Offensive Problem Summed up in One Sentence

[diver]

Maybe in the draft they need to get to focusing on that, especially in the later rounds. Because of all the things that frustrate me about this team, it has to be a lack of toughness and hard nosed football that bothers me the most.

 

[topseed]

Gee, I guess the offensive struggles weren't DJ's fault after all. Imagine that.

You'll have to sum them up with a different sentence this week.

 

[stillwright]

Separation is the exception, not the rule.

Good to great WRs run precision patterns and are in sync with timing patterns/back shoulder throws, etc. Since Ben never practices, how are they supposed to get better?

I wonder if our OL practices?

 

[FSF]

I wonder if our OL practices?

It would be nice if Pouncey & DeCastro had a year left in them,

I’m sure they practice. They have a lot being asked of them…. Heck, Faneca didn’t even start week 1, and it took him 3 years to establish himself as the best G in the game

 

[Black & Gold Bleeder]

Faneca was a camp hold out.

 

[steelreeling]

so the run game is failing because guys often have mission impossible for their blocking assignments? How do you expect your C to run all the way down the line and block a DB in space? Then you want Gentry to get a reach block on a DE.

They drafted perhaps the most agile & quick Center to come out in the last 15 or so years. Green does move his *** in a hurry - like nothing i've seen since... Dirt. But then again Dirt could not only hold the point, he would move it forward.

This is the problem that i posted and worried about before the season: no cohesive gameplan with this offensive line. They got 3 maulers and 2 dancers on the O-line.

Canada just has to start getting creative with the schemes; or he should just replace the maulers, hope for the best and run the Shanahan shuffle.

 

[stillwright]

They drafted perhaps the most agile & quick Center to come out in the last 15 or so years. Green does move his *** in a hurry - like nothing i've seen since... Dirt. But then again Dirt could not only hold the point, he would move it forward.

This is the problem that i posted and worried about before the season: no cohesive gameplan with this offensive line. They got 3 maulers and 2 dancers on the O-line.

Canada just has to start getting creative with the schemes; or he should just replace the maulers, hope for the best and run the Shanahan shuffle.

I think it is the opposite we should do. Stop trying to be creative. Go to the basics and work your way forward. Baby steps. You have guys moving all over and missing their assignments.

 

[Badcat]

I think it is the opposite we should do. Stop trying to be creative. Go to the basics and work your way forward. Baby steps. You have guys moving all over and missing their assignments.

I think Stillreeling is correct. Canada needs to make adjustments to compensate for this struggling offensive line. Honestly, the only thing that will work is to start play action passing with a FB on the field as your base package. Ben calls protections to leave one or both of them in to block and that will give his WR's time to get open and hit some passes over the middle. Start using tempo to your advantage. Once the opposing DC sees your fullback on the field He'll put in his run package and when you start carving up is secondary he wont have time to swap out to his Nickle package. He'll call his backers into coverage and you start running the ball with a balanced offense. Ben throwing for 58 attempts to 14 run attempts against the Bengals is bullshit. They're putting 11 hats within 12 yards of the LoS and defending the Hashes, it's a recipe for disaster.

 

[Litos]

this is huge.!

That's what she said

 

[topseed]

I think Stillreeling is correct. Canada needs to make adjustments to compensate for this struggling offensive line. Honestly, the only thing that will work is to start play action passing with a FB on the field as your base package. Ben calls protections to leave one or both of them in to block and that will give his WR's time to get open and hit some passes over the middle. Start using tempo to your advantage. Once the opposing DC sees your fullback on the field He'll put in his run package and when you start carving up is secondary he wont have time to swap out to his Nickle package. He'll call his backers into coverage and you start running the ball with a balanced offense. Ben throwing for 58 attempts to 14 run attempts against the Bengals is bullshit. They're putting 11 hats within 12 yards of the LoS and defending the Hashes, it's a recipe for disaster.

Yeah...but that makes too much sense.

 

[tapeANaspirin2it]

Gee, I guess the offensive struggles weren't DJ's fault after all. Imagine that.

You'll have to sum them up with a different sentence this week.

Hard to judge because JuJu got hurt but Claypool still got the most targets and DJ’s targets went to Najee. They still didn’t get Freiermuth involved much.

I have said repeatedly that DJ is the best WR on this team. He’s still unreliable though because he and Ben are not on the same page far too often. If you think forcing the ball to DJ and Claypool is a great plan then we’ll disagree. I’m advocating spreading the ball around.

want this week’s sentence?

Offense fails again because they only involved 2 people.

Maybe if JuJu didn’t get hurt there would have been more distribution but once again, this offense does not use all it’s weapons.

 

[topseed]

Hard to judge because JuJu got hurt but Claypool still got the most targets and DJ’s targets went to Najee. They still didn’t get Freiermuth involved much.

I have said repeatedly that DJ is the best WR on this team. He’s still unreliable though because he and Ben are not on the same page far too often. If you think forcing the ball to DJ and Claypool is a great plan then we’ll disagree. I’m advocating spreading the ball around.

want this week’s sentence?

Offense fails again because they only involved 2 people.

Maybe if JuJu didn’t get hurt there would have been more distribution but once again, this offense does not use all it’s weapons.

It's not hard to judge at all. You said that DJ was one of the two main problems with this offense. He wasn't on the field this past week, and the offense looked even worse. Ben's not on the same page far too often with any and all of his receivers -- it's clearly not exclusive to Johnson.

I don't think forcing the ball to anybody is a great plan. And 19 targets in a single game to the running back would certainly qualify.

You have this illusion from the past that they continue to force the ball to DJ and he's still unreliable. I broke down all 22 targets of his in the Buffalo and Vegas games, and I assure you that neither of your contentions are true. Watch the games again for yourself, and if you still disagree with me, I'd be happy to go over each one in detail.

 

[steelreeling]

I think it is the opposite we should do. Stop trying to be creative. Go to the basics and work your way forward. Baby steps. You have guys moving all over and missing their assignments.

I can see that. i just worry that almost none of our guys cannot win their assignments - outright.

 

[steelreeling]

I think Stillreeling is correct. Canada needs to make adjustments to compensate for this struggling offensive line. Honestly, the only thing that will work is to start play action passing with a FB on the field as your base package. Ben calls protections to leave one or both of them in to block and that will give his WR's time to get open and hit some passes over the middle. Start using tempo to your advantage. Once the opposing DC sees your fullback on the field He'll put in his run package and when you start carving up is secondary he wont have time to swap out to his Nickle package. He'll call his backers into coverage and you start running the ball with a balanced offense. Ben throwing for 58 attempts to 14 run attempts against the Bengals is bullshit. They're putting 11 hats within 12 yards of the LoS and defending the Hashes, it's a recipe for disaster.

I would say this seems like the strategy most likely to work.

 

[tapeANaspirin2it]

It's not hard to judge at all. You said that DJ was one of the two main problems with this offense. He wasn't on the field this past week, and the offense looked even worse. Ben's not on the same page far too often with any and all of his receivers -- it's clearly not exclusive to Johnson.

I don't think forcing the ball to anybody is a great plan. And 19 targets in a single game to the running back would certainly qualify.

You have this illusion from the past that they continue to force the ball to DJ and he's still unreliable. I broke down all 22 targets of his in the Buffalo and Vegas games, and I assure you that neither of your contentions are true. Watch the games again for yourself, and if you still disagree with me, I'd be happy to go over each one in detail.

you can't possibly know the assignments on each play. Do you deny that DJ and Ben are very often not on the same page? I am assuming that DJ is wrong most of the time rather than Ben because Ben has higher connection rates with his other WRs. He misses Claypool a bit but that's because many of the throws to Claypool are low percentage and on quite a few, Claypool should have been able to make the play.

By contrast, a great many of the targets to DJ are high % throws and still the huge number of disconnects. Last year DJ had 88 receptions on 144 targets. That's just 61% connection rate. That's way too low for a #1 WR

of the 35 receivers who saw 100+ targets, Johnson was 14th in receptions (88), 29th in catch percentage (61%), 24th in yards (923), 34th in yards per target (6.41). That's not great.

I don't understand why you are getting so defensive about something that is pretty obvious, that Ben and DJ and not connecting at a high enough rate.

That is my thought process on why it is DJ that's wrong on most of the disconnects rather than Ben.

I'm not saying get rid of DJ, just that they need to get others more involved until he gets on the same page with Ben.

 

[topseed]

you can't possibly know the assignments on each play. Do you deny that DJ and Ben are very often not on the same page? I am assuming that DJ is wrong most of the time rather than Ben because Ben has higher connection rates with his other WRs. He misses Claypool a bit but that's because many of the throws to Claypool are low percentage and on quite a few, Claypool should have been able to make the play.

By contrast, a great many of the targets to DJ are high % throws and still the huge number of disconnects. Last year DJ had 88 receptions on 144 targets. That's just 61% connection rate. That's way too low for a #1 WR

of the 35 receivers who saw 100+ targets, Johnson was 14th in receptions (88), 29th in catch percentage (61%), 24th in yards (923), 34th in yards per target (6.41). That's not great.

I don't understand why you are getting so defensive about something that is pretty obvious, that Ben and DJ and not connecting at a high enough rate.

That is my thought process on why it is DJ that's wrong on most of the disconnects rather than Ben.

I'm not saying get rid of DJ, just that they need to get others more involved until he gets on the same page with Ben.

I can't possibly know the assignments, but I can analyze the throws that were made to Johnson. No, I don't deny that Ben and DJ are often not on the same page; what I pointed out to you is that were several more examples of Ben having the same type of issue with his other receivers against the Bengals, and it's not just Claypool. I'm defending DJ because he is nowhere near being the main problem with this offense.

OK, I know you didn't bother to re-watch, but let's break down the Buffalo game anyway, which according to you, was a horrible performance for DJ because he only had a 50% catch percentage with 5 receptions on 10 targets:

1) 2nd-an-8. Comeback screen 3 yards behind LOS, 14 yards, first down.
2) 3rd-an-4. In and out 2 yards past LOS, beat his man, Ben throws the ball three feet over his head. No miscommunication, just a **** pass.
3) 1st-and-10. Short out pattern, 6 yard gain.
4) 1st-and-10. Deep out, open for a moment, Ben throws ball to the inside (not outside), ball knocked away on a **** pass.
5) 1st-and-10. Draws defensive holding penalty on White, first down.
6) 1st-and-10. Comeback screen 3 yards behind LOS, 6 yard gain.
7) 1st-and-10. Short out pattern, 5 yard gain.
8) 1st-and-10. Ran short out, Ben throws downfield. A world-famous miscommunication.
9) 1st-and-10. Short corner route, nice catch for a 5 yard touchdown.
10) 1st-and-10. Draws defensive holding penalty on Wallace, first down.
11) 2nd-and-7. Short out pattern, open, Ben throws ball back toward the inside (not outside), off his hands as he's twisting back to try and catch a **** pass.
12) 2nd-and-11. Go route, was never open, Ben throws what appears to be a 13 yard out, or maybe his follow-through was disrupted, hard to tell. Possible world-famous miscommunication.

So, in reality, DJ was targeted 12 times. Five were catches (one for the team's lone offensive touchdown). Two drew holding calls on the defense. Three were **** passes by everyone's favorite 39-year old quarterback. One was a definite miscommunication, and another was potentially so. Are they always the receivers' fault? Because they continue to occur frequently, with or without DJ on the field.

Explain to me how they're "forcing the ball" to Johnson, and where you see unreliability. What I see is a good receiver getting open a lot, making plays, drawing penalties, and being held back by unreliable quarterback play. How about you?

 

[madinsomniac]

Would they? Because that T wouldn't have taken time to develop or gel? We already have three young prospects starting. Would another have made a difference? And who? The one T I liked went right before the Steelers picked. I am sure they were surprised Banner had a set back as well.

The issue is you really can’t count on more than 5 or 6 years out of a rb…. You get a decade out of a stud tackle… if you have a oline a rb can contribute right away, but wasting two years on getting one together puts unnecessary wear and tear on a fragile position

Harris is immensely talented but he was a luxury pick when a lot of needs were more pressing… literally utilizing samuels would have gotten us almost the same as his receiving yards and probably just a hair less production in the anemic run game… rbs are a dime a dozen… and 99% are useless without a gelled oline

 

[steelcan58]

The issue is you really can’t count on more than 5 or 6 years out of a rb…. You get a decade out of a stud tackle… if you have a oline a rb can contribute right away, but wasting two years on getting one together puts unnecessary wear and tear on a fragile position

Harris is immensely talented but he was a luxury pick when a lot of needs were more pressing… literally utilizing samuels would have gotten us almost the same as his receiving yards and probably just a hair less production in the anemic run game… rbs are a dime a dozen… and 99% are useless without a gelled oline

Drafting Harris was a hope and a prayer, much the way this whole season looks like it's going to be. They were hoping they could build an OL from scratch using smoke and mirrors, Ben would be Ben from 5 years ago and they could beef up the defense. None of that looks like it's happening.

And here we are.

 

[Drink IRON City]

I think it is the opposite we should do. Stop trying to be creative. Go to the basics and work your way forward. Baby steps. You have guys moving all over and missing their assignments.

Definately this.

Back to basics and teach this YOUNG OL how to block by simplifing the assignment. Give them less to worry about so as they can focus on the actual block.




Salute the nationm

 

[madinsomniac]

Definately this.

Back to basics and teach this YOUNG OL how to block by simplifing the assignment. Give them less to worry about so as they can focus on the actual block.




Salute the nationm

I agree except to simply you are then relying on physical superiority to win… so we better double down on adding a true burner cause we ain’t getting a physical beast unless decastro gets healthy and returns