What We Need To Work On During the Bye Week

[hoskins]

Look, I personally don't think that we need a whole new coaching staff right now. We're far better of as a team than we were 4-5 years ago. We have real NFL players as playing ages now at just about every position, and that itself is a minor miracle.

And I think there is enough talent even among the coaches to make this a respectable team.

The last thing we need to do it keep blowing up the team every time we have an inexplicable loss or even a bad season. That kind of impatience and over-reaction is what made this team the disaster it has been over the past 15 years.

That's how we dumped an NFL coaching staff and picked up the U of F staff. That's how we went from Brad Johnson to Jeff George. How we ended up with 17 different starting quarterbacks in not that many years. How we churned Robiskie, who was one of the best coaches we've ever had in relating well to players. And on and on and on.

We can't do this anymore.

BUT, having said that, there are things this staff needs to go instead of riding out of town at the end of the year. One I think is easy, the other will be hard.

The easy one is delegate the time management aspect of this game to someone who can focus on that. They can spend one day this week going through all the typical scenarios and decide what the staff wants to do, but then they need to hand over execution of that strategy to one person on the sidelines who can make those decisions quickly and clearly communicate that to Campbell and the special teams. E.g. When do I spike? When do we use the timeouts? When do I go no huddle? When are we down to just enough time to kick?

2-3 years down the road, maybe Campbell will be able to figure a lot of this out himself. Maybe 10-20 years ago, Gibbs could have managed this himself. But right now in 2007 neither of them can do this, so we need to choose the person on the sidelines who can.

One option, if the rules would allow it, would be Brunell. Spend a day or two or whatever it takes to come to consensus with him on the strategy. But on gameday, he's seen just about everything and I think he has the intelligence, the mindset, and the trust of the coaching staff needed to pull this off.

Or you look at the QB coach, but I think his hands are full right now. Or, with no salary cap for coaches, you bring in another specialist. But then it's got to be someone the staff and the players trust (that's why I like the Brunell option)

Now for the harder issue, which is team confidence. That's so complicated I probably need another post for that. But that is squarely on Coach Gibbs and he NEEDS to find a way to face that demon and conquer it before we take the next step.

Having our backs against the wall like we did in 2005 almost takes the confidence issue off the table, because then you're just desperate. But to win in this parity league when you aren't desperate requires some confidence and that killer instinct as so many of you have said.

I like Coach Gibbs as a person, but this self-deprecating "oh, they're melting down my bust in Canton" thing has to stop. It doesn't matter that he's (hopefully) not saying that inside the park or the locker room. The reality is that today NFL football is a 24/7 media frenzy. And players DO read/watch/login to a lot of it. And they know that, despite their huge contracts in many cases, they are playing for one of the worst teams in professional football over the past several years. That's the reality. They need some confidence and swagger to turn this around.

So having Gibbs out there every day talking about how the next game will be against an insurmountable opponent and "aw, shucks" we need to just find some way to pull this out IS NOT HELPING. And certainly how that "oh God, I hope we can somehow win this one" attitude carries over to gameday has really been painful to watch over the past 4 years (not just yesterday)

I don't think he understands that impact his demeanor has on the organization from top to bottom. This isn't the way he was last time, unless we were playing a clearly inferior team. But there are no clearly inferior teams any more, so this "Lord help us" act needs to be put away for good.

It's time for the coaching staff to have the courage to stand up to this NFL.

[DjTj]

The bizzare thing to me is that Gibbs started to turn his offense into a no huddle offense towards the end of the 1991 season and to start the 1992 season

What's really bizarre to me is that Brunell ran this same offense out of the no huddle just last year. It can't be that Gibbs or Saunders took it out of the offense. Do they just not have confidence in Campbell? Does Campbell not have confidence in himself?

We've had a whole offseason ... why haven't we practiced the no huddle?

[phokus]

I agree - 2 minute drill has to be a practice priority in the bye week. Also, this team should have a lot more options available at 1st and goal on the 1 than trying the same run twice in a row. That spike could've just as easily been a fake spike - if you're confident enough to run risky HB option plays, you should not be afraid to throw a fake spike play in there too. I have confidence in Campbell that, given more authority over clock management, he will work out these issues. It just seems like most other teams with players of their caliber have already worked them out so that people aren't missing handoffs and having freshly snapped balls bounce off their chests.

[Ellis]

We need to fix the playcalling in the sense that it seems too many coaches are giving input. I still think we have too many coaches. trim the fat.