Chris Simms says Rams are cheating

Chris Simms is an idiot

lyser wrote:

I bet Chris Simms has lots of stupid fucking opinions on a variety of topics. Dick.

Somehow, you were able to express what I was feeling perfectly

Zooey wrote:

I see what Simms is saying, but I don’t care. I liked when QBs called their own plays. I also don’t like the Designated Hitter. And I think ejecting Marty McSorley for a curved stick was whack. But those is the rules.

If the technology is there, it’s going to get used. You cannot regulate what is said. If the league doesn’t like it, they can eliminate the headsets altogether, or change the cutoff moment to when the huddle breaks. My guess is that more teams will just start doing it. But I don’t care.

I mean…once they went to headsets and ipads and cameras in the sky and whatever…teams are going to use it to their advantage. Whatever.

But I feel it’s stupid to say it’s cheating. Like REALLY stupid. My guess is that most offensive coordinators aren’t smart enough to do what Mcvay is doing. Even if they tried. The Patriots most likely have been doing this for years.

I’d like to see a rule change where the OPPOSING coach gets to have the 15 seconds in the quarterback’s helmet-phone-thingy.

Or maybe a random fan in the crowd gets to have the 15 seconds. Or a home-viewer.

Or a celebrity.

Gotta change with the times. Progress, and all.

w
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i don’t think it’s cheating. but i hope that goff isn’t too reliant on it.

like i said. i hope goff is able to get to the point that he can call pre-snap audibles on his own. for all we know, he’s already there, and mcvay is just on the headset to give him feedback. it’s just way too hard to tell from those little soundbites.

i think at this point people are so astounded by goff’s turnaround in one year that they’re looking for reasons to maybe discredit him. maybe that’s too strong a word, but it’s just such a 180 that people can’t quite wrap their heads around it.

it’s gonna be awhile before jared gets recognized for what he’s doing.

i think kurt got that for awhile. that he was a product of the system. people couldn’t quite wrap their heads around a guy who toiled in the arena league and nfl europe before exploding in 1999. it happens.

I guess all 32 teams are cheating then. Just saying.

InvaderRam wrote:

just saw the mcvay press conference.

i think it was gary klein who asked mcvay specifically about the touchdown pass to reynolds if it was him who called the audible or goff. mcvay said it was all goff.

so i can only believe what he’s saying is true. it seems more of a back and forth between jared and sean rather than sean just dictating to goff what the audible is.

Jared Goff, Sean McVay push back against claims that Rams’ play-calling is ‘cheating’ or ‘immoral’

RICH HAMMOND

link: http://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/29/jared-goff-sean-mcvay-push-back-against-claims-that-rams-play-calling-is-cheating-or-immoral/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

THOUSAND OAKS — Sean McVay, perhaps the most excitable coach in the NFL, can say a lot in 25 seconds. Rams quarterback Jared Goff is charged with processing all those words.

Is it too much? After studying film, writers and commentators theorized this week that McVay feeds audible calls to Goff, through in-helmet communication, while the Rams are at the line of scrimmage.

That is, even in the strictest of NFL rules interpretations, totally legal. A coach is allowed to talk to his quarterback until the 40-second play clock ticks to 15, at which point communication is cut off. That time typically is used to call plays while players are in the huddle, but in the Rams’ case, it seems as though they sometimes get to the line of scrimmage early, then have McVay make calls or adjustments.

McVay has come under some media criticism from pundits who apparently feel that relaying audibles to a quarterback is a step too far. Quarterbacks, some said, should have to make some decisions on their own, and not be force-fed information about what plays to audible to, and where to throw the ball.

“To say you’re in his ear – and I’ve seen some of the things out there – I think it’s a discredit to what Jared has done,” McVay said after Wednesday’s practice at Cal Lutheran.

“With the experiences that I’ve had in Washington (as offensive coordinator) and here, it’s totally the quarterback’s discretion as to whether they want me to talk to them and give them reminders, or if they say, ‘Just give me the play and let me play the position.’”

If anything, McVay is just doing a better job of maximizing his time by speeding up the Rams, and both Goff and McVay noted that Goff has the ability to ignore McVay and change to something totally different.

McVay said that, to his knowledge, most NFL coaches operate the way he does, going up to the 15-second mark of the play clock if needed. Both Goff and McVay seemed a bit flummoxed that commentators around the league might take issue.

“Sometimes he talks all the way up to 15 seconds,” Goff said of McVay. “Sometimes he talks for five seconds. Sometimes he talks for 10 seconds. It all varies. Just like every other quarterback in the league, it stops at 15 seconds and we run the play. But he’s great on the headset, though. He does a great job, and gives me as much or as little information as I need.”

It doesn’t seem to be a problem within the league, though, perhaps because McVay isn’t the only coach to do it. He’s just the first one to be noticed. The Rams play Arizona on Sunday, and during a conference call on Wednesday, Cardinals coach Bruce Arians expressed no problem with McVay’s communication.

“It’s not the first time it’s been done, that’s for sure,” Arians said. “When you have a young quarterback in a new system, it helps tremendously. You wish you could talk to him all the way to five seconds, but when they cut it off at 15, it’s hard. But no, that’s a great tool.”

Not everyone agrees. Former NFL quarterback Chris Simms went on a national radio show Monday and declared McVay’s tactics to be not only “cheating” but also “immoral,” a rather personal level of vitriol.

Simms didn’t mention that, just as McVay can be in Goff’s ear when the Rams are at the line of scrimmage, it’s not an inherent advantage. The opposing defensive coordinator is allowed to talk to one of his players – usually the middle linebacker – until the same 15-second mark on the play clock.

So, yes, McVay might be clueing in Goff on which matchup to exploit but, at the same time, the defensive coordinator very well could be exhorting his linebacker to blitz through a certain gap.

“It’s about the players,” McVay said. “If you have some players who like to have some extra information, great. They can always decipher whether they utilize it or not. The players I’ve been around, they like that. But it is a part of the game and it’s something that we’re utilizing in different ways.”

Regardless, it’s still up to Goff to make the plays, and last Sunday against New Orleans, he showed that his success isn’t completely dependent on McVay.

Late in the second quarter, Goff dropped back, stood in the pocket and motioned for rookie receiver Josh Reynolds to change his route. Reynolds cut to the back of the end zone and Goff threw a 7-yard touchdown pass which gave the Rams an important 10-point lead.

“That was all him. That was a bad call by me,” McVay said. “He did an excellent job to be able to sit in there, to remain a passer with great protection. He was directing traffic, and that’s what special players do. … Josh and him are on the same page, and he delivers a great ball.”

Hey, Herzog, not sure what you mean by this:

“The Patriots most likely have been doing this for years.”

If you mean cheating, then I wholeheartedly agree!

Zooey wrote:

I just don’t think it’s a “real” story. It’s a minor thing that everybody is doing, but the Rams are a doing it a little bit more, on purpose. But that’s a guess.

Fwiw:

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Ram_Ruler wrote:

I searched this just to see what I’d get and found some great discussions dating back over two years ago where people talked about all the different things coaches did to help QBs through the headset. I found at that it’s not uncommon. Chip Kelly’s hurry offense often looked to exploit this as well.

==

Back to me.

Here’s just one example, from an article written in February about the Patz that talks about what happens over the headset:

. https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2017/02/03/anatomy-play-call-from-headset-hike/fALiRVgUAnhsvKbysrfjeO/story.html

The Patriots break the huddle and approach the line of scrimmage. McDaniels continues communicating with Brady — perhaps the defense has just substituted in an extra cornerback, or watch out for the A-gap blitz.

“It’s not an every-play thing, but there’s definitely some times where I can say, ‘Heads up for this, they sub this in, whatever it is,’ ” McDaniels said. “Those never hurt.”

What we have here is -not- a failure to communicate.

Self-assured Rams able to shrug off criticism

VINCENT BONSIGNORE

link: http://www.ocregister.com/2017/12/02/bonsignore-self-assured-rams-shrug-off-criticism-from-chris-simms/

PHOENIX — It was bound to happen the bright lights and big stage of Los Angeles would hoist the Rams onto a whole new level of attention and scrutiny – misguided as it sometimes might be. But it was telling the collective shrug and chuckle from L.A.’s newest darlings when Phil Simms’ kid tried to throw shade on them for how Sean McVay and Jared Goff are utilizing their allotted pre-snap communication window.

All good, is what their reaction screamed, just part of being one of the hottest teams in the NFL and playing in the entertainment capitol of the world. No sense sweating it. Just laugh it off and roll with it.

It was a stunning display of self awareness and acceptance of the much brighter spotlight the Rams now perform under. That they are acting the part so comfortably of a big-time team playing on a big-time stage might be the biggest surprise of all.

It wasn’t so long ago they were an NFL afterthought playing in St. Louis, piling up one losing season after another while fading further and further off the grid.

Their first year in Los Angeles offered much of the same, with the 4-12 record and hideous football they offered up making Angelenos wince and say: “We waited 22 years for this?”

Now look at them, sporting a splashy 8-3 record going into Sunday’s game against the Cardinals behind a hotshot young quarterback and coach and one of the most explosive offenses in the league.

Talk about overnight success stories.

Thing is, they look and act like a team that’s been here for years. The way they casually react to big wins and immediately shrug off the occasional loss while getting right back to work the next week, you’d never know it’s been 13 years since they’ve won this many games at this point of a season.

With each new win the stakes rise a little higher and a brand new wave of national media types roll through their Thousand Oaks headquarters to get a couple minutes with Jared Goff and Sean McVay and Todd Gurley and Aaron Donald and all the others. Meanwhile, more and more necks are craning across the country trying to get a glimpse of what’s going on in L.A.

And in some cases, stretching way overboard to come up with a new take to explain the Rams dramatic transformation and Goff’s sudden growth spurt into a franchise caliber quarterback.

Which brings us to Chris Simms.

You might remember him as a hotshot quarterback recruit at Texas who never quite lived up to the hype during four pretty mundane years in Austin. He then bounced around the NFL for five years — never claiming a permanent starting role — before calling it a career in 2009.

He’s now broadcaster for NBC Sports and, for reasons only he can explain, he accused McVay and Goff of “cheating” and being “unethical” for how they maximize the time they have to communicate ahead of the play snap. The insinuation was McVay was overly feeding Goff information after assessing the defensive alignment, essentially telling him who to throw the ball to based on coverage schemes.

It was a ridiculous assertion, but it quickly developed into a talker and, pretty soon, analysts everywhere from ESPN to the NFL Network began chiming in.

That’s what happens when you’re winning and playing in the second biggest market in the country. People talk about you.

Back to Simms and his silly claim.

The Rams are typically an uptempo team, which means they get to the line of scrimmage faster than traditional offenses that spend more time in the huddle. By doing so, it gives them additional time to assess what the opposing defense is doing. By league rule, a coach can communicate with his quarterback via helmet headset up to the 15-second mark of the play clock.

At that point, it’s all on the quarterback. And in Goff’s case, sometimes that means rolling with whatever play McVay called or, as he did on a touchdown pass to Josh Reynolds against the Saints, audible to something else at the line of scrimmage.

“That was all him. That was a bad call by me,” McVay said, “We got a max drop 8, we had a man beater on in that certain situation – they dropped out of there and went to a drop 8, three-man rush and he did an excellent job being able to sit in there, remain a passer, great protection and then he’s directing traffic and that’s what special players do.”

The point is, McVay and Goff are operating no different that many other coaches and quarterbacks across the league. Maybe even the majority of them.

“Yeah, it’s not the first time it’s been done, that’s for sure,” said Cardinals coach Bruce Arians. “When you have a young quarterback in a new system it helps tremendously. You wish you could talk to him all the way to five seconds, but when they cut it off at, 15 it’s hard. But no, that’s a great tool.”

The fact Simms apparently didn’t know this was commonplace around the NFL is head scratching at best and suspicious at worst.

Maybe he didn’t play with coaches savvy enough to take advantage of a league-approved tactic. Or maybe his coaches didn’t think he was savvy enough to handle that kind of line of scrimmage communication.

Or maybe he was just trying to draw some attention to himself by piggybacking on the Rams success. Nothing like a red-hot take to discredit their remarkable turnaround or how Goff has kicked his naysayers to the curb by bouncing back from a rough rookie season to produce Pro Bowl caliber numbers.

Whatever Simms’ motivations, the Rams just laughed it off and merrily went on their way.

It’s a new territory, this whole winning big under a bright spotlight. But the Rams are adjusting to it well.

yeah. at first i thought he said goff audibled, but no. you’re right. listening to the interview again, he said he made a bad audible, and goff had to improvise directing reynolds with his hand motion. that was a brilliant throw into a tight spot.

i don’t know where goff is in his development, but if he is a little too reliant on the headset and i have no idea of knowing if he is or isn’t, that wouldn’t be the biggest surprise to me anyway. he’s like what? in his second season with 18 games starting experience? i’m not too worried. he’s got a lot of offseason work and game experience to go before he’s the finished product. it’s not going to happen immediately. and i don’t necessarily think helping him over the headset is going to stunt his growth.

even arians said it was a useful tool especially with young qbs. and he’s developed some good ones.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by InvaderRam.