The "defend Kyle S." Thread

[RandyHolt]

I am not sure how much we can blame the OL when the coaches call plays that expose our own weaknesses. We do not try OL backups even though opponents move backups into their OL almost weekly it seems, and our defense cannot exploit the presumed lessor player.

 

Eventually, coaches have to be held accountable for not using players to their strengths.

 

Did RG3 get to use his legs often in Baylor on passing plays, or was he more of a pocket passer; can he throw on the run, or not. Was he using his legs in Baylor doing the things that made Kyle and Mike enamored with him?

 

I refuse to support Kyle and Mike's insistence on making him a pocket passer behind this OL.

[Popeman38]

17 carries 88 yds 1 TD

 

9 carries 51 yds 0 TD (2 on the last drive)

 

I don't care how inovative you are as a play caller, you ride that horse into the ground. Morris should have had 40 carries last night. You don't run him 4 times on the first drive of the 3rd and ten abandon the running game. THAT is what has allowed the Skins to blow double digit, second half leads each of the last 3 weeks. THINK ABOUT THAT. We were up 21-7 on Den, 24-14 on SD, and 27-14 on MIN.

[Bigmuss1]

I understand how everyone gets upset with Kyle, and lord knows I scream at the tv too. That being said, this offense is getting better every week, our Qb is progressing back to his healthy knee status, we are running the ball and scoring points. What perplexes me is how bad the D really is, I realize capgate has crippled the safety position, and most "starters" on this team should be playing special teams, but come on!!!! You are professional football players, you should at least improve a little bit each week.. I don't, completely frustrated

[Popeman38]

RG3 said the call on 4th was if they blitz, the pass goes to Moss.  It was not a progression thing.  Why not make a taller player the hot read?  Or, better prepare for the blitz. How about a rollout run / pass option?

 

Kyle sprinted out 3 in the first half, but then the play was across his body to Garcon, a very tough throw. That

 

While I didn't like Morris out for the final drive, he did get his 10 yard run before exiting, That is Helu time.

 

Kyle did better overall, but still seems fixated on thinking the interior can hold up all game long. He made Robert sit in the pocket in the 2nd and it was a complete failure. Let the man use his legs.  Up 13 may seem like the time to keep up with his perfect pocket passing preachings, but it clearly was not. RG3 once again took a lot of gut shots. Kyle seems to not notice.

IF they blitz? It was 4th and goal with 30 sec left. We emptied the backfield. The Vikings were going to blitz. You basically just admitted that Kyle called, on the most important play of the season, a one route pass pattern where the QB has only 1 option: a fade to a 5'9" WR. 

 

You have the most athletic QB in the league. a PA boot walks into the EZ. A run-pass option route scores. Instead, we motion our RB out of the backfield declaring to the D we are passing, allowing the D to get 8 men to the LOS, and limited ourselves to 1 option. ****ing moronic.

[Cooleyfan1993]

Yea, if we blow double digit leads 3 straight weeks...I'm pretty sure that falls on Kyle. And haslett too. Ughh. SO frustrated

[RandyHolt]

IF they blitz? It was 4th and goal with 30 sec left. We emptied the backfield. The Vikings were going to blitz. You basically just admitted that Kyle called, on the most important play of the season, a one route pass pattern where the QB has only 1 option: a fade to a 5'9" WR. 

 

You have the most athletic QB in the league. a PA boot walks into the EZ. A run-pass option route scores. Instead, we motion our RB out of the backfield declaring to the D we are passing, allowing the D to get 8 men to the LOS, and limited ourselves to 1 option. ****ing moronic.

 

Agree with it all.  The way he compensates for a weak interior / likely blitz is by making Moss the hot and only play. Keeping it simple for Robert is actually making it easy for defenses. The defense literally had to do nothing there more than blitz and we are turning to our 4th or 5th best pass option.

 

That is a play we could have shown a run look or run it. Put Helu in the back field. Let RG3 use his legs, he can run too.

 

If we are going to run the fade, why not throw it to the only guy that appears to be a prototype fade guy, Jordan Reed.  Reed and Garcon are killing defenses, yet in crunch time, Kyle often turns to Paulsen or Moss, who may have more drops than catches this year.

[ZRagone]

I agree 100%.  Offense looked great running the ball the entire first half.  But with a 10 point lead what do we do?  Come out and run a bunch of pass plays that gets RG3 sacked.  In the 4th quarter we had two 3 and outs with Morris not touching the ball at all.  And with 136 yards on the day and after scoring on 3 rushing tds the week before, we call 0 run plays on that final series?  Dumb.

 

See this post.

 

This post is what's called "Factually Untrue". This is a picture perfect example of someone not dealing with reality but simply dealing with the stereotypes in their own mind.

 

In the first half we had 21 passes and 19 rushes. In the second half we had 20 passes and 17 rushes. Both are a 1.1 : 1 ratio of passing to running.

 

We ran the ball with Morris at least once in EVERY possession of the 2nd half.  We ran the ball with Morris multiple times in every possession that wasn't a 3 and out in the 2nd half.

 

On the final series we had 7 rushes and 7 passes. Two rushes to Morris early on, two to Helu as we went "turbo", 2 to Robert, and 1 to DY. One of which was inside the 10 yard line.

 

Suggesting we ran more in the first half than the second is just factually untrue. Suggesting that we didn't run Morris on either 3 and out is just factually untrue. Suggesting we didn't run the ball once on the final series is just factually untrue.

 

Pretty much everything about your post isn't just bad opinion, it's factually untrue statements.

[Voice_of_Reason]

By not running the ball with the lead in the 2nd half, He 1) gave Alfred an in-game vacation 2) lengthened the game to make it fair for Minnesota. Kyle is a true gentleman.

It's all I got.

This is factually incorrect.

Which is all I've got.

[redskins4ever28]

This might sound crazy, especially for how young he is, but if you want my opinion, Id fire Mike and make Kyle HC.

Hear me out:

No Coach has ever won a SB with 2 diff teams/QBs except for Gibbs. Mikes not bad, but we need the hungry Kyle. Kyles offense has been fantastic. I dont care what anyone says, he gets guys open and knows what hes doing. Yes, his playcalling can be questionable at times. But if you implement a real defensive coordinator on this team, wed at least be 5-4.

 

See this post.

 

This post is what's called "Factually Untrue". This is a picture perfect example of someone not dealing with reality but simply dealing with the stereotypes in their own mind.

 

In the first half we had 18 passes and 18 rushes. In the second half we ran the ball 18 times and threw the ball 19 times.

 

We ran the ball with Morris at least once in EVERY possession of the 2nd half.  We ran the ball with Morris multiple times in every possession that wasn't a 3 and out in the 2nd half.

 

On the final series we had 7 rushes and 7 passes. Two rushes to Morris early on, two to Helu as we went "turbo", 2 to Robert, and 1 to DY. One of which was inside the 10 yard line.

 

Suggesting we ran more in the first half than the second is just factually untrue. Suggesting that we didn't run Morris on either 3 and out is just factually untrue. Suggesting we didn't run the ball once on the final series is just factually untrue.

 

Pretty much everything about your post isn't just bad opinion, it's factually untrue statements.

I think what a lot of people are saying here is that even tho we ran the ball just as much in the 2nd half as we did in the first, with a 13 pt lead, you need to run much more. But good point and fun fact showing we did run the same amount of times.

[StephenDavis]

I can't fathom how anyone can look at last night's game and think Kyle was the issue.

Can't fathom?????????  I can't fathom how anyone can look at last night's second half and not think Kyle was the issue.  We scored 3 points. 3 points in the second half.  Which means the Vikings made adjustments and we did not.  A football game is 60 minutes long.  I don't care if you put up 50 points in the first half, if you only put up 3 in the second half and lose then it doesn't matter.  The offenses job is to outscore the opponent.  We failed.

[KuNiT21]

IMO, it's execution more then playcalling.  Our TE's/WR's in general have been dropping WIDE OPEN passes every single week.  Logan Paulsen's last night, Garcon's drop (although he is the least of our concern I'm not hammering him), ect.  Moss last week wide open in the endzone.  Nobody is helping RG3 when he needs to be dug out.  We are not a good football team.  Special teams is the worst I've ever seen, gives us no help every single week.  Kyle's playcalling is suspect at times (week 1 calling a pitch play on our own 2 yard line) but our execution is not there.  I wonder how many people who are calling the 4th down playcall asinine would call Kyle a playcalling god if Moss caught that and we ended up winning again in OT or something?

[ZRagone]

Can we STOP trying to compare the goal line plays from this week to San Diego's. No, they're not "the same".

 

Last week San Diego had TWO timeouts in it's pocket on about the half yard line. They run their TINY running back on first down up the middle. Do an obvious passing play on second down. And then do a spread shotgun passing play on play three. None of the passes were reasonably close to being caught if memory serves.

 

This week for us....

 

1st Quarter. We run our power back on 1st down and he loses yardage, putting us right at the 1. We then try to work play action, capitalizing on the success of our powe back. The Defense CLAMPS down on the middle again, but the outside guy manages to play the bootleg well and forces an incomplete. 3rd down we spread it out and the ball hits the TE directly in the hands and he drops it.

 

There's nothing wrong with anyone going "Just run Morris 3 times there", but there's nothing wrong with Kyle's play call choice either. He ran it first and Minny showed itself stout. He smartly used the run threat to play action, but Minny had good defense again while also showing they were selling out for the middle. The play on 3rd down was absolutely drawn up correctly for a TD and the failure of scoring was singularly on execution, not play calling htere.

 

4th Quarter. Unlike San Diego, we had zero time outs so there was less potential to reasonably run the ball. Unlike San Diego, we were on the 4 yard line not inside the 1. It's not a comparable situation. Even then....the first play call at the 4 was a touchdown if Reed holds onto the ball or there's no clear holding. The second play call is a potential touchdown if Garcon holds on and stretches, or puts us at the 1 where a run may be more reasonable. I agree the fade to Moss wasn't the best of calls, but again we're talking about a second toe tap here making the difference.

 

So an ENTIRELY different situation than San Deigo faced...but even still, all three play calls had the balls in the hands of open recievers primed for a TD but the players didn't execute.

 

Do I think Kyle called a perfect game yesterday? No. But he called a good game over all, and even the places where you can nit pick it's largely in hindsight after watching the results of players not executing.

 

Paulsen holds onto a ball that hits his hands...Garcon or Reed hold onto balls that are basically in their hands....and suddenly no one says a peep this week about Kyle. He can't actually CATCH the passes himself.

[steve09ru]

I always see, 'they abandoned the run in the 2nd half' so that people can place blame on Kyle.  However, if you actually look at it, RG3 was sacked on back to back drives (3 total) there is also that holding penalty in there to.  And within those 2 drives, they still ran the ball, it's just that you can't run it when you are staring at 1st and 20, 3rd and 16, etc.  The fact is, they continued to run the ball but drives weren't sustained due to the sacks so we ended up punting.  The drives we punted included a 3rd and 3 (sack), 2nd and 6 (sack), and high incomplete pass to Garcon that he probably should have caught on a 3rd and 2.  Throw in the would be 2nd and 1 (holding) and there's your drive killers, not the playcalling.

[skinzdar55]

See this post.

This post is what's called "Factually Untrue". This is a picture perfect example of someone not dealing with reality but simply dealing with the stereotypes in their own mind.

In the first half we had 18 passes and 18 rushes. In the second half we ran the ball 18 times and threw the ball 19 times.

We ran the ball with Morris at least once in EVERY possession of the 2nd half. We ran the ball with Morris multiple times in every possession that wasn't a 3 and out in the 2nd half.

On the final series we had 7 rushes and 7 passes. Two rushes to Morris early on, two to Helu as we went "turbo", 2 to Robert, and 1 to DY. One of which was inside the 10 yard line.

Suggesting we ran more in the first half than the second is just factually untrue. Suggesting that we didn't run Morris on either 3 and out is just factually untrue. Suggesting we didn't run the ball once on the final series is just factually untrue.

Pretty much everything about your post isn't just bad opinion, it's factually untrue statements.

Great post!

My whole reason for starting this thread was to try and bring some rational thought to this subject. God knows there are enough members in our rabid fanbase, who have unbelievably unrealistic expectations for our team. So much so that their opinions can be grossly distorted to where what some decide to post is just simply untrue. I have stated multiple times that Kyle has had his faults but he has been in control of the only unit on this team that has had much success over the last season and a half.

Thanks for a well thought out, FACTUAL post!

[ZRagone]

I think what a lot of people are saying here is that even tho we ran the ball just as much in the 2nd half as we did in the first, with a 13 pt lead, you need to run much more. But good point and fun fact showing we did run the same amount of times.

 

I think you absolutely could make an argument that we should have ran the ball more. Granted, I think that's questionable as that lead was not present for 3 of our 5 possessions in the second half however.

 

I think you could also make an argument that while we continued to run, Morris should've gotten a few more carries rather than running RG. You could even argue that some of those "borderline" yardage times, like 3rd and 3, where we passed that we should've ran the ball.

 

But the problem is, a lot of people aren't SAYING what you're saying. Maybe they're thinking it. Maybe it's what they actually mean. But what many are SAYING is that we abandoned the run (not true), or that we forgot about Morris (not true), or that we had possessoins that we just didn't run (not true).

 

There's reasonable arguments grounded in fact that CAN be made...but that isn't what's being done in many of the posts.

[KingDinka]

The problem is not on offense. For the most part this team put up a lot of points and march down the field quite easily. The defense is the only problem at this moment and it was the same way last year too. Many people thought all we needed to do is to get Arakpo back and everything would be fine. We need to beef up the front 7.

[Redskins Ruckus]

People need to stop using logic. Emotions are the best path to conclusions!

 

Kyle's play-calling was not the reason we lost this game. Sure, we can point out a few bone-headed plays, but hindsight is 20/20. We should have never been in a position to lose the game in the first place. I'm looking at you Defense.

[grego]

  Throw in the would be 2nd and 1 (holding) and there's your drive killers, not the playcalling.

 

 

i partially agree, but the frustrating, inexcusable part is knowing our weaknesses. straight drops are a risky call with this line. kyles got to find an answer, whether its move the pocket, whatever. 

 

our line just cant block well on these kinds of straight drops and the oc at some point has to account for that.

. I'm looking at you Defense.

 

 

abysmal performance by the D. but the second half collapse of the O didnt help last night. 

[skins island connection]

 Personnaly, I can't defend Kyle, but I really can't condemn him either.

 

 I wasn't a big fan of Kyle coming here to begin with; I thought his lack of experience would be a deterrant to the offense. His stint in Houston was with a beast receiver and a ground game with Foster, so he had toys to play with there.

 

 He does seem to get lost in the moment at times on playcalling; situational tendencies become predictable, at times very suspect choices in the play called, but it also falls on the offense as well. Execution is key for ANYTHING to be successful, and thats what is missing.  Receivers not on the same page with QB; blame actually goes to all of them, including the OC, being it is his job to ensure the offensive players on all on the same page. The only aspect of the offense where there's no issues, and thats the running game.

 

 But, with every meltdown, there is always a sacrificial lamb, and the OC has to step up and take the blame for it, but also has to find a remedy for it also. The problems run alot deeper than Kyle, they run on Griffin who does stare down receivers alot more than usual, seems to be lost at times in the pocket, overthrows, poor clock management [ if you can tag him with that ] and poor decision-making at times.

 These are all correctable problems, but lets not use the 2nd year sophomore slump coming off injury excuse list to cover for him; he has to stop talking a good game and start playing them. Again, Griffin isn't THE problem, but he's certainly not the answer to all of them.

 

 Kyle has to find a way to get the receivers and QB on the same page, working on signals/audibles as well as receivers recognizing when the QB is in trouble or blitzing situations where one can run a hot route. One play last night appeared everyone was running a go route against a blitz, subsequential sack.

 Problems like that should not exist; this is where the OC has to have everyone on the same page.

[DaveMason]

To be a good playcaller, you need to be able to understand what your team can execute and what it can't. You can defend Kyle by saying "it was a good playcall because the receiver is open!" but if the line can't protect the QB, and the QB can't make accurate throws, and the receivers can't catch...then maybe going pass-happy isn't the best idea! 

 

The run game was working. Morris was getting 5+ yards every time he touched the ball. They should have ran until it stopped working. Instead, they went for lower-percentage plays.

[darrelgreenie]

The OP suggests a discussion about Kyle and the offense but without the details?

That's a good way to defend something; exclude the facts outright and just toss empty rhetoric.

[HogNose]

I just want one answer from Kyle. Why abandon the run game in the 2nd half when all is going well?  He did it in the Denver game also.  It's so god damn frustrating! 

[Popeman38]

He didn't abandon the run last night. He just didn't run enough. Balanced in the 1st half to build a lead? Check. All he had to do was keep running in the 2nd half to tire out the defense (20 minutes on the field in the 1st half) and set up some dagger PA passes. Instead, he throws the ball too much. And we blow a double digit lead for the 3rd week in a row.

 

And we all know Has & Burns should have been ****canned weeks ago, so there is no use bringing them up.

[skinzdar55]

The OP suggests a discussion about Kyle and the offense but without the details?

That's a good way to defend something; exclude the facts outright and just toss empty rhetoric.

I do admit to saying that I wouldn't go into detail about the 3 problems that I felt have hurt this team but I thought that mentioning them combined with talking about the success the offense has had since the start of last year would be a good place to start. Not taking a shot at you but what detail do I need to bring up that those facts don't explain themselves? In 13 losses over that time there have been more than a few games where the offense scored more than enough to win a game in the NFL. Not talking about you, but the expectation that some have of scoring 30+ a game is ridiculous. There is a difference between wanting that to happen and expecting it. Hell, I want them to score 50 a game but that's not going to happen. We already know that there is going to have to be a major overhaul for the D and Teams to improve this team. Why blow up the unit that has had success during said time?

[Taylor703]

4th ranked offense, 31st ranked defense.  Naturally the fans blame the offensive coordinator for losses.