Weinke looked purty good.

:naughty:

 

problem is that if we're just going to say "no mistakes" that means "take no chances". I don't think we'll ever win doing that. You try to keep things in control, but you can't win hoping that somebody else will make the play. Gotta go make the play yourself, and instead we're just taking a good defense for granted.

>>what exactly is the line between playing "scared" and playing "smart"?

The difference is wanting to go down swinging in a way that means we tried before :51 to start looking to win again. A punt's a punt. DOn't force anything on third down, at worst if we throw it away we've lost :30. If we are given the curl or the post three yards shy of the marker, we have 8 more yards than we did and chances of RAC. Scared is being terribly predictable without much chance of converting.

Smart is picking times we don't pass as often for passes, and using some playaction. Smart is using motion to change defensive formation, whether for run or pass. Smart is being able to set something up, and changing your own tendencies for positive gain.

>>If a failed pass play is a "good" call then what exactly is a "bad" call?

so a TD pass that ends up being dropped instead, that's a bad call? Guess you've stated so. I guess in that case we should run every down then, since Smith doesn't fumble much we can run a lot of clock and never turn the ball over in a ten point loss.

>>He gets paid a lot of money to take that into account and come up with plays on every down that even the panthers can't screw up.

So in order to make sure we don't screw up, we should wear our helmets in bed and spend all our time praying that a fire doesn't randomly break out in the house and that nothing falls through the roof from space. If we've been putting "don't screw up" first, we've done that for the most part on offense. Too bad "score points" and "move the ball downfield" aren't that high on the list, or else Henning'd be getting paid big bucks to be a coordinator rather than a troubleshooter.

 

>> The difference is wanting to go down swinging in a way that means we tried before :51 to start looking to win again.

Fuck mag. We had the game won with 4:30 minutes to go. No fucking way we could lose at that point. For 56 minutes we had played winning football despite all the drops and penalties and missed FG.

I was being somewhat sarcastic in my post. but if you have 3rd and 12 and you go back to pass and something bad happens, then folks will say that was a "stupid" call. if you try a "safe" play that has a chance, however remote, and it doesn't work then folks will call it a "scared" call -- if it doesn't work. it just seems to me that with our lack of talent, the probability of something bad happening when passing in an obvious passing situation is high enough that i don't think you can do it consistently without paying a high price. not only do you put the health of your feeble and/or only QB in jeopardy but i think the chances of winning a game if you're giving up big sacks and throwing interceptions is less likely than if you sometimes just concede and punt.

the thing with our offense is that i never feel good about what is fixing to happen when they walk up to the LOS. whether they hand off to smith or peete/weinke drops back, i'm holding my breath. when something good happens, i'm just amazed. to me, it's like how the fuck does henning manage to come up with positive plays or score with this group? l. smith just doesn't look like he's fast, quick or powerful enough to ever gain any yards. none of our receivers are very good. beyond Moose, Smith and Byrd, they are horrible and those 3 seem to stay injured. our QB was old, short, slow and fat with a below average arm and always on the verge of going to the hospital. our OL is average at best and often seems to jump offsides. on paper, we shouldn't win squat.

>> DOn't force anything on third down, at worst if we throw it away we've lost :30.

if we throw it away -- that's the key. with weinke, the probability was higher that he woulda thown an interception or taken a big sack or one of our linemen would have got a holding call giving the cowgirls even better field position. the probability of something bad happening was much greater than anything good happening. at that point, henning decided to take his chances with our defense that had dominated Dallas virtually the entire game and especially in the second half. you call that scared, someone else might call it smart. i think it's a fine and highly subjective line. in hindsite, he shoulda gone for it.

>> Smart is picking times we don't pass as often for passes, and using some playaction.

so in your thinking passing more is smarter? play action? now exactly why would that work? i thought teams were already playing 8 up in the box and our pass protection has been decent enough. if other teams think so little of our passing attack, why would you think we could pass effectively with any consistency?

>> So in order to make sure we don't screw up ...

I was being facetious. It just seems to me that's the thinking of many folks that are pointing to the playcalling. my point is simple. it's hard to have an effective offense if the receivers are dropping balls, the QB doesn't get the ball there, the linemen are picking up bad penalties, and you have no talent. every play is not going to work even if you have a talented group. with our lack of talent it's kinda amazing when a play does work. on one hand, folks are defending grant saying we should have scored at least 10 more points in the first half. by their thinking, the score shoulda been 17-0 at halftime. you got a backup QB come in the second half and get a couple of FGs and the score should be 23-0. yet some of these same folks will then point to the final actual score as proof that the playcalling sucked. it may not be the greatest, but 23 points is decent enough against a good Dallas defense with our starting QB getting hurt and our talent levels on offense and defense.

 

Henning seems more occupied with running the clock than scoring points. He's like a fighter that's built up points using his jabs in the early rounds and wants to avoid getting knocked out and losing the fight. He wants to cover up and not throw the shot that might just knock out the opponent. He doesn't want to take that chance because he's scared of the counter punch (turnover).

The offense shows no imagination at all. How many times have we thrown on 1st down? Not many. Defenses have tape on us now and we're too damn predictable. Run, run, maybe pass, run ain't gonna cut it in this league. Have we even audibled once outside of maybe the two minute drill? If so I don't see it. If we're not going to pass on 3rd and long, we need to just send Sauerbrun in there a down earlier and save the wear and tear on the RB's.

With the WR position so thin, why haven't we used the TE any more than we have? If we're just going to use the TE to block, we should send out James or one of the other scrub linemen and have them report as eligable. It makes no sense to limit your options when there aren't that many to begin with.

 

>>Therefore, IMO if henning calls any play that doesn't work, then he pretty much fucked up.

That's the flaw in your logic. Heads up for you to point it out.

It's the players fault for not executing, in this case Hoover, who usually has a pretty good set of hands. So yes it's still a good play call. He catches it, first down, and Dallas has to start taking Time Outs. It was fairly safe and Weinke didn't fuck up.

And as you point out, you can fuck up a running play to. Lamar could fumble. But does that mean every time Lamar fucks up, it's a bad play call? No.

I just want us to stop going into a shell when we can put a game away. I'm not calling for us to be a passing team. Just balance.

 

>> That's the flaw in your logic. Heads up for you to point it out.

i was being sarcastic. i was simply trying to reflect the logic of several posters on this board. re-say their arguments in such a way that they would see the folly of their arguments. great offensive talent isn't successful against a good defense on every play. bad offensive talent is successful much less often. we started the season with the philosphy that we could win with our defense and pounding the ball at teams and wearing down opposing defenses. it surprisingly worked for awhile. teams have now countered by putting an extra man in the box cause they have so little respect for the talent of our WRs, TEs and QB. i know it's frustrating for teams to dare us to throw the ball and we can't make them pay. but that's just the way it is. if we could just catch the damn ball, maybe we could change that.

>> I'm not calling for us to be a passing team. Just balance.

it would be nice to have balance. it would be nice to be able to pass the ball down a defense's throat all game long. it would be nice to be able to run the ball down the defense's throat all game long. it would be nice to be able to seal a game at the end with our offense. anything that works and scores enough points on offense to win would be nice. we just don't have the talent to do these things on a consistent basis. we do have a defense that has shown the ability to shut down offenses well enough that we could easily be 6-0 if not for some monumentally bad breaks (some of our own making). i expected the defense to be really good but not this good. but i also expected weinke to show big improvement over last year (don't ask me why now), foster to give our running game some explosion, and Hurney to go out and get us a legit receiver to team with Moose (who has played better than i expected ... when he has played). those things have not yet happened. there is still hope. the defense seems to just be getting better (if you forget a couple of mistakes). wesley seems to be a guy that's gonna improve our cb situation. on offense, weinke did show improvement last game and could add a lift to our anemic offense. foster will soon be returning. wrs and te? think that's gonna be a struggle all season long. moose and s. smith got to stay healthy and really step up and make all the plays they should make each and every game. we're are not good enough to drop gimme TD passes in the endzone. not a lot of teams are. as they say, there's a fine line in this league between winning and losing.

 

Yes, I agree fully. And our 'balance' is way too predictable. And everyone knows by now we go into that shell after we get a lead in the last qtr. I know it, you guys know it, and other teams know it for sure.

Anything can happen on ANY given play- Smith could fumble on that 3rd and 12 just as much as an INT by the QB.
CW had not thrown an INT yet in the game, so why act like you are scared to let him throw the damn ball down the field on 3rd and long? That drop by Hoover sucked, but as good as he's done, I'm not laying that last drive-ending play on that one play, was not a bad call IMO. He catches that ball and we get a 1st down. And I'm not singling out any ONE play, just series of plays on any of our last few drives in all of the games this year. I feel we were lucky we didn't lose against Minn and Balt looking back at the tapes. BUT also, our D was very agressive on the last coupla series in both those games. We never really went into a 'prevent' mode.

What I'm basically saying is on D, play the game plan all the way thru 60 mins with whats working. Don't change it cause you are scared of losing, and go 'prevent', cause it has bit us every time in close games.

Try and score on O on EVERY drive, a first down on every play, no matter what the score is- untill you are a score ahead, the other team is out of timeouts, and you have enough 'knees' to run out the clock. Until then, don't play O like you just want to eat up SOME time and if you are LUCKY, you'll get more than 3 and out.

We are way too predictable on offense. And when your O is not "explosive' or 'potent', which we are not, predictability will not help you win games. No matter how good your D is. With all the 3 and outs our D has caused (no 1 in the league), we should score NO LESS than 20 points a game. Any less is just unacceptable, period. That's why we are 3-3, and with the games comming up if we don't change, we will be 3-5 by bye week, and even worse there-after.

And the worse part of that is: we are (and I'm pleasantly surprised) a BETTER team than that.

 

The thing is, these plays worked in our last win vs. the Vikings. We wore them down and kept running, and kept scoring.

But it hasn't worked since.

 

You sir, are correct!
And you know our biggest bitch about S-fart was the fact that he would never adjust. He wouldn't change when something wasn't working. Well guess what, we're doing the same thing right now with Henning. Like I said before- go with what works if it's running every play. When that ain't or quits working, make a damn adjustment. Surprise us! Would definitely surprise the other team.

 

I was just thinking about that this week after I heard about Steve Smith. Our receiving corps is a M.A.S.H. unit at best:

Muhammad: coming off hamstring (PROBABLE)
Byrd: abdomen (QUESTIONABLE)
Smith: bruised/cracked ribs (QUESTIONABLE)

Walls: broken finger (DOUBTFUL)
Heinrich: broken foot--stress fracture (OUT)

I'm thinking we may see a lot of 2 TE (Mangum and Wiggins), 2 WR (Moose and Black) sets with a single back (Hoover?).

(source: ww1.panthers.com)