Schotty and gimmicks

Schotty is a solid, reasonably effective OC. He takes a lot of heat for not being better than that. But IMO, he is better than people realize.

Having said that …

I think he has a really bad habit which costs us at least 4 points a game. I think he farts around way too often with gimmicks. And I think it hurts worst in the Red Zone.

I reach for the air-sick-bag when he runs those end-around packages. God, I am sick of them.

Now, I get it. He is trying to force defenses to deal with the whole array: end-around, fake end-around, double reverse, etc. He runs numbers of those plays in a game, with some intended to set up others. If one is stuffed, he is thinking, “Yeah, but I am setting up another.”

And sometimes they work. We might get 5 yards and a 1 down! Hellacious! Sunday, we had 1 for 11, I believe. Hallelujah! To go with another half dozen that get stuffed. Often, right after a nice 1st down has kicked a drive into gear.

And that’s the problem. He will call plays like this at just the wrong moment, often killing momentum on a drive. Because, see, a reverse package CANNOT SUSTAIN AN OFFENSE as a major focus. Reverses work precisely when defenses are susceptible to misdirection. When you have put 35 reverses on film, the defense is fully prepared to remain at home and destroy a package that is pretty easy to stop if everyone stays at home. That’s generally what happens. If my count is right, we have had ONE case of a big play off a reverse–Tavon v Indy–in the last several years. Otherwise we are fortunately when we gain 5 yards on one.

And there are far easier, more high percentage ways to gain 5 yards. And this is my problem with Schotty. He doesn’t establish the basics–runs and passes–as high percentage threats that defenses must deal with.

What do I mean by a high percentage basic? How about a quick slant? We hit one of those to Britt against DEN and I nearly swallowed my dentures. (I don’t really have dentures. Honest!) With Britt, Cook, and, a few weeks back, Quick as well, the quick slant OUGHT to be one of our staple plays. Big, strong receivers. A step and cut, wall off the defender, and hit it for 6+. Hell, on 3 and less than 6, we ought to be HURTING people with that play. They should be spending as much time defending those slants as they are spending now laughing as they plan to stuff our pathetic ends around. And those slants SHOULD be killers in the Red Zone.

But we don’t do that. When we aren’t running ends-around, we’re too busy running elaborately complex combination routes that get a guy free for the ball all of a yard upfield and surrounded by defenders. Often, it’s Tavon. Gimmicky, complex, convoluted plays that fiddle around underneath and let the defense just gather, wait, and swarm. Way, way yonder too many of those plays!

Now consider the running game. The real running game, when we aren’t running ends around. And consider a rule of the running game: slow developing runs are very hard to execute positively UNLESS a defense has very good reason to be concerned down field.

Glory be, we had a 100+ yard runner Sunday! Tre was superb. So what happened on the plays on which he was stuffed?

Well, apart from a defense just playing a given play well, a big part of the problem is ineffectual play design. Slow, ponderous convolutions that give the DL and LBs time for a bite and a nap before converging on our RB. Especially just AFTER a good run or 2 which called the defense to be hyper-aware of the running game.

And again, this bites us in the ass WORST in the Red Zone. We got there, if I recall, twice the other day. And Tre had clearly been showing he could run on this D front. And we DID try to run … and got stuffed. We got stuffed trying to sustain a hole through the full execution of a Requiem Mass choreography for Trappist monks by our OL and backs. Seven or 8 seconds after the ball was snapped, Tre would get NEAR the LOS and find the DEN D front in his face. Gee. Imagine that.

See, I think you have to do ONE THING in the Red Zone. You have to attack the LOS FAST! FAST!

Running? Get the RB up to the LOS FAST, in time to slither through cracks and make progress without danger of losing yards.

Are you passing? Get a WR to take a step and a cut and put the ball on him FAST. And by the way, pass EARLY, on 1st down. Quick, high percentage, get down to the 2 or 1 with downs to spend running on the goal line itself.

And that’s not what we do, especially in the Red Zone. We dither. We run complex gyrations and genuflections. Our attack in the Red Zone is gimmicky, not fast and hard, and that’s why it fails so often.

In general, Schotty is addicted to too much ineffectual gimmickry. He does not commit himself to running fast, strong, basic plays and repeat them until defenses distort themselves to stop them. I think it costs us a significant number of points per game.

He isn’t a bad or disastrous OC. He just lacks nerve and toughness, and that saps the nerve and toughness of our offense.