do the same thing in London, and would have actually escaped with a win if the kicker hadn't screwed it up in OT. However, Gruden had th game won, and then let Dalton and company come back on them because he lacks killer instincts. 6. They rebound and beat a bad Minnesota team, followed by one of the best games in Gruden's tenure, a beat down on SNF of Green Bay. 7. They go to Dallas, basically fail to score in the first half, can't stop the Cowboys at all, and lose. They are now sitting at 6-4-1 with a great shot to get into the playoffs. 8. They lay a complete egg the next week to lose to an abysmal Arizona team. 6-5-1 9. They beat a horrible Eagles team to get to 7-5-1. 10. They lose to a terrible Panthers team at home, 7-6-1. 11. They beat an awful Bears team. 8-6-1, putting themselves in position to win a game to get into the playoffs. 12. They lose to the most vanilla, uninterested Giants team who had nothing to play for to finish 8-7-1. Gruden didn't coach well, Kirk didn't play well. From 6-3-1, with a bunch of winnable games, especially with that offense, they went 2-4 to finish the season, with awful losses against Arizona, Carolina and the Giants. Hindsight (for almost everyone) being 20-20, we knew exactly what we had in both Kirk and Jay after the 2016 season. Neither one of them have done anything different since then. Which is why I advocated BEFORE the Giant game firing Gruden and not trying to re-sign Kirk if they lost the game. It's time for both to go for sure. But anybody who says that Jay isn't part of the problem here is, at this point, completely delusional. He's part of the problem, not part of the solution. He isn't the only part of the problem. But he's a big part of it.

Several points: 1. I don't care if Bruce fires Jay. I DO care if Bruce hires the next HC. A GM/President should not get 3 tries to find a HC. That said, Bruce could say to Dan that Shanahan was essentially hired before Bruce, so everything on the Shanahan watch was on Shanahan, and Bruce has only been in control since Jay's been here. He made a mistake with Jay, learned from it, and deserves a second chance. I think that's complete and total bull****, but that could be the argument from Bruce. I want a new President/GM in place before the next HC is hired. I honestly don't care who cleans up the Jay Gruden mess. 2. I would also argue that Gruden has a checkered record with talent evaluation. He really tends to favor less talented, try hard guys who might know where they need to be rather than more talented guys who need to be coached more. Sometime it works out. Sometime it doesn't. While he might have an ok eye for talent, he's certainly no Bobby Bethard or anything. 3. I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Jay is running around the building with his hair on fire blaming injuries to Smith and the guards for EVERYTHING, which, if Dan believes it, might save both him and Bruce. He's doing it publicly, so I'm sure he's doing it privately. The answer to Lovero in the press conference, when Lovero followed up on a quote from Gruden earlier in the conference, saying they practiced well, and Lovero asked basically why there is a disconnect from practice to game, Jay blamed Sanchez for being there for 2 weeks and then having 2 guards who were named yesterday. In the 1:1 with JP Finley, He doubled down, saying that not only was the QB injury the cause of the offensive struggles, but it's the cause of the defense also because they're left on the field too long. Everything with Jay right now is "woe is me, the injuries, the injuries, the injuries." He can't answer one question about anything without bringing up the QB and guards. The problem is that he had absolutely no plan in place to overcome the injuries, just trying for the same old, same old. No attempt to do things which the QBs and guards might be better at. If it appeared as though Sanchez was somewhat uncomfortable in practice, and Josh Johnson could call plays better, why not do something creative like mix the two in together? Why call a sequence of plays that almost certainly puts Sanchez in known passing situations? Why try counter plays with puling guards when they can't run? There's so much in Gruden's control as a coach that he's not controlling, but he's lamenting the things outside of his control. And that message gets back to the player. When they hear their coach making excuses all week for the poor play, it kinda lets them off the hook. I have no idea what Dan is going to do, but the last 2-3 weeks of Jay have been the absolute worst, without question. And it appears as though he's lost the room. Now, if they come out and beat a really bad Jags team, that might say something, maybe they can get something back. But Jay's entire approach since McCoy went down has been 100% wrong. Just plain bad leadership and coaching all the way around.

The mobile banner is still funky on iPhone. There’s a lot of white space at the top, then the banner.

My mobile version just started going haywire, FWIW.

Not to mention that Dungy retired with Peyton Manning as his QB. Its unlikely hed have have any interest in coming back to coach Colt McCoy while suffering 50+ million dollars of dead cap space.

I just listened to Gruden on Redskins Talk Pod with JP Finley. Summary: offense is tough because of the injuries. Defense sucks because the offense sucks because of injuries. False starts are because of ... wait for it.. injuries to the QB. No changes expected. We just have to do better. But DONT FORGET RHW INJURIES! Such loser talk.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it’s the master or the apprentice who should get credit for developing a player/scheme. Its one of the reasons I’m always skeptical about somebody on the NE staff, because history has shown Bellichick is the true master. Conversly you can tell that it was McVay who really had a big hand in developing Cousins, and now Goff. Going way back, the Eagles hires Reid off of Holmgren’s staff. Reid was, I believe, the QB coach. The OC also got a HC job, and flamed our because most of the success could be attributed to Reid and Holmgren. DeFillippo might have been a beneficiary instead of a driver as well... Sometimes it’s easy to tell. Sometimes not.

I was thinking about predicting a scoreless tie. But it I don’t think the Skins defense is good enough to shut out Chantilly High School let alone any nfl team.

We know the Skins will be disinterested. The question is whether the Jags will be. I am guessing they give good effort at home. The Jags are limited offensively. 24-6 Jags After the game Jay blames injuries, looks confused and says he has to check out the film. In a pull from the past, he also says there are a number of penalties they will be sending up to the league to revue.

It's not 90%. I pulled the numbers a while ago. I think on 1st and 10, it's like 78%, and of the runs, 60% are 2 yards or less. I'd have to re-pull the data and re-do the analysis. It's been a trend since 2014. Also, it's the same 2 plays. It's the most maddening and predictable bull-*** you can imagine.

@ConnSKINS26 you are probably right. Maybe they struggle as much as Gruden does without Ben and Aaron. I'm saying, I'd be at least willing to give it a try over this guy. I'd prefer they didn't hire either one, and I doubt either one would come here with our cap situation anyway. I don't know who the ideal fit is, however there is a completely separate thread for this discussion, so I'll leave it there.

I think the thing that irritated me most about yesterday was the complete lack of any type of ingenuity or creativeness in the offensive plan. Just sticking with the same-old-same-old, trying to get guards out pulling who have been here 5 minutes and are not really mobile, always running on first down, predictable pound-draw type of play. And then when they do try something creative, it's a jet-sweep to a guy I didn't even know was on the team... The plan was just bad. All the way around. It was the same plan, and it's been a bad plan, and it's going to continue to be a bad plan. It's as if Gruden/Manusky are just dead set to do it their way, even at the expense of trying to play to the strengths of their personnel or exploiting weaknesses in the other team. Yeah, Bruce is an idiot who needs to be fired. But these weren't the 1990 Parcells Giants with LT and Simms and the group. This is a 4-8 Giants team, who granted has been playing better, without arguably their best player (though Barkley would argue with that), they should not be 40-0 better than any NFL team which is well prepared. Period. Jay could get more out of these players if he wanted to. I'm not sure he really wants to anymore. Oh, and he said there would be no changes. I'm not sure what good a change would do at this point, but since you're out of it anyway, I have 2 suggestions: 1. Fire Manusky and promote Tomsula. I know Manusky and Tomsula are friends, and MAYBE Tomsula doesn't take the job, but it would send a message that this isn't good enough. 2. "Fire" himself, and turn play calling over to Kevin O'Connell. Coaches have done that from time to time when the offenses haven't been working. I'd also fire Cavanaugh because he can't possibly be having a positive effect anyway. Jay turned play calling over to McVay in 2015-2016, so he's not opposed to it. He should do it now

I am just so sick and tired of anybody using injuries as an excuse. We know about the QB and the guards. We get it. It's such loser talk to keep mentioning the damn injuries. Maybe it's not overcome-able. However your QB and 2 guards didn't cause your defense to implode after 2 drives, and give up 40 unanswered points, including HUGE chunk running plays. It didn't force you to come out with as unimaginative game plan offensively that had no chance of working. Pull 2 guards who are really big and not mobile? Really? Either it's lazy or dumb. Or both. EDIT: @TKI didn't really intend to quote you.

SOME of this I don't actually put that on Jay. That's a players thing. Your coach can't be the ra-ra guy. That's got to be leadership. We don't have those guys. I think Allen might be one of those guys. But he's in his second year. HOWEVER. The other thing is that it's really tough to get fired up about a scheme you know is vanilla and just plain sucks. If _I_ can tell what the 1st down play is 80% of the time 2 weeks before the game, you sure as hell KNOW the players know, and they also know the results, and they know there are no adjustments, so they KNOW they are bringing a knife to a gun fight every week. Once that realization sets in with a group of players, there is no excitement, no belief, and you end up with a bunch of guys just going through the motions. The players know they have a doofus as a head coach. They might like the doofus because he doesn't make them practice hard, and they are well paid, and he's a nice guy. But they know as well as anybody what the scheme is, and that Gruden is going to call the same unimaginative plays over and over, and do the most convervative thing in all situations. It's REALLY tough to get fired up about that. Then you look at teams like the Chiefs. Do you think Andy Reid ra-ra's it up? Hell no. But the team is fired up because what they do is innovative, he figures out how to get players in position to make plays, and success breeds success. (At least in the regular season for Reid.) Bellichick barely mumbles anything, but the Patriots are always fired up. Why? Because they always know they have a shot to win. Some of that is Brady, but they are one of the most well prepared teams in the league year in and year out. If you are a player and you know you're in a position to succeed, then you're going to be jazzed going into the game. If you know you're going to run Duo on 80% of first downs which typically results in +/- 2 yards, you're just not going to have that type of belief or excitement. The same goes for the defense. The number of times we blitz then play soft behind it and leave our DBs out to dry is astonishing. Combined with the fact our blitz scheme is just "meh" to begin with. We rarely get free runners. Some of that might be on players. Foster blitzed on one play and instead of chosing to TRY and get around the RG, he just slammed into him, got stood up, and that was that. When the defense brings 5, it rarely works. What sometimes works is when they bring 6, with 2 guys going through the same gap. However, if you play soft behind that, and you have an NFL quality QB on the other side, they will find the open guy and get him the ball before the trailing blitzer gets there. And _I_ know this. And I know virtually NOTHING about football. Never played, never coached, just watch, pay attention, and learn. But if I know it, the players know it, and the opposing coaches know it. So I don't blame the players for being a bit dis-enchanted with this mess. Him failing to call TOs against the Eagles to try and get the ball back, even if Sanchez was going to give it right back showed the give up. It's the actions. He just flat gave up. And with the game plan at the beginning of the game on offense, it was the same tired stuff with no real thought on figuring out how to get Sanchez comfortable. It looked like he just used the same plan as the week before and rolled with it because he knew they had no chance. I'd be down with Tomlin only because I went to college with him. Tribe Pride, baby, Tribe Pride. McCarthy wouldn't be so good. That said, both are at least 50% better coaches than Gruden, both are respected by a vast number of other coaches, and both could put together a competent staff. I'd prefer somebody else, but they would both be immediate upgrades.