RED ZONE OFFENSE

I don't have a problem with the Panthers offense between the 20's. They manage the game, win time of possesion, and for the most part, win the field position battle. Taking few chances and protecting the ball seems like a great plan to me. The defense is great enough to warrant that type of play calling.

What I have a problem with is the inability to punch it into the endzone and use the same conservative play calling when they're 1st & Goal from inside 10 yards. This running up the middle bullshit from 6 yards out ain't going to cut. When the defense or ST comes up with a big play close to the endzone, they have to find a way to get the TD. I'd rather come away with nothing than another 3 points from 5 yards out.

This is where Henning has got to be more creative and get these guys into a different mentality. This is where the Panthers have lost football games, this is why we lost to the Bucs.

I hope they spend the bye week working the red zone offense. I hope they work on nothing but that.

 

are you talking with Peete at qb or without him?

 

IMO he's gotta be a lot more creative outside the 20s as well. If you're playing field position and ball control, especially with a lead, it's not as big a deal to take chances as it is to actually move the ball downfield some and, now and again, score touchdowns.

But some of that does, in fact, come together inside the 20 as you suggest. Certainly. And that's one major problem with vanilla offenses even when they do run the ball well - when teams adjust to that, it's harder to adjust out of. That only gets worse in the end of the field where they can stack the line with no remorse.

 

we managed to get inside 20 three times in the tampa game. first time after a fumble recovery. from the 6 we run twice and get 3rd and 2 (certainly Smith has shown the ability to punch in into the endzone from inside the 10 before so i don't think it's a bad try to run in it especially with a rookie at QB in a 3-0 game). we then show a run formation of 3rd down and manage to slip walls into the back of the endzone for a wide open TD but fasani misses (probably a reason we try the run on the first 2 plays).

in the third quarter we get to the 17 yd line after an impressive drive. we then take a delay of game penalty on first down. on second and 11, Nesbit misses his block and Fasani is lucky to unload to avoid sack. steussie compounds problem by getting a 15 yd penalty after the play is over. you are now looking at 3rd and 26 from the 37. time to get real creative, huh?

also in the third quarter we also get to the 17 yd line once again after another impressive drive. hoover gets a holding call on a sweep that gains 5 and would have set up 3rd and 4 at the 11. instead, we are faced with 2 and 19 from the 26. henning then gets conservative and calls a draw to smith and a QB draw. panthers take 9-3 lead into 4th Q. maybe you can fault henning for getting conservative at the end of this drive. but 2nd and 19 against tampa in the red zone is tuff for any QB and offense to pick up much less our talented group. in a defensive game like the one we had going, i think it makes sense to get conservative in that situation. as it turned out, it shouda/woulda been the winning FG if smith doesn't drop the ball.

we get inside the 20 three times and only come up with 9 points against the best defense in the nfl and with a rookie QB and 2 devastating penalties. it's not as good as you would hope for but i think it was understandable. in the meantime, the offensive genius, Gruden, with much superior offensive talent can come up with only 12 points for the game (6 after the gift from Smith) against only the 4th best defense in the league. glad we don't have him coaching our offense.

if you need a scapegoat to continue your unmitigate bashing of henning, have at it. but to say we lost to the bucs due to henning's uncreativity in the red zone is just plain wrong IMO.

 

if you are talking just the last two games you have to consider something else...no matter how great the young QB is, the redzone is ALWAYS the last thing they master. There is no way I'd have Fassani even think about passing down there, with Weinke I'd give him the first read and if it is not there, his job would be to throw it out of bounds.

What would you rather have happen, a play action and the QB throw into tight coverage and get it picked off? We've seen that happen a few times, haven't we?

C'mon, if it weren't for a specail teams fumble, they would have won the TB game...if it weren't for two fluke plays, they would have beat Dallas. The game planning and play calling is working, other things are letting them down.

 

All great points headcase.

Ofcourse sometimes penalties are the result of having to do what you got to do to stop a guy, or slow a guy down because he got the jump on you, because he knows the play before you do. IMO when you are getting beat, the offsides and holding penaties start to come and then you get frustrated, and that's when they tack on the 15 yarder. All because they already know the play your going to run, your not a 1/2 step ahead. Eventually, bigger mistakes happen, like fumbles and ints, the result of the defense guessing right. JMO

And about that Lamar up the middle shit from the 2. Sorry, that was the worst call of the game. You got a mobile QB in Fasani, everybody up on the line of scrimmage, and as you stated, the leagues #1 defense. The OL is not going to punch them in the mouth and move the pile forward. Spread it out, create some gaps, run a play fake and a naked boot leg, end around, something besides what the whole freakin' world expected.

Just curious, I'd like to know how many times the Panthers have made it to the red zone.

 

they were typical calls. They weren't at all hard to stop, though the Walls call was a good one. I do find it odd that such a happy footed QB was given so little run option where it's most effective, and that we only got down there three times - regardless of the defense.

It's not about a scapegoat. I don't look for excuses or places to point a finger, and if that's how you justify defending him, that's your own business.

>>but to say we lost to the bucs due to henning's uncreativity in the red zone is just plain wrong IMO.

Allright then, don't say it. I didn't. I never even said I disagreed with the playcalling, I noted why vanilla offenses that rely on the run are more often stymied.

If you had a problem with what I said in particular, you should have noted it. If you're just going to get defensive every time I post anything about playcalling, don't bother, I've already heard it.

Y2 was the one who mentioned being more creative. I never said a word about it. Let's try paying attention before we blindly defend Henning, k?

 

A note to Y2 - I've made the point about rolling him and possibly running him too. I think it has some validity. But it's also against one of the fastest defenses (and one of the smarter ones, as well - unless we ran on Rice's side, where he tends to be a little more lazy in contain, but then we're severely limiting his option(s) to pass if we deem those necessary).

 

mag. you're getting awfully touchy. i thought it obvious without saying that my post was in response to Y2. i'm trying awfully hard to change my caustic ways ... hopefully for the better.

>> sometimes penalties are the result of having to do what you got to do

we had 3 penalties in the redzone.

1) a delay of game. not sure whose fault that was but i think a vet QB keeps his eye on the clock and avoids that penalty. i don't think that penalty was the result of frustation, being predicatable, or any other excuse you can come up with.

2) steussie late hit after the play was over -- you can blame it on frustration but a "smart"veteran does not make that play in a tied ballgame. steussie has made a habit of taking those kind a penalties since he came here. he's a bit of a cheapshot artist. i was surprised to hear aikman refer to having seen him make that type of play before -- probably picked it up from watching tape.

3) holding call on hoover -- i don't think you can say a sweep is predictable by the panthers. we virtually never run it and until this game i would have thought we have little business running it except for trying to keep defenses somewhat honest. we had gained 9 yards on the play earlier in the game and it looked very well executed that time (course it would have to be to bust Smith loose on a sweep). hoover just flat out got overpowered by rice. it was hard to tell for me from the tape if he was holding in attempt to maintain his block. it almost looked like he was just holding on as rice was taking him for a ride to keep from getting his body destroyed. sad part was i think smith gains 5-6 yds on the play even without the so-called hold -- nesbit had a highlight film block on the play.

>> You got a mobile QB in Fasani, everybody up on the line of scrimmage, and as you stated, the leagues #1 defense. The OL is not going to punch them in the mouth and move the pile forward. Spread it out, create some gaps, run a play fake and a naked boot leg

yea. even collinsworth was suggesting letting him run it. if even he's guessing some kinda QB run, don't you think tampa would have been expecting it? i think that would have been about the most predicatable call henning could have made. i hate to admit it but i too was thinking let fasani run it until collinsworth opened his mouth. if he came up with that on his own then you knew it was a stupid idea.

>> And about that Lamar up the middle shit from the 2

not sure what you are talking about. if you are talking about after we recovered the fumble, then we ran up the middle from the 6 and then from the four. on 3rd down from the 2, we tried the pass to Walls.

those dives up the middle near the goal line always look ugly when they don't get into the endzone. in fact is, they look kinda ugly even when they work.

smith is a hard runner and almost always goes forward for at least a couple. if he had managed two 3 yd runs instead of two 2 yd runs, he woulda been in the endzone. and those runs i think also helped to set up the 3rd down play to free Walls up as the Bucs were geared up to stop the run again.

i think that's the thing folks don't sometimes get. plays sometimes are run more for setting up something later on or to keep the defense honest than it is to gain a bunch of yards every time. i think henning looks at 1st and goal from the 6 as having 3 plays to get the ball into the endzone. so he attacks it like he has three plays. i think from the get go he has a series he's gonna run. looked at as a whole you would have to say the it was successful playcalling in that it got us what we wanted -- a receiver (and probably our best receiver in a goal line situation) wide frickin open in the endzone. it was tuff for Fasani to mess it up but he did ... by a hair.

>> that's one major problem with vanilla offenses even when they do run the ball well - when teams adjust to that, it's harder to adjust out of

as snoil has pointed out, it's not so hard to adjust if you have the weapons in the passing game. i know you say it's an excuse but i agree with snoil. unless you have a receiver that can keep the opposing defense honest deep, an OL that can give the QB time enough to locate him and throw the ball, and a QB that can get it there, defenses are going to cheat against the run and short passing game. they always have, they always will.

 

>>as snoil has pointed out, it's not so hard to adjust if you have the weapons in the passing game.

I've never seen any other team just lay down and not adjust using excuse of personnel. Extreme injuries? possibly, but we're not there. When we did pass earlier this year we were very deliberate, just the way we were running, just the way Henning was in New York.

>>unless you have a receiver that can keep the opposing defense honest deep, an OL that can give the QB time enough to locate him and throw the ball, and a QB that can get it there, defenses are going to cheat against the run and short passing game. they always have, they always will.

Doesn't matter. That's not synonomous for "well we just shouldn't pass anyway." And that's far from the only way to get a team to adjust out, as I've noted before.