no TE, Jennings was horrible, and the OL had injuries and some regressed. Eli was too inconsistent (some on him some on the oline and lack of weapons). McAdoo also called a different offense than 2015 because of all of these deficiencies.
The lack of protection forced the Giants offense to attempt shorter fast passes. Also the lack of a running game put more pressure on the passing game and made the offense more predictable. The lack of a threat opposite Beckham and at TE allowed defenses to double Beckham and play a lot of cover 2. With the additions of Marshall and Engram and the continued development of Jerell Adams and Sterling Shepard will have a huge impact in both the passing game and running game. Not to mention the addition of Ellison who is one of the league's best blocking TE's. I can't stress enough how much of an impact Ellison's blocking is going to have on this offense. Larry Donnell was the worst blocking TE in football and while Tye gives good effort he is a below average blocker as well.
Our starting RB and TE in 2016 are still unemployed. Our starting WR was a late offseason signing by the Bears after everyone else - including Tom Coughlin - passed on him.
The QB didn't play terribly well. The OL was inconsistent at best. We had arguably the worst TE corps in the NFL. Exacerbating that, we had no fullback to compensate. Our running backs were not good.
Randle was gone as was Williams(No big losses here).
Newhouse got hurt. Pugh got hurt(Again). Richburg hid an injury, This got Eli hurt in the first Washington game but he had keep starting because Nassib was hurt(god only knows why).
Both fullbacks(Johnson was being counted on to block on runs and catch the ball) were lost in preseason and never replaced.
Non of the TEs could be used and Inline Blockers.
Perkins was behind the learning curve because he graduated late. Cruz was a corpse playing out of position. Jennings retired without telling anyone. Vereen was hurt again. Darkwa was hurt.
Flowers was not in shape and Bobby Hart was learning RT. Jerry was Jerry which meant once a game he would have a brain fart and get beat bad.
Shepard was a rookie.
Jones was hurt the back up Center/Guard. the team had enough of Donnell. Tye is only good for a 3 yard catch. Adams was rookie.
Oh yeah Sullivan was hired as OC of a team that runs a WCO.
OBJ was having an off year by his standard and was in love with the kicking net.
Mac was overwhelmed by calling the plays and coaching the team at the same time. Did I forget anyone? Still won 11 games.
No RBs. No TE. Eli regressed, partly due to the awful OLine. Cruz was toast.
The offense was fucked last year as some of the member of that Offense were past it and shouldn't have been starters on an NFL offense in, or just weren't good enough.
RE: Eli hid an injury and got happy feet from Flowers gradual decline
I agree with the same formation as a major reason. Reese/Mac should have brought in a Fullback. Also should have used Tackle eligible sometimes rather than the non blocking TE.
Mediocre O-line play. Lousy TE blocking. Jennings and Vereen weren't productive. Cruz laid an egg. Predictable play calling influenced by roster shortcomings and injuries.
RE: RE: Eli hid an injury and got happy feet from Flowers gradual decline
I agree with the same formation as a major reason. Reese/Mac should have brought in a Fullback. Also should have used Tackle eligible sometimes rather than the non blocking TE.
Who is this mystery Tackle you speak of?
Will Beatty? Newhouse was hurt.
I agree with the same formation as a major reason. Reese/Mac should have brought in a Fullback. Also should have used Tackle eligible sometimes rather than the non blocking TE.
Who is this mystery Tackle you speak of?
Will Beatty? Newhouse was hurt.
Anyone would have been an improvement over what was trotted out there. Yes Beatty!
or was the playcalling a reaction to how good our defense and special teams were? McAdoo was a highlight of our offense last year, IMO.
However frustrating it was I agree with this overall. Also like it or not IIRC the new offense was intended to lower TOs, and that has tended to be one of Eli's weaknesses (scheme / drops / pressure / poor run game or not). So conservative was likely BM's intent, maybe more often than we liked
Of course if this O is half as good as it should be, combined w/ a top D and hopefully good ST (Rosas has a leg fwiw so far), IMO it's a much bigger margin of error than most years. Long way to go before Game 1, 16, the playoffs, but things look good atm
No FB hurt their ability to use the full playbook. He also has said that the defense was so good he shifted strategies and became more conservative on offense.
Cruz was not great, but he wasn't terrible either.
he could have tried stroking his ego and forced the offense last year and he didn't. That's exactly the kind of coach I want. This offense last year minus Beckham was a bottom 5 unit as far as talent goes; McAdoo wasn't the problem.
The offense in 2015 got inflated because the defense was terrible, hence they were giving up so many points teams were playing more of a prevent.
Last season, with the defense being good, there weren't any easy yards.
The game is different when you are down by 3 scores.
The offense in 2015 got inflated because the defense was terrible, hence they were giving up so many points teams were playing more of a prevent.
Last season, with the defense being good, there weren't any easy yards.
The game is different when you are down by 3 scores.
I did allude to that, I recall some of the hardest TC apologists said that was not the case at all. There were a lot of games whose final scores looked much closer than they were.
RE: RE: It's like some of you think McAdoo didn't know
there was a psychological element involved. In 2015 with Coughlin as HC everyone knew he was very much a meat and potatoes run first coach even with McAdoo as OC. Even if the transition to a post Coughlin era was probably already underway. In 2015 Eli had more weapons to execute a West Coast type offense but the opposition still believed that Coughlin was more committed to a more balanced attack so they did not risk cover two as much. In 2016 McAdoo was known to be a believer in a west coast attack and the Giants were already shifting their personnel policies in this direction (although probably not quick enough in hind sight). Therefor we faced cover two in 2016 which was a perfect defense for 95% of our plays. We won 11 games in 2016 because of the defensive adjustments we made and the few offensive adjustments we tried to make we had bad luck with.
The offense in 2015 got inflated because the defense was terrible, hence they were giving up so many points teams were playing more of a prevent.
Last season, with the defense being good, there weren't any easy yards.
The game is different when you are down by 3 scores.
I did allude to that, I recall some of the hardest TC apologists said that was not the case at all. There were a lot of games whose final scores looked much closer than they were.
I'm not a TC apologist: that wasn't the case and is a simply false claim. I've posted the numbers before and won't bother again, but the Giants played a majority of minutes that year +/- 7. They weren't routinely getting blown out or blowing people out -- hence why they were in position to suffer the absurd number of losses via scores in the final minutes they did.
The prevent defense argument literally only applies to maybe one game (the Carolina failed comeback) and there's even a big maybe on that, given how they missed some chances early when it was tight and then still kept moving the ball/scoring even after the Panthers tightened back up.
The difference between 2015 (or even 2014) and last year was Eli
You can talk about the OL sucking or the pass catchers being no good or the run game being poor, but none of those things were good previously either and the only real key missing piece was Vereen (he mattered, but not top ten to bottom five mattered).
He covered the warts those years; he collapsed under them last when they expected and needed him to not in order to produce similarly offensively.
Is that fully fair, especially with how little credit he gets outside certain Giants bubbles? No, but that's his lot. The OL isn't, realistically, going to be any better this season (sorry, forever optimists). He's got to get his internal clock right somehow and get back to being who he used to be. If he doesn't, none of the claimed improvements around him are going to matter much; the offense is going to flop again.
Seems like there were a few games where we stormed back in the 4th to make the games look much more competitive than we really were. The Panthers game at the end of the season we put up 21 in the 4th. Eli played perfect against the Saints, and it took a 21 point 4th as well to almost steal that game. The 20-14 loss against Washington didn't feel like a one possession game, we put up all our points in the 4th as well. That's 3 games where I think we took advantage of more relaxed defenses to get back in the game or make it look more competitive than it really was. Bottom line about the 2015 teams was that we found new, creative ways to lose.
IIRC. I don't have the FO almanac in front of me to look it all back up.
I get how it could feel differently (especially with how they would come out ice cold the first few minutes of games and out of halves), but, for the NFL standard that season, they played a lot of close football only to fuck it up over and over and over (...) again late.
The entire season was one massive kick in the balls. There was definitely an element of... let's call it, luck to preventing late scores to win as many tight games as well as they did in 2016, but fuck if they weren't owed after that year.
Our starting RB and TE in 2016 are still unemployed. Our starting WR was a late offseason signing by the Bears after everyone else - including Tom Coughlin - passed on him.
The QB didn't play terribly well. The OL was inconsistent at best. We had arguably the worst TE corps in the NFL. Exacerbating that, we had no fullback to compensate. Our running backs were not good.
Less than average Oline. No road graders to push the pile
Nothing more than average or worse running backs
Wide receivers Sterling was "OK" didn't set the world on fire. Not great speed.
Cruz was done. No breakaway speed. Neither of these guys have great size.
Poor TE play.
OBJ was good but didn't show up when it was time to shine.
We were lucky Eli wasn't killed and accomplished what he was able to do. A lot of people knock his season but given the above I think he was pretty special.
This year I think our offense will be better. We have improved the wide receiver and tight end positions.
I expect better play with the addition of Flucker. I think Flowers will show a greater level of maturity. I like his conditioning going into OTA's I am hoping we will see better player out of some of the other guys and maybe the injury bug will stay away from our Oline. Big maybe.
Runners? I will have to wait and see. I'm not sold.
Another concern I have is OBJ. Don't know if his head is in the game. I can see him pouting if he gets off to a bad start.
We will see...
Less than average Oline. No road graders to push the pile
Nothing more than average or worse running backs
Wide receivers Sterling was "OK" didn't set the world on fire. Not great speed.
Cruz was done. No breakaway speed. Neither of these guys have great size.
Poor TE play.
OBJ was good but didn't show up when it was time to shine.
We were lucky Eli wasn't killed and accomplished what he was able to do. A lot of people knock his season but given the above I think he was pretty special.
This year I think our offense will be better. We have improved the wide receiver and tight end positions.
I expect better play with the addition of Flucker. I think Flowers will show a greater level of maturity. I like his conditioning going into OTA's I am hoping we will see better player out of some of the other guys and maybe the injury bug will stay away from our Oline. Big maybe.
Runners? I will have to wait and see. I'm not sold.
Another concern I have is OBJ. Don't know if his head is in the game. I can see him pouting if he gets off to a bad start.
We will see...
Can't disagree.
The only thing I can add is I think our defense maybe better than last year.
as any part of the reason why the offense was so bad last year. He had a terrible showing in Green Bay, but for the most part, he's produced. Where were these opportunities that he blew it "when it really mattered"? The Ravens game is as close to a walkoff HR you'll see in the NFL. He had a clutch play against Dallas that sealed the game. There are warranted concerns about OBJ's maturity, but that's an entirely separate discussion IMO.
Couldn't run the ball. Inability to run the ball is split between the offensive line and the RB core. Everything else is the result of not being able to run the ball.
you double Odell and the Giants offense was in trouble. The Giants should have let Perkins play more they needed more weapon. Sterling is a nice player but lacks speed. He did great but they needed more seeing Cruz and all the TE where bad. Also we had nothing coming out of the backfield that scared anyone. That on top of the fact the defense was extremely good made the Giants more conservative.
it was actually worse than what most people are saying here. If not for a few single efforts by OBJ to score some long TDs (hand full of plays), we possibly would have the worst offense in the league.
I was saying this during last season.. that the Giants were one injury away (OBJ) from having the worst offense in the league. Think about that for a minute. What other team could lose a player on their offense OTHER THAN their QB and what is left is so bad that it cannot even compete in the NFL.
Eli nervous back there, agree Cruz not vintage Cruz, TEs not good.
I dont blame the personnel/scheme. Mac's scheme makes good sense. I hope they dont go too crazy with new formations trying to show different looks. The personnel they ran can be great with a decent run game, a good 2 way TE, and the new weapons they have now. Perk can be a great 3 down back, not tipping the D as to what is coming like they would if they picked up Blount. Adding Engram is like another wide out. Bye-bye 2016. 17's gonna be nasty.
100 repsonses and everything is discussed from a fullback, TE's, rb, Cruz even a bad defense the YEAR before.
And not a word about Mc.
I'm not sure of anything but seems to me he should be in the discussion.
We went from the maligned Randall to the revered Shep, From Harris to Cruz , Tye, Hart and Flowers entering their second year of anticipated great growth and we get remarkably Worse.
And if you want to talk defense, this defense should have helped the offense, not hurt it...as seems the logical conclusion of some of these posts.
Insecurity is holding onto the clipboard. And confidence is essential to good coaching.
The man got a pass on the boat incident too. He had to turn tradiition on its ear and gave permission for OBJ and company not to return with their teammates.
To me, another sign of bad leadership and an attempt to be "popular". Always players that went out together came home together - sometimes to get on another plane and go bavk to the city they had just played in.
All the writers, players and management team seem to like and respect Mac. So it's fair to say that this casual fan doesn't know what he's talking about. But the clipboard as a sign of lack of leadership, and lack of the confidence and strength to delegate has to stand as a statement.
You can not hold the ckipboard, call the plays, sets, personnell and formations and fulfill the functions of a head coach.
PERIOD!!
The boat incident is a non incidence if he denies permission, which he should have. It wasn't Cruz's job to protect them against themselves, it was the Head Coach's....... "I'm sorry, Giant tradition says we go home together, once home you're free to do whatever you want on your day off." ..." But don't do anything stupid and call attention to yourselves"
Can't be proven, but maybe that simple directive gets us to the superbowl. And all the cries of "lack of personnel" is buloney anyway.
Maybe five all pros on the defense alone. Three superb corners, an all world safety, a great front four, much underrated Line backers, A superbowl QB and perhaps the greatest offensive threat in the game.
This is a flawed league, Atlanta with a bad defense, Green Bay uneven and flawed, Dallas completely one dimensional.
I think we had as good a group as anyone. I think the offense under-performed and with my dying breath I'll believe that the simple device of holding onto the clipboard spoke volumes...about character, leadership, proper delegation of authority and more.
We lost Geoff Schwartz, who played very well and replaced him with Jerry. Newhouse got hurt and was replaced with Hart who was actually a weaker pass protector.
Randle to Cruz created a loss of diversification in the route tree.
No FB (loss of Johnson and Whitlock) meant that we could not run any plays which required a lead blocker, making the offense more predictable.
Loss of Fells and no blocking TE replacement. Adams was supposed to be that guy, but he had a rookie learning curve.
Jennings hit the RB wall.
Plus, the defense was so much better so that we were more conservative in the passing game so as to avoid costly turnovers.
All of these things caused the offense to be weaker, not stronger. The only real upgrade was Randle to Cruz, but it had a negative effect because Cruz was out of position and we no longer had a big WR target.
then ranted about schematics post draft, to use the players we do have - better.
Posted specifics in both cases.
This time of year its fun to see what the actual team comes up with, more '12' run some '13' outside zone runs, play action, new faces at DT opening up the interior, the '12'.
TE/Pugh/Flowers[Richburg]Hart\Biz\TE
Nice young line to build around, get excited for themselves, grow as players, move the tackles in space.
outside zone runs left with perkins, play action right, drag route.
The offense wasn't bad at all through the first 3 games. It was looking pretty good actually. Then the giants ran into two tough rough games where things got ugly. They also lost vereen around this time. Then they lost Pugh. Then the world figured out that everyone else on offense not named Beckham was terrible and Shepard was a good but limited rookie who won't take the top off a defense. Add it all up and you have a shaky offense that basically scored a few much needed pts only when necessary.
Forget what you think you saw or didn't see last year. Look at what you definitely saw this offseason. Two new expensive TEs. One new expensive WR. One more RB and the hurt guy coming back. That's a lot of turnover. There's a reason why. The players weren't any good.
Cruz was slow.
Giants used same 3WR formation 95% of the plays.
The QB didn't play terribly well. The OL was inconsistent at best. We had arguably the worst TE corps in the NFL. Exacerbating that, we had no fullback to compensate. Our running backs were not good.
2015 was probably the aberration.
Newhouse got hurt. Pugh got hurt(Again). Richburg hid an injury, This got Eli hurt in the first Washington game but he had keep starting because Nassib was hurt(god only knows why).
Both fullbacks(Johnson was being counted on to block on runs and catch the ball) were lost in preseason and never replaced.
Non of the TEs could be used and Inline Blockers.
Perkins was behind the learning curve because he graduated late. Cruz was a corpse playing out of position. Jennings retired without telling anyone. Vereen was hurt again. Darkwa was hurt.
Flowers was not in shape and Bobby Hart was learning RT. Jerry was Jerry which meant once a game he would have a brain fart and get beat bad.
Shepard was a rookie.
Jones was hurt the back up Center/Guard. the team had enough of Donnell. Tye is only good for a 3 yard catch. Adams was rookie.
Oh yeah Sullivan was hired as OC of a team that runs a WCO.
OBJ was having an off year by his standard and was in love with the kicking net.
Mac was overwhelmed by calling the plays and coaching the team at the same time. Did I forget anyone? Still won 11 games.
The offense was fucked last year as some of the member of that Offense were past it and shouldn't have been starters on an NFL offense in, or just weren't good enough.
Cruz was slow.
Giants used same 3WR formation 95% of the plays.
I agree with the same formation as a major reason. Reese/Mac should have brought in a Fullback. Also should have used Tackle eligible sometimes rather than the non blocking TE.
Quote:
TEs were bad.
Cruz was slow.
Giants used same 3WR formation 95% of the plays.
I agree with the same formation as a major reason. Reese/Mac should have brought in a Fullback. Also should have used Tackle eligible sometimes rather than the non blocking TE.
Who is this mystery Tackle you speak of?
Will Beatty? Newhouse was hurt.
Going from Cruz to Marshall will be an exponential upgrade
Quote:
In comment 13495607 Mondo said:
Quote:
TEs were bad.
Cruz was slow.
Giants used same 3WR formation 95% of the plays.
I agree with the same formation as a major reason. Reese/Mac should have brought in a Fullback. Also should have used Tackle eligible sometimes rather than the non blocking TE.
Who is this mystery Tackle you speak of?
Will Beatty? Newhouse was hurt.
Anyone would have been an improvement over what was trotted out there. Yes Beatty!
However frustrating it was I agree with this overall. Also like it or not IIRC the new offense was intended to lower TOs, and that has tended to be one of Eli's weaknesses (scheme / drops / pressure / poor run game or not). So conservative was likely BM's intent, maybe more often than we liked
Of course if this O is half as good as it should be, combined w/ a top D and hopefully good ST (Rosas has a leg fwiw so far), IMO it's a much bigger margin of error than most years. Long way to go before Game 1, 16, the playoffs, but things look good atm
Cruz was not great, but he wasn't terrible either.
Last season, with the defense being good, there weren't any easy yards.
The game is different when you are down by 3 scores.
We used the same personnel group, not formation.
Last season, with the defense being good, there weren't any easy yards.
The game is different when you are down by 3 scores.
I did allude to that, I recall some of the hardest TC apologists said that was not the case at all. There were a lot of games whose final scores looked much closer than they were.
Quote:
he used the same formation so much. Glad we have such smart fans.
We used the same personnel group, not formation.
Correct, everyone knew what we were going to do. Why we not only drafted a TE but got one in FA. Why we brought in some FB prospects.
A lot more packages to throw out there.
Quote:
The offense in 2015 got inflated because the defense was terrible, hence they were giving up so many points teams were playing more of a prevent.
Last season, with the defense being good, there weren't any easy yards.
The game is different when you are down by 3 scores.
I did allude to that, I recall some of the hardest TC apologists said that was not the case at all. There were a lot of games whose final scores looked much closer than they were.
I'm not a TC apologist: that wasn't the case and is a simply false claim. I've posted the numbers before and won't bother again, but the Giants played a majority of minutes that year +/- 7. They weren't routinely getting blown out or blowing people out -- hence why they were in position to suffer the absurd number of losses via scores in the final minutes they did.
The prevent defense argument literally only applies to maybe one game (the Carolina failed comeback) and there's even a big maybe on that, given how they missed some chances early when it was tight and then still kept moving the ball/scoring even after the Panthers tightened back up.
You can talk about the OL sucking or the pass catchers being no good or the run game being poor, but none of those things were good previously either and the only real key missing piece was Vereen (he mattered, but not top ten to bottom five mattered).
He covered the warts those years; he collapsed under them last when they expected and needed him to not in order to produce similarly offensively.
Is that fully fair, especially with how little credit he gets outside certain Giants bubbles? No, but that's his lot. The OL isn't, realistically, going to be any better this season (sorry, forever optimists). He's got to get his internal clock right somehow and get back to being who he used to be. If he doesn't, none of the claimed improvements around him are going to matter much; the offense is going to flop again.
I get how it could feel differently (especially with how they would come out ice cold the first few minutes of games and out of halves), but, for the NFL standard that season, they played a lot of close football only to fuck it up over and over and over (...) again late.
The entire season was one massive kick in the balls. There was definitely an element of... let's call it, luck to preventing late scores to win as many tight games as well as they did in 2016, but fuck if they weren't owed after that year.
The QB didn't play terribly well. The OL was inconsistent at best. We had arguably the worst TE corps in the NFL. Exacerbating that, we had no fullback to compensate. Our running backs were not good.
2015 was probably the aberration.
Nothing more than average or worse running backs
Wide receivers Sterling was "OK" didn't set the world on fire. Not great speed.
Cruz was done. No breakaway speed. Neither of these guys have great size.
Poor TE play.
OBJ was good but didn't show up when it was time to shine.
We were lucky Eli wasn't killed and accomplished what he was able to do. A lot of people knock his season but given the above I think he was pretty special.
This year I think our offense will be better. We have improved the wide receiver and tight end positions.
I expect better play with the addition of Flucker. I think Flowers will show a greater level of maturity. I like his conditioning going into OTA's I am hoping we will see better player out of some of the other guys and maybe the injury bug will stay away from our Oline. Big maybe.
Runners? I will have to wait and see. I'm not sold.
Another concern I have is OBJ. Don't know if his head is in the game. I can see him pouting if he gets off to a bad start.
We will see...
Nothing more than average or worse running backs
Wide receivers Sterling was "OK" didn't set the world on fire. Not great speed.
Cruz was done. No breakaway speed. Neither of these guys have great size.
Poor TE play.
OBJ was good but didn't show up when it was time to shine.
We were lucky Eli wasn't killed and accomplished what he was able to do. A lot of people knock his season but given the above I think he was pretty special.
This year I think our offense will be better. We have improved the wide receiver and tight end positions.
I expect better play with the addition of Flucker. I think Flowers will show a greater level of maturity. I like his conditioning going into OTA's I am hoping we will see better player out of some of the other guys and maybe the injury bug will stay away from our Oline. Big maybe.
Runners? I will have to wait and see. I'm not sold.
Another concern I have is OBJ. Don't know if his head is in the game. I can see him pouting if he gets off to a bad start.
We will see...
Can't disagree.
The only thing I can add is I think our defense maybe better than last year.
Uh... guess you didn't see this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wTyhjLnN_o
I was saying this during last season.. that the Giants were one injury away (OBJ) from having the worst offense in the league. Think about that for a minute. What other team could lose a player on their offense OTHER THAN their QB and what is left is so bad that it cannot even compete in the NFL.
THAT is what we had last season.
I dont blame the personnel/scheme. Mac's scheme makes good sense. I hope they dont go too crazy with new formations trying to show different looks. The personnel they ran can be great with a decent run game, a good 2 way TE, and the new weapons they have now. Perk can be a great 3 down back, not tipping the D as to what is coming like they would if they picked up Blount. Adding Engram is like another wide out. Bye-bye 2016. 17's gonna be nasty.
And not a word about Mc.
I'm not sure of anything but seems to me he should be in the discussion.
We went from the maligned Randall to the revered Shep, From Harris to Cruz , Tye, Hart and Flowers entering their second year of anticipated great growth and we get remarkably Worse.
And if you want to talk defense, this defense should have helped the offense, not hurt it...as seems the logical conclusion of some of these posts.
Insecurity is holding onto the clipboard. And confidence is essential to good coaching.
The man got a pass on the boat incident too. He had to turn tradiition on its ear and gave permission for OBJ and company not to return with their teammates.
To me, another sign of bad leadership and an attempt to be "popular". Always players that went out together came home together - sometimes to get on another plane and go bavk to the city they had just played in.
All the writers, players and management team seem to like and respect Mac. So it's fair to say that this casual fan doesn't know what he's talking about. But the clipboard as a sign of lack of leadership, and lack of the confidence and strength to delegate has to stand as a statement.
You can not hold the ckipboard, call the plays, sets, personnell and formations and fulfill the functions of a head coach.
PERIOD!!
The boat incident is a non incidence if he denies permission, which he should have. It wasn't Cruz's job to protect them against themselves, it was the Head Coach's....... "I'm sorry, Giant tradition says we go home together, once home you're free to do whatever you want on your day off." ..." But don't do anything stupid and call attention to yourselves"
Can't be proven, but maybe that simple directive gets us to the superbowl. And all the cries of "lack of personnel" is buloney anyway.
Maybe five all pros on the defense alone. Three superb corners, an all world safety, a great front four, much underrated Line backers, A superbowl QB and perhaps the greatest offensive threat in the game.
This is a flawed league, Atlanta with a bad defense, Green Bay uneven and flawed, Dallas completely one dimensional.
I think we had as good a group as anyone. I think the offense under-performed and with my dying breath I'll believe that the simple device of holding onto the clipboard spoke volumes...about character, leadership, proper delegation of authority and more.
You don't have hit enter after each sentence.
Randle to Cruz created a loss of diversification in the route tree.
No FB (loss of Johnson and Whitlock) meant that we could not run any plays which required a lead blocker, making the offense more predictable.
Loss of Fells and no blocking TE replacement. Adams was supposed to be that guy, but he had a rookie learning curve.
Jennings hit the RB wall.
Plus, the defense was so much better so that we were more conservative in the passing game so as to avoid costly turnovers.
All of these things caused the offense to be weaker, not stronger. The only real upgrade was Randle to Cruz, but it had a negative effect because Cruz was out of position and we no longer had a big WR target.
Posted specifics in both cases.
This time of year its fun to see what the actual team comes up with, more '12' run some '13' outside zone runs, play action, new faces at DT opening up the interior, the '12'.
TE/Pugh/Flowers[Richburg]Hart\Biz\TE
Nice young line to build around, get excited for themselves, grow as players, move the tackles in space.
outside zone runs left with perkins, play action right, drag route.
Forget what you think you saw or didn't see last year. Look at what you definitely saw this offseason. Two new expensive TEs. One new expensive WR. One more RB and the hurt guy coming back. That's a lot of turnover. There's a reason why. The players weren't any good.