Conservative Gruden

[Skinsinparadise]

23 minutes ago, 757SeanTaylor21 said:

 

 

So...that article without reading it is saying that jay stays medium?

 

To me the operative point of it is this.  I've made the point a bunch of times.  I liked for example Bruce Arians as ahead coach but do I think he can roll with the punches in an organization like this - I suspect not.  Jay isn't perfect.  I'd like to see more consistency among other things.  But I think some people undervalue the point below. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/after-two-conservative-games-redskins-offense-gets-aggressive-in-win-over-green-bay/2018/09/23/ebc3959e-bf63-11e8-90c9-23f963eea204_story.html?utm_term=.d4c741c25790

The entire world of the Washington Redskins can take on all of the NFL’s most extreme tendencies, including its nastiest and tensest, and exaggerate them. For most of the past 25 seasons, the franchise has often been a nightmare of stress, internal team turmoil, back-stabbing, changing personnel and total rebuilds. For many coaches and players, reputations arrive in tact, then depart shredded.

And then there is Coach Jay Gruden, who is somehow entirely different.

[zoony]

Grudens playcalling with a lead is awful.  We saw it in the Cardinals game, we saw it yesterday.  At the start of the 2nd half he immediately tries to start running out the clock

 

Here is what frustrates me more than anything... passes are EASY when the other team sells out against the run.  When it is 1st and 10 and they stack 8 guys in the box plus a cheating safety, a quick PA pass can gaing 30 yards.  We see none of that.

The entire second half of both games was run, run, pass, punt.

 

This **** is not gonna fly against good teams.  Lucky Kendricks and Cobb both dropped key passes.

 

Gruden ran on first down in EVERY SINGLE 2ND HALF SERIES

[zoony]

8 minutes ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

I think a lot of us were having flashbacks to the Saints game. You can't just stop your offense against Hall of Fame QBs. It may have worked out yesterday but that does not mean the strategy was not flawed.  

 

Wont work against the Saints or any playoff team

[Wyndorf25]

11 minutes ago, zoony said:

Grudens playcalling with a lead is awful.  We saw it in the Cardinals game, we saw it yesterday.  At the start of the 2nd half he immediately tries to start running out the clock

 

Here is what frustrates me more than anything... passes are EASY when the other team sells out against the run.  When it is 1st and 10 and they stack 8 guys in the box plus a cheating safety, a quick PA pass can gaing 30 yards.  We see none of that.

The entire second half of both games was run, run, pass, punt.

 

This **** is not gonna fly against good teams.  Lucky Kendricks and Cobb both dropped key passes.

 

Gruden ran on first down in EVERY SINGLE 2ND HALF SERIES

It's truly maddening. I am surprised at how unaware Gruden is of his predictability. 

[Darrell Green Fan]

3 minutes ago, Wyndorf25 said:

It's truly maddening. I am surprised at how unaware Gruden is of his predictability. 

 

This is a man who continued to throw fade patterns despite very clear evidence that he did not have the personnel to execute the play. He is very stubborn and that's frustrating. Here we are after a huge win that, for now anyway, saved their season and this problem has taken a lot of the joy away.   If we were all honest we would recognize that Green Bay lost way more than Washington won.  

[Bigmuss1]

1 hour ago, Burgold said:

Agreed. I also think the Packers 2nd half drops were negated by the Redskins' second half penalties. Both stalled drives. Both were self inflicted wounds (except for the one right after the Matthews call in which I think the refs threw a make-up call in to negate their bad flag.)

 Agree

19 minutes ago, zoony said:

Grudens playcalling with a lead is awful.  We saw it in the Cardinals game, we saw it yesterday.  At the start of the 2nd half he immediately tries to start running out the clock

 

Here is what frustrates me more than anything... passes are EASY when the other team sells out against the run.  When it is 1st and 10 and they stack 8 guys in the box plus a cheating safety, a quick PA pass can gaing 30 yards.  We see none of that.

The entire second half of both games was run, run, pass, punt.

 

This **** is not gonna fly against good teams.  Lucky Kendricks and Cobb both dropped key passes.

 

Gruden ran on first down in EVERY SINGLE 2ND HALF SERIES

Uhhhhhhhh...check Grudens record when he has a lead.

[SBboundbaby]

playaction on first down when AP is back there will get the defense a double thinking on what they should be doing.

[Wyndorf25]

16 minutes ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

 

This is a man who continued to throw fade patterns despite very clear evidence that he did not have the personnel to execute the play. He is very stubborn and that's frustrating. Here we are after a huge win that, for now anyway, saved their season and this problem has taken a lot of the joy away.   If we were all honest we would recognize that Green Bay lost way more than Washington won.  

 

Well, in fairness to Gruden and the team, they did execute very well in the first half. It's just frustrating when Gruden takes his foot off the pedal and goes into run the clock mode waaaaay to early.

 

Gruden should learn to start calling plays that are out of character for him in order to catch teams by surprise. It's ok to aggressively put a team away and you would think that would be his mindset given that he is a former QB, but apparently it isn't. 

[Darrell Green Fan]

28 minutes ago, Wyndorf25 said:

 

Well, in fairness to Gruden and the team, they did execute very well in the first half. It's just frustrating when Gruden takes his foot off the pedal and goes into run the clock mode waaaaay to early.

 

Gruden should learn to start calling plays that are out of character for him in order to catch teams by surprise. It's ok to aggressively put a team away and you would think that would be his mindset given that he is a former QB, but apparently it isn't. 

 

I think it's obvious that we are talking about the second half. I had to laugh at that first TD.  Coaches say they never listen to the fans or media but I've seen many examples where he appeared to do just that .  He got criticized for not running in the past and the very next game they ran. They got drilled for not throwing deep and they do on the first serious, into double coverage so I'm not buying that this week the defense allowed the opportunity unlike the first  2 games.  

[TD_washingtonredskins]

2 hours ago, Riggo#44 said:

 

We had one 1st down prior to the Moreau's strip, and that should have been a sack. We had about 20 total 2nd half yards at that point too. The Packers had 2 crucial, crucial drops, that probably would have lead to scores.

I'm not blaming Gruden, but we seemed to get complacent in the 2nd half and it should have cost us more than it did.

 

Not to sound like Cousins...but those are OUTCOMES not PROCESS and many of the outcomes are very much out of Gruden's control in many ways. Even though we handed off almost exclusively on first down, this wasn't like the past. We were getting 2-4 yards on those plays which is pretty decent. 

 

The first drive had two runs for five yards then the ineffective pass out to Thompson. You could nitpick about running, but we had done so successfully. Also, there have been plenty of times when a swing pass out of Thompson is considered brilliant because he's so good after the catch. 

 

The second drive was odd...we got bailed out on the sack/penalty (on a second-and-seven shotgun pass, by they way). Then we held to put ourselves in first-and-twenty...we passed on first down (incomplete) and ran on second down (probably the most conservative play call given how much game was still left). Then another penalty and ultimately a passing play on third down which Smith never was able to throw. 

 

The third drive we started with a four yard run, but then had penalties and two incompletions...nothing too conservative there. 

 

The fourth drive was a bad first down run, a creative second down run (Crowder), and then an incompletion. At that point, we took nearly 2 minutes off the clock (from 7:30 down to under 6:00 so I think we were certainly playing the clock game by then). 

[GoDeep81]

Conservative/Predictable.. I can take conservative play calling, just don't be so damn predictable.. Even the fans knew the 1st down run up the gut was coming.. Soft D, I guess is what the odds say to do? Just glad Rogers wasn't 100% and his receivers dropped some timely balls.. 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Let me be clear too...it's fine to nitpick that Gruden should probably pass on first down a little more. But I do think an entire thread devoted to our coach being run-heavy (especially when many were concerned that this coach was FAR TOO PASS-HAPPY and known for abandoning the run as an OC) in the rain with an 11-18 point lead is peak Redskin fan overreaction. 

[Riggo#44]

23 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

Not to sound like Cousins...but those are OUTCOMES not PROCESS and many of the outcomes are very much out of Gruden's control in many ways. Even though we handed off almost exclusively on first down, this wasn't like the past. We were getting 2-4 yards on those plays which is pretty decent. 

 

The first drive had two runs for five yards then the ineffective pass out to Thompson. You could nitpick about running, but we had done so successfully. Also, there have been plenty of times when a swing pass out of Thompson is considered brilliant because he's so good after the catch. 

 

The second drive was odd...we got bailed out on the sack/penalty (on a second-and-seven shotgun pass, by they way). Then we held to put ourselves in first-and-twenty...we passed on first down (incomplete) and ran on second down (probably the most conservative play call given how much game was still left). Then another penalty and ultimately a passing play on third down which Smith never was able to throw. 

 

The third drive we started with a four yard run, but then had penalties and two incompletions...nothing too conservative there. 

 

The fourth drive was a bad first down run, a creative second down run (Crowder), and then an incompletion. At that point, we took nearly 2 minutes off the clock (from 7:30 down to under 6:00 so I think we were certainly playing the clock game by then). 

 

When I say complacent--that means everyone. I am not one to blame solely Gruden, Smith, or any particular group. We played sloppy in the 2nd half--stupid penalties, giving up multiple third down conversions--some of them 10 yards or more. We were fantastic in the 1st half and awful in the second. Like the 2nd half of the Cards game and the Colts game, we rested on our laurels until Moreau's strip. It seems to be a common theme with this group.

 

On a positive note, I will say our front 7 is fantastic. I love that group. Allen, Payne, and Ionnaidis were unstoppable--Allen in particular.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

@Riggo#44 that's fair...it's very tough to argue that there isn't a tapering-off affect in the second half of games. Hopefully it's something we can manage to fix. We have had plenty of good second halves under Gruden, so we'll just need to hope things click a few times this year. 

[Riggo#44]

5 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

@Riggo#44 that's fair...it's very tough to argue that there isn't a tapering-off affect in the second half of games. Hopefully it's something we can manage to fix. We have had plenty of good second halves under Gruden, so we'll just need to hope things click a few times this year. 

 

As you pointed out, I believe it was more execution than it was play calling. On the Matthews BS call, I saw on twitter somewhere that CT was WIDE open and would have had a ~40-50 yrd gain, possibly a TD, if Matthews had been picked up. That's purely execution. Likewise we dodged a huge bullet on the Kendrick drop. That should have been a huge conversion, probably 1st and 10 on the Skins 45-40 yard line, and every ounce of momentum on the Packers side.

[mistertim]

5 hours ago, SBboundbaby said:

playaction on first down when AP is back there will get the defense a double thinking on what they should be doing.

 

TOO RISKY! TOO RISKY! MUST RUN UP THE GUT WITH LEAD!

 

5 hours ago, GoDeep81 said:

Conservative/Predictable.. I can take conservative play calling, just don't be so damn predictable.. Even the fans knew the 1st down run up the gut was coming.. Soft D, I guess is what the odds say to do? Just glad Rogers wasn't 100% and his receivers dropped some timely balls.. 

 

Agreed. There is a difference between being relatively cautious and not taking unnecessary risks when you have a good lead and being so conservative and predictable in your playcalling that you might as well just take a knee three times in a row and punt. 

[joeken24]

So Gruden gets pass happy in the second half, it doesn't work out and the Packers come back and make it close or they win (and I break my TV).

OR

Gruden plays conservative, has numerous 3 and outs trying to run the clock, the defense gets winded and the Packers offense drops 24 on us in the second half to win 34-31 (that sounds familiar).

 

Either way, Gruden is a bum, right?

 

Here's something......both scenarios have played out with this team over the years. My suggestion would be to play the style of play that worked in the first half. What a ****ing concept! It seems that Gruden doesn't do that. There always seems to be a let down. Look, I know this is not Playstation Madden '19 where you can just blow teams out on the Pro level - its not realistic  But its evident that something changes and we're always going from glee to threatened gloom. For once I want to enjoy my victory glass of Jack with a nice calm heart beat.

[Warhead36]

Well the Steelers just might blow a 17 point 4th quarter lead. Sometimes playing conservatively is the smart strategy.