Game balls

Me, for not turning it off at halftime!:newsmile24:

 

Hoover just came to play. In addition to the conversions and TD, first time Hoover carried (pass reception), he put a lick on the tackler that could be heard over the mic. I liked. But there was something I doubt many people remember where he saved us a turnover deep in our end. 2nd down @ 9:xx in the 2nd quarter, around our 30 yl Barber tipped a pass intended for Smitty and #26 (Allen) was about to snag it but Hoover laid him out and it fell incomplete. Really smart play, not going for the ball himself. We were already down 7, I felt it was huge.

 

yeah I remarked that at the time also. Very heady.

Funny, Hoover's our short yardage back now. Would like to see him behind a FB, though. Always sneaking on a quick handoff won't work when we're not playing a smallish D that's spaced pretty wide on the line.

 

For what it's worth, Miami has also struggled mightily with their running game and in short yardage have actually gone to lining up Ronnie Brown as the fullback and running him like we did Hoover. The benefit is that the back gets to the line more quickly and doesn't give the linebackers time to penetrate or fill gaps, but I agree with magnus, it's not going to work a lot. In fact, I really expected Tampa Bay to figure us out considering how often we were going to that.

 

Peppers, Hoov and Smitty.

I was chanting "Old School" about half way thru. About the only way we were getting first downs was thru Mangum and Hoov when we were really struggling.

Hennings got to take some heat for the third down slapping weve been taking. Getting yourselves in 3rd and longs and running the old draw? Somethings gotta give. Playcalling kinda sucked there early, running sweeps on 3rd and short on Tampa, didnt like that at all. Weve always had our most success attacking them head on. I dont know if our Oline is really that bad or if Foster just keeps running into traffic, he looked like a pinball out there.

 

That happened once last night. It's obviously not even close to a cause of our third down problems, so I think you're just looking to indulge old grudges.

 

How can you say running our most predictable play on 3rd down has nothing to do with 3rd down efficiency? Sure, players have to make plays. Jake needs to hit Keyshawn in stride, Keyshaun needs to hold onto the damn ball, so on and so on. But sooner or later Henning needs to put people in good positions. Running sweeps was not the way to go on Tampas fast pursuit LB's.

Seems to me the Hoover adjustment helped emmensely.

For the record, my frustations with Henning is kinda new. I backed him pretty good during the old debates. But it just looked like the same old tired stuff in the first half. Someones gotta shake these guys up and get them outta this funk. With Smitty and Key we should be doing much better. Seems we go deep way too much on 3rd and short.

 

I read in one of the papers its an option, with the other choice being a toss to the RB. Hopefully they can't take both away all the time.

Agree about the up back being quicker to the hole. Agree alot.

 

yeah. but it happened at mid-field which was perplexing to me. I have no problem running a draw on 3rd and 12 on our own 20. but running one from our own 46 doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

Because it isn't our most predictable play anymore. We've rarely used the draw on 3rd and long this year, so that's obviously not a cause. Jake has the lowest QB rating in the league on 3rd downs, so that is the cause.