Football Discussion:Biggest Concern on Offense

[RedskinsInFebruary]

I feel like we're loaded at QB (is this the Redskins?  Am I dreaming?? ), WR, and TE, solid at RB, and we're loaded at Trent Williams.  I think Montgomery came into his own last year.  I'm glad to see so many posts that share my concern about the rest of the OL. 

 

We need to keep our *once-in-a-lifetime* QB healthy and effective. 

 

I shudder at the ripple effect if Trent goes down for any length of time.  Could have far-reaching consequences.

[CrypticVillain]

Crap, I just realized this was offense. Well, third down conversions and better pass pro protection.

I saw it when you first posted it, and then edited it, but I didn't saying anything because I knew you would realize it. lol

[RandyHolt]

Coaching

 

Not trusting Robert to run the offense. If the headset fails on the 2nd play of the game, I think its wrong that Kyle has not shared his intention of the first few plays to Robert.  Instead, we call a timeout to hand off to Morris. 

 

Refusing to use hurry up. Not having any urgency even when down 2 or 3 scores very late in the 4th quarter.  Thinking that we have a better chance at an onside kick versus letting Robert trying to score quickly and let the defense do their thing. 

 

Overall I was happy with the play calling but Kyle could improve. I did not like the option to Banks and the running of the WR's like halfbacks. Our redzone offense while it produced results, often I was scratching my head. A short side sweep to banks on the 4 yard line type of things.  

 

We can all fret and fear that RT is not good enough, or that the OL struggles in drop back pass pro,  but a coach that is good enough compensates and uses players to their strengths. I want to see us roll out the pocket much much more, for example. 

[London Kev]

Definately the OL. We were very fortunate last year with OL injuries and the continuity helped, but there are obvious weaknesses in pass protection.

 

Unless someone steps up it appears as though Polumbus is the RT with Compton being groomed as Trent's back-up.

I like Chester, he's a solid but unspectacular RG, but we could do better. I've not seen enough of Gettis to know if he can be that guy.

Monty was ok in the middle.

Really disappointed with LeRib coming back so out of shape. I had high hopes for him, he was our second pick and should be doing everything he can to push for a start. He's had a history of weight problems that he seemed to have addressed. Still a work in progress I think.

Not heard anything about Lich so I guess all is well and he will start, he needs to cut out a few penalties but he's fairly solid. 

Trent is everything that I want in a LT, one of the best.

 

Apart from TW, I think we have a fairly mediocre OL that will struggle if hit by any injuries.

 

 

[Pedro]

RT and OL depth.  The couple of 1sts I'm expecting for Cousins would, currently, be well spent on a day one starting RT and a stand out interior OL to add to what we have.

 

Time to pass deep at will plus a killer run game is hard to stop, and we're close.

 

Our O as a whole is looking good on the ground and through the air, against most teams, and has some crazy talent where you need it at QB and potentially TE is looking promising.  With our TEs and the good sized Garcon/Morgan/Hankerson we can put out a big group of pass catchers that can block well for our dangerous run game but also has big play potential in the pass game.  A good recipe for a division title, plus we have the game winners once we get to the off season.  No pressure...

[Johns Bass]

Penalties...

 

It was a problem last season (#3 in offensive penalty yards...#4 in offensive penalties...23rd in plays from scrimage). So far, not seeing any improvement. They weren't getting a slew of bad calls; just a lot of bad plays. 

[PeterMP]

WR and Garcon's toe.

 

I think Garcon is a good #1 (not really great), and if his toe gives him issues, then he slides.

 

And I don't think we even have a good #2.

[TSO]

No more penalties.

[Spitfire71]

Well, if Trent goes down, we're pretty well buggered, first of all.

 

My second concern is the health of Alfred Morris.  He acted as a 'closer' in several of the games we won toward the end of the year and really piled up the touches as a result.  He went for 335 carries last season, and a lot of those carries were plays where he got hit more than once.  First, guys didn't know that bringing one guy to try to tackle Alfred Morris is a bad idea... he'd get hit by one huge guy followed by another huge guy, and maybe if they were fortunate, a third big guy brought him down.  Then they started trying to swarm him and get 2 or 3 hats on him at once.  In any case, that's a crapload of shots to take, and RBs are often prone to down years after the sort of season Alfred had workload-wise.  I know Shanahan's got the Midas touch as far as running backs go, but given that none of the other running backs have distinguished themselves and most of them have injury issues of their own, if AlMo goes down for any extended period of time, we're in deep crap.  AlMo's like the bass player in the band.  He doesn't stand out and only the real fans know his name (as evidenced by the utter travesty of being left off the Pro Bowl team last year), but if he were gone, you'd know something's horribly wrong.

[MartinC]

The problem doesn't appear to be the third downs themselves.  Yes, the symptom is the failure on third downs, but the evidence indicates that the problem is the fact we ended up with a third down to begin with.  Bad execution in any human endevor is a streaky thing that builds upon itself.  In the Redskins' case, most of the time getting to third down indicates our execution on first and second was suspect and therefore it is likely that execution will still be suspect on third down.  My big concern is pure pass blocking to allow us to consitently go for the kill shot after we take the ball over between the -40 and th +30.

We averaged over 6 yards a play on offense last year which was the best in the NFL and the best average any Mike Shanhann offense has ever achieved - and he has had some historically great offenses going back to his days in SF with Steve Young and then Denver. You can look at just about any offensive stat you want to - points scored, DVOA, total yardage - and we were excellent last year. Anything apart from 3rd down conversion which was the one area we struggled in.

3rd down conversion is an issue and the biggest thing we need to improve on offense IMO.

However you are right to point out that improving 3rd down conversions is made up of improving other things - including being better on 1st and 2nd down to reduce the number of 3rd downs and staying out of 3rd and long. So just saying improving 3rd downs is one of our areas of concern is too simplistic IMO.

I would point to the need to develop our passing game independent of play action as being the biggest issue we need to develop on our offense. Part of that is the OLines ability to pass protect (RT being the glaring area that needs to improve in that respect but not the only area). Part of it is better play and more threat from our running backs in 3rd and passing downs - we lacked speed and pass catching threat in that area. Part of it is RGIII developing his ability to execute more complex reads (and I don't think he was bad in that area last year to start with) and part of it is play calling.

A huge part though will simply be getting Garçon and Fred Davis healthy and on the field all year.

[ADF]

Our offense was much better, when it came to third down percentage, as the season went on.  I think penalties were a huge factor.  In the beginning our team was one of the most penalized teams in the league.  Once those went down, third down percentage went up.  They were more on par with the better teams in the league.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

Well, if Trent goes down, we're pretty well buggered, first of all .....

 

Line of the year.  So painfully true. 

 

Hail. 

[Darth Tater]

The problem doesn't appear to be the third downs themselves.  Yes, the symptom is the failure on third downs, but the evidence indicates that the problem is the fact we ended up with a third down to begin with.  Bad execution in any human endevor is a streaky thing that builds upon itself.  In the Redskins' case, most of the time getting to third down indicates our execution on first and second was suspect and therefore it is likely that execution will still be suspect on third down.  My big concern is pure pass blocking to allow us to consitently go for the kill shot after we take the ball over between the -40 and th +30.

We averaged over 6 yards a play on offense last year which was the best in the NFL and the best average any Mike Shanhann offense has ever achieved - and he has had some historically great offenses going back to his days in SF with Steve Young and then Denver. You can look at just about any offensive stat you want to - points scored, DVOA, total yardage - and we were excellent last year. Anything apart from 3rd down conversion which was the one area we struggled in.

3rd down conversion is an issue and the biggest thing we need to improve on offense IMO.

However you are right to point out that improving 3rd down conversions is made up of improving other things - including being better on 1st and 2nd down to reduce the number of 3rd downs and staying out of 3rd and long. So just saying improving 3rd downs is one of our areas of concern is too simplistic IMO.

I would point to the need to develop our passing game independent of play action as being the biggest issue we need to develop on our offense. Part of that is the OLines ability to pass protect (RT being the glaring area that needs to improve in that respect but not the only area). Part of it is better play and more threat from our running backs in 3rd and passing downs - we lacked speed and pass catching threat in that area. Part of it is RGIII developing his ability to execute more complex reads (and I don't think he was bad in that area last year to start with) and part of it is play calling.

A huge part though will simply be getting Garçon and Fred Davis healthy and on the field all year.

Yes, we average a lot of yards per play and that is EXACTLTY why I said what I said.  Our problem was NOT third down, our problem was that when we got to a third down, that almost always meant we weren't executing to begin with.

Our offense was much better, when it came to third down percentage, as the season went on.  I think penalties were a huge factor.  In the beginning our team was one of the most penalized teams in the league.  Once those went down, third down percentage went up.  They were more on par with the better teams in the league.

If you look at the teams with the fewest conversion opportunities, you will find that we also had the fewest opportunities in the league and the teams that had nearly as few all had low conversion rates.  Again, the evidence indicates that the issue is that such teams usuallly would only get to third down because execution was down on that possesion.

[MartinC]

If you look at the teams with the fewest conversion opportunities, you will find that we also had the fewest opportunities in the league and the teams that had nearly as few all had low conversion rates.  Again, the evidence indicates that the issue is that such teams usuallly would only get to third down because execution was down on that possesion.

Ahhhh sorry, I missed your point. Your correct to say that we ranked dead last in the NFL in terms of the number of 3rd down conversions attempts per game - which is a very good thing. However I'm not sure that it then follows that because we did so well staying out of 3rd downs its logical we should be poor at converting them. Every offense faced with a 3rd down has failed to execute on 1st and 2nd down to an extent - it's then a question of degree.

To really get under that stat we would need to know the average yardage required on 3rd down to see if that had any impact on our conversion percentage. If we were looking at a lot of 3rd and long relative to the average for example.

[MattFancy]

My biggest concern on offense are the WRs. Yes Garcon is a beast when healthy, but he sounds like he won't be playing at 100% all season. Can he play through the foot injury all year and still be effective? Can Josh Morgan step up and be the #2 WR we really need? Can Moss keep putting together solid seasons even though he is getting up there in age? Can Hankerson finally get it figured out in his 3rd season? Will Aldrick Robinson develop into more than just a deep threat? And a bonus: Is Fred Davis back to his normal self?

 

If we can get consistent play from our WRs, our offense can be very potent. But if Garcon is hampered with injuries again, Moss shows his age, and none of the young guys step up, then we're putting even more pressure on RG3 to do it all.

[Skins Wingman]

im going to have to say penalties.  it seems like whenever we get some momentum, start driving down the field, we have a penalty and it ruins the rhythm and the drive.  dumb penalties at the worst time.  Our offense was good last year despite all the penalties.  We have the same personnel, so they should still put up good numbers, just need to limit the mistakes.

[darrelgreenie]

If you look at the teams with the fewest conversion opportunities, you will find that we also had the fewest opportunities in the league and the teams that had nearly as few all had low conversion rates.  Again, the evidence indicates that the issue is that such teams usuallly would only get to third down because execution was down on that possesion.

Ahhhh sorry, I missed your point. Your correct to say that we ranked dead last in the NFL in terms of the number of 3rd down conversions attempts per game - which is a very good thing. However I'm not sure that it then follows that because we did so well staying out of 3rd downs its logical we should be poor at converting them. Every offense faced with a 3rd down has failed to execute on 1st and 2nd down to an extent - it's then a question of degree.

To really get under that stat we would need to know the average yardage required on 3rd down to see if that had any impact on our conversion percentage. If we were looking at a lot of 3rd and long relative to the average for example.

I think it universally true that quality of execution on 1st & 2nd down effects 3rd down conversion rates.

But I don't think our performance on 3rd is caused by our relatively low number of 3rd down opportunities.

 

I think taking a closer look at our 3rd downs conversion rate would make for a good discussion.

Last year I noticed early in the season that Kyle/Mike didn't really 'try' to convert 3rd and long by letting Griffin drop back and read out his progressions. They would try to manufacture the 3rd down conversion through YAC via screen passes or a safe throw short of the sticks.

 

Early season 3rd down stats Tannehill, Griff and Luck from last year: 

http://es.redskins.com/topic/355382-2012-rookie-qb-discussion/page-3

Tannehill......37 attempts/24 comp 64.9% 257 yards 7.3 YPA

Griffin...........25 attempts/16 comp 64.0% 145 yards 5.8 YPA

Luck.............21 attempts/8 comp 38.1% 125 yards 7.1 YPA             

 

The YPA difference imo accuratelt reflects the difference in playcalling mentally and results.

As I watched over the course of the season my feeling was reinforced the playcalling on 3rd and long was conservative.

The reasons? I speculate:

 

(a) protecting a rookie QB from exotic defenses/protecting a rookie QB from Tyler Polumbus/Griffin himself not taking chances downfield (probably as a by product)

 

( lack of pass protection

[ADF]

3rd Down Percentage per game.

 

vs Saints - 26%
vs Rams - 30%
vs Bengals - 25%
vs Bucs - 18%
vs Falcons - 11%
vs Vikings - 50%
vs Giants - 46%
vs Steelers - 25%
vs Panthers - 20%
vs Eagles - 45%
vs Cowboys - 50%
vs Giants - 50%
vs Ravens - 36%
vs Browns - 46%
vs Eagles - 50%
vs Cowboys - 45%

 

For comparison, here are the top five teams in 3rd down percentage from last season.

Patriots - 49%
Falcons - 45%
Broncos - 45%
Saints - 44%
Cowboys - 44%

 

They started off so horrifically in the first five games  but it really picked up as the season wore on for a myriad of reasons.

[RandyHolt]

Last year we had no one to spell Morris. Royster our only other HB last year, only had 23 rush attempts!  And he was our 3rd down back too. i do not think defenses even game planned for him.  

 

Royster was forced into games anytime that Morris needed a breather. With Royster in, it was obvious he would not run the ball.  He did ok in pass protection. 

 

Late in the year Royster contributed positive plays (was healthier perhaps) but think we need an upgrade at 2RB/hands back. At points last year, we left Morris in on 3rd downs, and I was thrilled. Shanny I believe said he would Almo decide when he needed a breather but it was just a game or 2 I think.  

 

We ended up using WR's as RB's more than I had ever seen before. Pitch to Morgan.... meh.

 

Helu can help out if he can stay healthy but after that think it is slim pickens. 

[KuNiT21]

For me it's a few things.

 

Garcon - We went what 8-0 when Garcon returned to the field?  He makes our offense instantly better and I think RG3's reads are alot easier when Garcon consistently just gets wide open.

 

Trent Williams - He has to stay healthy.  Dude is an absolute monster and gave up what 0 sacks to the NFC East?  Sure, DWare wasn't 100% but still, Trent Cole, JPP....that's impressive.

 

Big Leads - It's still absolutely frustrating when we completely **** on teams and they end up coming back.  The Rams game had me very irritated.  We were smoking them and that game should have been 50+ - 17.  Saints/Vikings game I believe we were also up by a marginal lead and let them back in the games.  

 

Orakpo/Kerrigan - Both need to be on the field at the same time.  People can preach that Orakpo is overrated all they want, this defense is instantly 2x better with both rushing the QB.

 

I'm not really concerned with the offense at all nor 3rd down conversions.  Our offense was unreal last year and play calling was excellent.  It's just a matter of Garcon/RG3/Trent staying healthy all season.  Our defense still concerns me if we lose our pass rush. 

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

I think it universally true that quality of execution on 1st & 2nd down effects 3rd down conversion rates.

But I don't think our performance on 3rd is caused by our relatively low number of 3rd down opportunities.

 

I think taking a closer look at our 3rd downs conversion rate would make for a good discussion.

Last year I noticed early in the season that Kyle/Mike didn't really 'try' to convert 3rd and long by letting Griffin drop back and read out his progressions. They would try to manufacture the 3rd down conversion through YAC via screen passes or a safe throw short of the sticks.

 

Early season 3rd down stats Tannehill, Griff and Luck from last year: 

http://es.redskins.com/topic/355382-2012-rookie-qb-discussion/page-3

Tannehill......37 attempts/24 comp 64.9% 257 yards 7.3 YPA

Griffin...........25 attempts/16 comp 64.0% 145 yards 5.8 YPA

Luck.............21 attempts/8 comp 38.1% 125 yards 7.1 YPA             

 

The YPA difference imo accuratelt reflects the difference in playcalling mentally and results.

As I watched over the course of the season my feeling was reinforced the playcalling on 3rd and long was conservative.

The reasons? I speculate:

 

(a) protecting a rookie QB from exotic defenses/protecting a rookie QB from Tyler Polumbus/Griffin himself not taking chances downfield (probably as a by product)

 

( lack of pass protection

 

I also feel like it was conservative for a reason.  We had a great run game, and were putting up a lot of points, enough points that I think the coaches just said, "Alright, let's try and win with overall better field position through very few turnovers."  Look at Andrew Luck, he was getting much riskier on 3rd downs to try and convert because he had to.  The result was a ton of interceptions and he led the league in potential interceptions dropped by defenders.

 

It's different ways to go about it, the difference is that Luck was forced into his role and had some 'dumb luck' to help him out while we picked a safer alternative because our rushing game was good enough to keep us scoring.

 

Here's something else, I felt like with the emphasis on YAC guys last season, we wanted shorter completions where the WR can pick up a few extra yards to cross the line and get the 1st.  But Morgan was dealing with his ankle, Garcon was hurt for half the season, we had to limit Moss's snaps (preventing wear and tear with his age), Fred Davis missed 10 games, and Robinson/Hankerson/Paul weren't really ready yet.

 

Edit:  Also, this season we have better health, and added Jordan Reed.  We should be able to pick up some extra 1st simply due to athleticism.

[Rufus T Firefly]

Simple- depth at LT. People talk about Polumbus, and he's far from great, but I think we are solid enough with the starting 5. And, at 4 positions, I'm pretty confident the drop-off won't be too great.

 

But if Williams goes down, batten down the hatches.