Zorn was clearly outcoached

[alleycat]

If our 1st year headcoach was outcoached by the Pitt D coach......Ok...Not alot to hold your head low with that.The dude is a proven Defensive savant !

JZ has PROVED...He learns quickly....I feel very comfortable ...That if we played them again in 2 weeks...We would improve greatly !!

[darrelgreenie]

Sorry- I dont believe Zorn got out coached-

I believe the team did not execute.

Weather they were tired, dinged up or mentally exhausted, the players flat out, got out played. Its the NFL that stuff happens.

I agree the team did not execute. But, i don't believe Zorn gave the team a gameplan they could successfully execute against the Steeler's defense.

I don't think we ran the ball enough. (We ran all over the #1 ranked Philly run defense earlier this year when we were down 14 points.)

Zorn didn't use plays/schemes designed to negate the pass rush. i.e draws, screens. Especially the down before a drop back pass to tire out the backers and lineman by at least having them chase.

We knew beforehand that we had a banged up Santana and we were facing a defense that gives the leagues best QBs trouble. We didn't run any simple plays to get Devin Thomas involved.

It looked to me like the gameplan didn't include anything beyond just drop back passing. And the passing game we used was not effective against their zone defense.

Zorn said himself that he thought the players fought hard the whole game. I think Zorn is a good coach and the right man for the job, but i think he lost the chess match monday night.

[ChiefPowhatan17]

I was sorely disappointed in the playcalling, we abandoned the run with CP, and we were just making head way. And we never stretched the field once. And please get Thrash off of the offenses 1st team, put Thomas in, at least Devin has speed to stretch it long.

[pjfootballer]

Not every loss is an indictment of the coach. We ran into a buzzsaw last night, and got beat bad. It's the NFL, it happens. They executed better than us and are scary on defense.

I agree. We see this thread every time we lose. Zorn was not outcoached, the team was outplayed. My only complaint with Zorn is, I think he's getting a little stale in his play calling and is not being aggressive enough. Against NO, Ariz, Dall and Philly, he was throwing the ball down the field, going for it on fourth down and being aggressive. He seems a little hesitant. Don't know if it had anything to do with JC's INT streak or not. Maybe now that it's over, he'll go back to being aggressive again.

[dwbiggs]

Zorn was out-personelled.

[pjfootballer]

Zorn is giving way too much hype in Clinton Portis. Portis feels that his career is being threatened by Sean Alexander and Ladell Betts, which could easily be possible. Don't get me wrong Portis is a good running back but he really is not the spot light in Jim Zorn's west coast offense. Zorn is bringing about a lot of people from his former team, The Sea Hawks. I believe that Zorn would rather work with Sean Alexander, rather than toying around with the egotistic Clinton Portis. The only reason why Betts fits into his system is because he is a power runner, while Portis gets blown away on a tackle.

Another thing that I saw last night were one sided calls that favored the Steelers. There was a pass interference that was done but for some reason the refs did not throw a flag. Not too long after that, the Steelers intercepted the ball and was hit by a Redskins offensive line men, and if I'm correct the ball was knocked loose. It was debated weather the Steelers player had full procession of the ball. I don't think he had procession of the ball, because it was not in a full lock in his palm and finger tips. It looked more as if the side of his arms were tightly hugging it. And then there was the scramble by Campbell for the touchdown. It was clear to see that it was an attempt for a slide in the in zone, which I think was a good call by the official that ruled it touchdown. But when the Steelers guy went and challenged it the lead official changed his mind and ruled it dead at the 1 yard line. I believe it was a slide to get into the in zone. Lets not mention if it had been Pittsburgh they would have ruled it as a touchdown.

1) Are you kidding me with this Zorn doesn't want to work with CP crap? He'd rather have Alexander or Betts? No, he's not the focal point, he just leads the NFL in yards for nothing. Watch some football dude. And CP is not a power runner? Again, watch football much? Betts isn't any more of a power runner than CP. Betts runs straight ahead with no moves, while CP tries to dodge tackles.

2) One sided calls? Well you get those every game and need to overcome them. Saying the refs lost this is a loser's excuse. We lost because we didn't execute and they scored more points.

3) Campbell didn't slide, he went head first. Even if he did slide, he is marked down where his slide started, not where he ends up.

4) As far as getting the ball to Cooley. He had 7 catches for 78 yards, so they did get the ball to him. Portis had 51 yards on 13 carries. He gets his normal carries and he has over 100 against a pretty stout defense.

Just a bit of trivia here, but Lebeau created the 3-4 zone blitz scheme to counter the WC offense that Bill Walsh had recently started.

HACK

Even though you are a Steelers fan, props to the trivia. I didn't even think about that. And they went against it in the SB just 3 years ago against Seattle.

i dont understand how nobody could see this coming... i've been saying for weeks that Zorn is a mediocre playcaller, he just is. i of course got my head taken off by everyone on this board when i first introduced this idea a few weeks ago, so i've kept quiet... we could only muster 17 points against a horrible rams defense that was missing half their secondary, 14 against cleveland, and 25 against maybe the worst defense in the league in the lions, and one of those td's was a special teams td. luckily for him, the running game has been working. what happens when opposing teams stack 8 in the box? or 9? answer: we lose...

He's not a mediocre play caller. He's gotten stale. We were aggressive the first 5 games, but since the Rams game, he doesn't go downfield enough or go for it on 4th down like he was. I think he's probably mentally tired as much as the players are physically tired. Break will do them some good. I do agree that we have to settle for less FGs and score more TDs.

[Pimpey42000]

Is this an official whine thread or what?

[THE MIGHTY FULLBACK #32]

Zorn wasn't outcoached. He called all the right plays and we executed mentally, but we was beaten physically.

[Cooley4President]

Zorn wasn't outcoached. He called all the right plays and we executed mentally, but we was beaten physically.

I agree with that. We ran into a team whose defensive personnel was just man-for-man better than our offense, especially our lineman. To win these games you need to call a great game, execute flawlessly, and take advantage of all mistakes, all of which did not happen.

[ke27on]

I have to agree. I'm not worried about it being a long term issue. ZOrn is still a rookie. But, yeah I agree. With a defense like this, why no screens? We only threw one screen. And it worked for 17 yards.....then nothing. Too many runs were sideways. You just dont run sideways on a fast 3-4 defense. You run right at them. Also, when it became obvious that they were picking up our blitzes and getting 20 yard passes, we just kept doing the same thing.

Exactly. I was wondering why we kept running sideways. If you saw them, they started lining up deep off the line in the first half. We would run to the right and they'd be speeding downhill and stuffing portis. I was thinking if we had more quick hits up the middle, we would have been much more succesful. Also, they were overplaying the direction of the play. Why no reverses?

Also, in the 2nd half i started to cringe everytime we went to blitz. It was awful.

[darrelgreenie]

Zorn wasn't outcoached. He called all the right plays and we executed mentally, but we was beaten physically.

We have the same team that beat the Saint, Cards, Cowboys and Philly i don't think all of a sudden they can't get the job done.

I agree with that. We ran into a team whose defensive personnel was just man-for-man better than our offense, especially our lineman. To win these games you need to call a great game, execute flawlessly, and take advantage of all mistakes, all of which did not happen.

If Zorn needed to call a great game and didn't then didn't he get outcoached?

Our personnel didn't change. IMO Zorn needed to find a gameplan that allows our personnel to succeed. Asking a player to win a physical battle they can't win is not putting them in a postion to succeed. We needed to run the ball and find plays that allowed Jason to get the ball out quickly to open receivers. And Zorn couldn't consisently find enough plays that worked against their defense.

[darrelgreenie]

I agree with that. We ran into a team whose defensive personnel was just man-for-man better than our offense, especially our lineman. To win these games you need to call a great game, execute flawlessly, and take advantage of all mistakes, all of which did not happen.

I downloaded the game and watched it again.

If we could just make those 3rd down conversions.

A pass to high, 1 more yard on a run, a little more seperation on a route, another foot on a run-after-catch, 1/2 second more of time, a few less holding calls. We were close all day.

You're right though, Zorn wasn't nearly as bad as i thought.

I still wish he could find more ways to exploit their pass rush (screens?), get chunk yardage and convert those 3rd downs. I still think were a good enough team to beat the Steelers. I don't know if it was fatigue or bad luck,(blocked punt, Leftwich, Los's hands) Monday night wasn't our night.

[TimmySmith]

Looked like week one again.

4. Offense consisted of 2 plays. 2 yard run, 4 yard pass. No misdirection, no roll-outs, no trickery, no deep shots to slow the defense down. This offense made Vanilla look like Rocky Road.

The offense continues to get worse by the week. I understand that the line is flat out bad, but Zorn appears to be doing nothing to compensate. He has become absurdly predictable.

[sempre_victrix]

I agree. Aside the QB draw that netted Campbell 20 yards, there was nothing good about his lay calling last night. How many deep balls did we throw, maybe 2?