JojoTheWhale
"You should keep it." -- Striiker
- May 22, 2008
- 35,571
- 110,191
@BringBackHakstol Yes, there were some open receivers. But it’s not just that going on here.
After looking at it this morning, I think large amounts of blame can both be placed on coaching and play. I don’t mind that their approach to offense is to let their guys make plays. 50-50 9 balls to AJB should be part of any offense for example. But when it doesn’t work, they just keep doing it. I think in general I’ve been higher than the average on Johnsons as an OC in that I thought he was mediocre but not terrible. This time he was baffling. The OL played very well in pass pro to me. Not as much run blocking, but I think there’s a lot under the hood worth examining with that.
A lot of the failures of the running game were 2nd and 3rd level SF defenders crashing down and making good plays. They’re running the same stuff. It’s all Gun RPOs and Read Options out of 11 and 12. But this is all predicated on Goedert’s existence and Hurts being a dynamic power runner. Neither one of those are present right now. This was Week 13. Hurts has basically not looked the same with the ball in his hands all year, so how have we not come up with something else yet? Hell, most Gun runs require a mobile QB. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if this is what Hurts is going to be this year, I would rather see some runs from under Center and give the OL a chance to take over the game. At least you have the components to make that work. You don’t have a running Hurts and you don’t have Goedert. SF’s 2nd level is way, way too good to just assume you can out talent when you’re missing an arm and a leg.
As far as the QB, this was 2021 Hurts. How much of that is injury I don’t know. But it’s illustrative of what I mean when I say continually bring up the two sides of the Hurts coin — he’s limiting schematically as a passer but he never gets enough credit for how much of their running success is enabled by his presence. It’s also why the idea of turning him into a pure pocket passer is absurd. You don’t simply learn to do that out of nowhere in your mid 20s. And frankly it doesn’t work anymore anyway. The bar for contending QB play on a 2nd contract is higher than every pocket passer in the world whose accuracy is anything other than the level of a Drew Brees.
TLDR; They’re convinced they can run largely the same offense as last year and they can’t. Their offensive stubbornness in doing only what they do is reminiscent of Gannon’s approach to the other side last year.
After looking at it this morning, I think large amounts of blame can both be placed on coaching and play. I don’t mind that their approach to offense is to let their guys make plays. 50-50 9 balls to AJB should be part of any offense for example. But when it doesn’t work, they just keep doing it. I think in general I’ve been higher than the average on Johnsons as an OC in that I thought he was mediocre but not terrible. This time he was baffling. The OL played very well in pass pro to me. Not as much run blocking, but I think there’s a lot under the hood worth examining with that.
A lot of the failures of the running game were 2nd and 3rd level SF defenders crashing down and making good plays. They’re running the same stuff. It’s all Gun RPOs and Read Options out of 11 and 12. But this is all predicated on Goedert’s existence and Hurts being a dynamic power runner. Neither one of those are present right now. This was Week 13. Hurts has basically not looked the same with the ball in his hands all year, so how have we not come up with something else yet? Hell, most Gun runs require a mobile QB. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if this is what Hurts is going to be this year, I would rather see some runs from under Center and give the OL a chance to take over the game. At least you have the components to make that work. You don’t have a running Hurts and you don’t have Goedert. SF’s 2nd level is way, way too good to just assume you can out talent when you’re missing an arm and a leg.
As far as the QB, this was 2021 Hurts. How much of that is injury I don’t know. But it’s illustrative of what I mean when I say continually bring up the two sides of the Hurts coin — he’s limiting schematically as a passer but he never gets enough credit for how much of their running success is enabled by his presence. It’s also why the idea of turning him into a pure pocket passer is absurd. You don’t simply learn to do that out of nowhere in your mid 20s. And frankly it doesn’t work anymore anyway. The bar for contending QB play on a 2nd contract is higher than every pocket passer in the world whose accuracy is anything other than the level of a Drew Brees.
TLDR; They’re convinced they can run largely the same offense as last year and they can’t. Their offensive stubbornness in doing only what they do is reminiscent of Gannon’s approach to the other side last year.
