Jump to content
Washington Football Team Logo
Extremeskins

What Does Sherman Smith Do?


kingdaddy

Recommended Posts

If Zorn is calling the plays then what does Sherman Smith do? I would imagine he sits up in the booth and makes suggestions to Jimbo on what plays to run. With all of our offensive ineptness, I haven't seen anything on what 2nd year offensive coordinator Sherman Smith actually does. From what I can tell, one of the reasons we struggle with play calling is because neither Zorn nor Smith have ever had to call plays before. Maybe it's time we get someone in hear as an advisor to our OC on what plays to call? Think about it; Buffalo and Tampa Bay have both played better offensively than the Skins have and they fired their OC's within the past month or so. Maybe play calling doesn't come easy to some coaches?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Smith is responsible for teaching the schemes and making sure players are aligned in each formation correctly. An OC does a lot more than just call plays. Now, in no way am I saying he is doing a great job. Just saying what he does.

Zorn just calls the plays.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thing with Zorn is he seems to have a "cookie cutter" approach to the game. Like he said in the postgame he had "4 plays designed for this area of the field, and I already used the other 3". So you HAVE to use the other play here? You can't find something situational going on with the defense and improvise?

I might be off there, but that's what I noticed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Smith is responsible for teaching the schemes and making sure players are aligned in each formation correctly. An OC does a lot more than just call plays. Now, in no way am I saying he is doing a great job. Just saying what he does.

Zorn just calls the plays.

OK. I'll also assume that he and Zorn collaborate during the week on game planning, etc.....

My thing is, between the two of them, they're not doing a very good job of getting the ball into the endzone. Maybe Smith needs to assert himself more or maybe these two are just struggling with how to use their personnel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sherman is the guy holding Zorn back when Zorn goes "Hold me back, don't let me at em!!!" Thats about all good Ol Sherman is there for.

There must be 500 better OC's in this great country; college, pro and high school, who are more qualified to be OC's than Sherm Smith.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This from the "football guys" after the tandem was announced:

According to Zorn, his offense will be predicated on "balance and rhythm." Zorn will call the plays, with Smith having a hand in game planning. The team will implement a version of the classic West Coast offense, but expect the run/pass balance to be closer to 50/50 to take advantage of Clinton Portis' obvious talents.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

questions I want to know

1. what does S. Smith do - looks like nothing to me

2. why Zorn refuses to use plays over again, Cooley said his production late in the game wasn't due to defense keying in on him but because all of the plays designed for him were used up in the 1st quarter of the game O_O

3. how man plays are actually in the Zorn playbook

4. Why doesn't zorn change his mind when it calls to play calling. Cooley also said that Poris to cooley pass play was the only play left in the package, they did not want to call it on 3rd down but they had no more plays to call.. :doh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Elliot asked if defense started to keying on you after that -

Cooley - they really didn't, I think all my plays got used up. All the plays for me got called right there in the beginning of the game. They didn't really do anything to defend me we just kind of got into a different situation. We were running the ball quite a bit and doing some things differently. I like catching passes, a short pass to me is just like a run, it is good for about 7 or 8 yards.

Elliot - 7 or 8 yards is great, if you can do that every time that woudl be AWESOME

Cooley - I usually do get that.

Cooley talking about the portis pass - It was originally designed to be a 1st down play, it would been better run on 1st down because you get that run action and we run the ball alot on 1st down. you see we install a red zone package each week, and from each yard line we have 4 pass plays per package. Well we had run all of our passes from the 5 yard line, that was the last pass in the 5 yard line package

http://www.eitmonline.com/eitmonline2/media/eitmlive/A333482DC7_cooley_EITM092109.mp3

edit - Cooley also says all the pass plays for him were on the 15 yard line and they were never on the 15 yard line

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The more we hear from the players, the worse this situation is sounding. Are the offensive coaches scripting plays because 40 seconds is not enough time to think something up? This is really disturbing if true.

If you watch the NFL Network Super Bowl special on the 82-83 Skins it has a piece where Jeff Bostic over rules a play sent into the huddle by Joe Gibbs in the 82 Championship game. Gibbs sends in a pass play and Bostic says "no, 50 gut."

I'm sure many of you have seen it. I think they ran the play, which involved running Riggins right up the gut at Randy White, 17 straight plays. Every time Theismann called a play the O-line over ruled him and ran 50 gut. It's a great segment in the documentary.

Maybe Campbell needs to start calling the plays with help from Cooley and Portis?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow. I'm no expert but that really seems like a strange philosophy on play calling. It would definitely explain why the Redskins are so inept in the Red Zone. I've never understood "scripting" plays anyway. Hard to script a play ahead of time if you don't know the down, distance, and area on the field the offense is in. Maybe the first play of the game only. I've always thought QBs should have some freedom to call plays in the huddle instead of just audibles

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...