Throwing over the middle of the field

I'm not asking a team to always throw in the middle of the field, especially when it's not available against a certain type of defense, but to ignore it no matter what, even when it is available, is just an awful strategy. It's only against the Bengals that we ignore the middle of the field less.

The opponent can focus more on the outside when there is no threat in the middle

 

So You are saying we never had routes to the middle of the field, or are you one those people that actually think the coaches make You throw only certain routes?? LoL
Look at that picture showing who throws to the middle of the field the most, and who doesn't.
Notice Mahomes, and Alan threw less than we did.
Yet Lamar threw a lot.
Everyone knows Lamar has problems throwing outside the numbers unless he's traveling that way. So are you saying they didn't have any routes outside the numbers, or maybe he just doesn't throw them?
Yet Alan, and Mahomes have no problem throwing outside the numbers.
Now really think about this.

 

You do know we still have some of his coaches still on the team ??

 

My friend you can draw up routes for the TEs all day, and if the Qb chooses to go elsewhere well

 

I don't think some understand the whole idea is to win

 

Again...with Kenny, we have specific evidence that we didn't ignore the middle of the field "no matter what".

We have evidence that we didn't force it over the middle early (because it's too risky for a guy who isn't accurate). But we would go there late to win games.

IMO, this is exactly how you should treat guys where you don't think the probability of success at a given thing is high. You limit the attempts and hope that the small sample size breaks your way. Because you know that large samples mean you lose.

Then, if they can demonstrate good performance in the limited high danger reps they get, you increase how aggressive you can be. I think him not being able to throw TDs kind of shows that he's not good at throwing into congestion. He throws a very nice back shoulder pass down the sideline. But it's the only club in his bag.

While I didn't watch the games for them, I think the antithesis of the Tomlin strategy is whatever Chicago was doing with Fields. He had all the "tools" but was a walking turnover machine when he played for them. But they asked him to be superman by forcing him to play way more aggressively than he'd "earned". So he had good stats...as long as you didn't look at turnovers. And the team mostly sucked when he was QB (but he did have one good year IIRC).

I also wonder if this is part of the massive error CLE made with Watson (although surely the SA stuff is a big part of this too). But I think they got fooled with the big stats and didn't look at the "can't win" part.

It's not as dramatic, but I think Herbert is kind of the same thing. Looks good on paper. But if you can't have much / any team success when you're a QB on your rookie deal, I think it's pretty unlikely that you're going to have team success when you're sucking up a huge slice of the cap.

 

With a strong emphasis on winning the next game (even if it costs us developing to have a better chance of winning in the medium term).

 

I feel bad for Muth re: Bengals games.

Seems like the only time we really remember he's on the team is against the Bengals. And I think it's true across multiple QBs. I still hope that Washington is our TE1, but I'm also excited to see what MM can do with Muth.

And I am looking forward to having a more enteratining team to watch. But I also will be OK if we have a worse record this year than we have the last 3 years.

Because I don't think we were as good as those records suggest because I believe we won by using a scheme that works well against bad to average teams but not against above average teams.

I would have been OK if we did a rebuild years ago.

 

I understand what you're saying, and asking a QB to do too much is a recipe for disaster... It needs balance and good coaching.

As for Justin Herbert, he's a very good QB, but he's often been in a bad situation for various reasons, like having a bad head coach (Staley) or OC (Greg Roman and Lombardi), and their offensive line was depleted by injuries last year. Now he's going to have a great offensive coach in my opinion (Mike McDaniels), and he could have his best season, if his team can stay healthy, but he also needs to be much better in the playoffs. Last year he had no chance against the Patriots because of his depleted offensive line, but his playoff game against Houston in 2024 and even the Jaguars in 2022 was inexcusable.

 

Re: Herbert

I think you're right about him being a very good QB not being in a great situation. But it's concerning when you pay a guy that much of the cap, when you know that he didn't do it with the rookie deal and now you have to go through "playing on Expert Difficulty".

It's a bit ironic that he's on the same team as Rivers. Seems destined to have stats that will put him in the conversation for one of the better QBs in his generation...but not the team success to go with it.

Being in a division with Mahomes also sucks...not unlike being in a division with Lamar and Burrow (thankfully since they're both hurt so much, it ends up being better than we'd imagine being in a division with two elite - or at least borderline elite - QBs).

And it's just hard to be successful in the AFC because there are so many good QBs. I think he'd have had more team success if he was in the NFC. But I think that about Ben too. I also feel like we'd have had a better chance at winning a playoff game post Ben's injury in the NFC...but that's just speculation.

And the team is kind of forced into signing him even if they believe he's "just" going to be another Rivers. You also can't just let a guy that good walk. It's very rare to find a guy that good. And trading him for the huge ransom you'd get probably doesn't get you a QB that's as good as he was. And it would certainly get the GM fired because even if it works, it's a medium term play. And most teams don't have the patience for that.