Is it me?

No Heath either.

 

I agree with Strummer here. While it is great that they have the ability to stretch the field it is when those plays are made that is troublesome. Down by four or up by three is not the time to short circuit a promising drive on 3rd and short, get the first down and then go deep. Some of those early shots last night killed drives when the game had yet to be decided and when Williams had yet to become a force that needed covering. That being said I think it was a solid gameplan last week against the Seahawks because they were giving up intermediate to deep routes. This week it wasn't that big of an issue. Like Strummer was saying last week their were some throws that Ben left on the field because he was looking at Bryant deep or deeper instead of completing short passes for first downs. I can remember at least one in the redzone where Miller is wide open with a huge gap that he could have stretched to the endzone and they tried a fade to Bryant who was covered pretty well.

 

I understand the need to be smart most of the time on 3rd and short, but sometimes you gotta let that sucker fly on downs other than 1st and 10 or 2nd and short. #1 we have the guys to make it work, and #2 we get too predictable. I'm willing to sacrifice a couple 3rd downs if it opens things up later in the game.

 

What about when it costs us games? We had two interceptions on deep balls last week. I would much rather have those back and another win. Who cares if we're predictable? The defense still has to stop it. Look at the Patriots. Everyone and their mother knows they're going to dink and dunk all the way down the field. They've been doing it for years.

 

Exactly.....great when it works but keeping the D rested and aggressive seems to be our best recipe for success. I don't mind so much the deep throws when it's 1 on 1 it's the double coverage throws that are very low percentage. I feel to make noise in the post season we need to control the ball. The deep passes will open up and they will be easier to complete when the D start cheating up.

 

Oh I understand alright. We smashed the Colts because of our aggressiveness and long throws. It may not happen for us all the time because of the Colts being porous .. When you have such a talented wide receiver corp you need to be aggressive. We have seen when we insist on trying to use our run game and it stalls and Haley is insistent.

 

Brilliant! Forget playing smart football and trying to be the best team possible. Just be aggressive and hope for the best. We can justify it by pointing to wins over crappy teams

 

And your version of smartfootball is to run the ball and chew up clock while explosive offenses throw up 30 points plus? lol

 

You want to take back those deep throws against Seattle? I'll give you Exhibit A of what that would have looked like: Minnesota. We put up 30 on a top-3 NFL defense by pushing the ball down the field. Exhibit B of our offense trying the smallball approach: the 1st quarter of the Colts game. Our offense did nothing until we opened it up when Bryant got in the game.

Using the Cheats to sign the virtues of dink-and-dunk is like me using the Steel Curtain as an example as to why teams should run a 4-3. You're using a once-in-a-lifetime example to prove a point as to why dink-and-dunk works.

We have the most explosive offense in the NFL. We shouldn't attempt to reign it in because every other team out there with a pedestrian QB plays conservatively.

 

Check the box score, the offense was on balance, ben was 24 on 39 attempts passing for 364 yards, and they ran the ball 32 times for 158 yards, thats actually pretty good balance with only a 7 differential between passing and running the ball....

 

I think he should take those shots early in the game or when the game is not so close ..As the game gets later and the game is tighter, I like to flip the script and throw deep on 1st. and 2nd. and then play ball control on 3rd. .....If it works the way it's supposed to after you have burnt a few DB'S early in the game they should be backing off more on 3rd. and pressing more on early downs...

 

Nice try pal. Not once have I said run the ball and chew up clock.try reading for a change

 

Minnesota is a poor example. Seattle took away AP and exposed bridgewater. That doesn't have jack to do with the steelers going air Haley. We went deep against Seattle a bunch and lost. Doesn't matter how many points we out up because we lost. It makes far more sense to go with high percentage passes and keep our defense off the field. You saw the result, Wilson torched us for 5 touchdowns. You want to argue for doing the same thing that resulted in a loss? That makes zero sense. Once again for the reading impaired not once have I suggested running the ball more or passing less

 

No you are saying I think that we should take away the long bombs from Ben even though he is probably one of a few that actually can do it successfully. You saw the throw he made to AB into double coverage right? We should go back and play to not lose like the good ole days with Cowher

 

I hear you, but I think it depends who you are playing. Ben is going deep more because he is seeing a lot more man coverage. Teams like the Raiders and Browns have awful secondaries that he could expose badly. The Colts played man a lot and got burned because they can produce no pass rush. Also you have to keep in mind that those deep throws on 3rd and short or often based on whether Antonio or Martavis get the defender to bite on the short route - if they don't who isn't to say then don't curl in for a 10-15 yard pass rather than the bomb. Going deep against the Seahawks made sense because though Brown was covered well by Sherman whoever was covering Wheaton was a very weak link and he attacked it. He also did throw short early to Heath.

The Bengals are going to be a different sort of cat because they can rush the QB and they have a pretty solid secondary making bombs away less appealing....so I think this may be the week where you hope balance plays a bigger role.

 

That is who we are now. We have the depth in receivers nobody else has for the deep passing game and a QB that can make the throw.

I like us taking a shot here and there on 1st down, but never on 3rd down and make-able unless there is blown coverage or defender falls down or something like that.

 

My response was going to be similar- no issues with the offense at all.

 

Some around here want to play Cowher ball.. Ball to not lose. For years we have seen this team come down to the last field goal kicked. I want to see more games where we can actually relax and breath lol You?

 

Absolutely! I have seen enough nail biter games to last me a lifetime. I don't necessarily need a blowout each week, but I rather enjoyed Sunday night's game.

 

Minnesota is a perfect example because they were unable to push the ball down the field. Result? A blowout loss. We played the same defense a week prior, torched them through the air all game putting up 30 points, and lost because our secondary forgot how to tackle for 3 hours. A couple fluke interceptions should not deter us from attacking downfield. Those INT's just as easily could have happened on the short stuff courtesy of a tipped pass, off target pass due to pass rush, or some other random occurrence.

Not being able to throw downfield (Minnesota) is the same thing as not wanting to (your proposal?); the defense can sit all day on the short game and snub it out.

I'm arguing for not neutering our offense.

 

Yeah it was pretty nice to have such a convincing win. We have the thoroughbreds on this team to do this week in and week out. Did you notice in the Indy game how the play calling never got to be conservative. I was actually somewhat surprised. I expected the team to actually pull back some and start to protect their lead. I for one am very glad they did not stop. They never let up. Went for the jugular.

 

You'd like to think that we're making those calls based on some sort of solid information from upstairs or something. We don't have the luxury of knowing if the safety is cheating over on third down or the defense is doing something that indicates a deep ball has a better chance of success, then I suppose we should take it on faith that we're making the calls at the right time.....even if there have been times when I've accused the coaching staff of using a Magic 8-ball to call their next play. I'm certainly willing to give them the benefit of the doubt after a 45-10 performance (but will probably be right there complaining the next time we fail to convert a 3rd and 2 because of it)....

 

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Great just what we need - an official time and date keeper. I don't give a sh$t when he said it, he said it. Is that alright with you?