New OC. Same offensive stalling...

Until the wretched O line is fixed it might not matter who the O coordinator is.

 

Offensive woes had almost too many "cause" to count - poor execution by players, injuries, Ben off his game, bad play calling, etc, etc. It is a complex game requiring a symphony of good things to happen for success. We were bitten by too many factors to succeed, and no one factor should be identified as the "cause"

 

Amazing that everyone continues to debate back and forth over every little reason while overlooking the most important and obvious, the O lines injuries. Even after I illustrated just how bad they were. It's not that hard people, stay healthy on the O line and all of the other issues you're discussing are mminimized and this offense clicks. Bruce Arians offense clicks. Even when it started moving at mid season this year it was when the line was relatively healthy for a short time. Colon was healthy at G and Mike Adams was in and playing well at T.

 

Actually they do, Gruden took over in 2011 and they went to the playoffs and then again this year.

 

What about Haley calling a passing play that is short of the yardage needed to kick the winning field goal? We needed to get to the 34 yard line to kick with 2 minutes to play and haley has them run routes that are all well below that mark. We have small fast receivers that work well in space not big strong guys that break tackles. It's his job to work with what we have not force things without the required talent. Calling for passing routes that are well below the needed yardage is something he did in KC as well. We need 8 yards for a 1st down hmmm let's throw a 1 yard route and hope that the defense misses a few tackles. BUT BUT BUT Ben's completion rate is so high, he's doing great. Yay he turned our 100 million dollar qb into matt cassel.

And yet once again why would he run Redman east-west? We saw it repeatedly early on and it never worked. The man is too slow for that type of play and boy wonder kept freaking trying it. He's certainly the king of trying to fool a defense and failing. Let's bring in Rainey and run a screen pass we'll catch them with that.. oops.

 

FTHI

 

:bsux:

 

True, but not quite as badly as the 2012 Steelers offense.

 

Anyone who missed more than one game due to injury should have to wear a dress at practices. That will give them some incentive and then coaches can keep an eye on our porcelain dolls. There should be some inseason humiliation for the fumblers and pass droppers too.

 

You acknowledge that we don't have the tools to run the offense that Haley installed and yet praise him for being a great oc. You have to cater your offense to the strengths of the players you have. WHile haley's attitude is this is my offense this is what we're going to do. Our strength is in Ben, Heath, Wallace, Brown, and Sanders and not pounding it up the middle repeatedly and hoping the game stays close.

 

I agree that he shouldn't use Redman that way. Also we went downfield more times than you think. Please don't forget how many dropped balls, fumbles, and wide open guys were just flat out missed. Wallace had an 80 yard td in TN. Brown had a 60 yarder this week. Heath had the longest of his career in Dallas. Wallace had another bomb in the Jets game in the corner of the end zone. Batch missed a wide open Wallace down field in the Rats game. This team went down field more than people think over the course of this season. Also I don't know how you can say that Haley refused to go downfield this past week when Wallace was DEEP down the field when Ben threw the last pick. I've made you a case for the fact that Haley DOES go downfield. You can take it or leave it.

 

I never said he didn't go deep, but the vast majority of his passing game is short passes(a fair number of 1-2 yards) and we don't have the players for that. Look at the play I mentioned in the bengals game. Everyone is short, there's no depth it's pure congestion. Ben ends up trying to run for the first and goes nowhere. You don't have to take my word for it, listen to that Bettis interview from two weeks ago. This offense is a poor fit for the players that we have and our record illustrates that. Defenses were lining up with 8-10 men in the box to defend the run and short pass and we keep slamming it in there hoping somethign will give.

We have speed in wallace,rainey, sanders, and brown he needs to utilize those tools. Once they back off from the line you can start underneath again.

 

Well given that Wallace is more than likely done as a Steeler don't you think it'll be interesting to see if they go out and try and find another Hines type player? I think Hines would've loved this offense. I've said the main thing that bothers me about this offense is that we never get to throw until 3rd down. Haley or Tomlin just didn't seem to want to adjust the gameplan in game. I'm not sure if that's on Haley or Tomlin though.

 

I think if he was used Cotchery could have been that possession receiver. From everything I've read Tomlin doesn't micromanage the team. Also I spent a fair amount of time reading about the chiefs under Haley and what we're seeing is the same thing chiefs did offensively. Run on first down, run on 2nd hope we can convert on third down. He also used the running backs in the same fashion.

 

But in AZ he didn't do that. I don't think Ben would have a problem with the AZ type offense that Haley had. I think Ben wants to throw it period and I'm not sure that he wants a RB. I mean apparently Ben was in complete control of BA's offense and look at how little we ran the ball. I don't think Ben would care about the short passes if he got more than just 3rd down to use them on ya know? I mean think of how many empty backfields on 3rd and short we've seen in these recent years. So I would guess if Ben had in a say in what kind of back he would like to have it would be one that could pass protect and catch screens. Which we have in Mendy if but apparently he doesn't wanna be here.

 

As much as people complain about Arians we actually ran the ball better under him. We're somewhere around 3.7-3.8 ypc with Haley and 4.4 with Arians. One of my main problems with Haley is the shear stupidity of the play calling. Using the run too set up the pass is great, but if you're running game is consistently coming up short then it's not going to work consistently. In 2011 with a patch work line we ran for almost 2,000 yards. In 2012 we have yet another patchwork line and ran for 1,400.Teams are stacking the box to stop the run on 1st and 2nd down and Haley keeps running up the middle. Arians used the run to set up the pass and was more effective with our players than Haley has done goign the opposite route.

We'll have to score 3 touchdowns next week to tie last years mark. As it stands we've given up 3 fewer sacks than in 2011. In 2011 on 3rd down we were 90/196 and in 2012 88/211. Even our top is down from last year. As it stands almost every single aspect of this offense is worse than under Arians and the only real substantial difference is Haley and his run, run, short pass offense.
What he wants to do might work with the right team, but this isn't that team. It may work with the 2013 Steelers, but that really will depend on how the roster changes. I didn't love Arians by any means. There were definitely times when I sat here on the couch screaming WTF?. However, part of those wtf moments are on Ben. People loved to blast Arians for going deep, but let's not forget Ben loves the long ball.

 

i was one of the worst enemy of arians , and i liked haley in the first games of the season now i don't know what to say , from the chiefsgame the offense stalled , seems that everybody copied what the chiefs did in pressing the wrs tight , and we started to struggle , ben injuried didn't help , browns ankle either wallace lack of effort too , but haley cannot find a solution . i will tell you what i think next season , this team is a nightmare to figure out

 

I'll piggy-back on this...
After the success of the long ball, opposing defenses frequently schemed to take that away (double-covering Wallace, giving a larger cushion for him, etc.).
As stated above, we had way too many bad throws and drops this year.
We also had more defenders in the backfield due to the O-line injuries...thus the short passing game was emphasized.
Longer passes take more time to develop and require the line to hold their blocks longer. Unfortunately, that wasn't happening.
We had several games where Ben dropped back for a deep pass and didn't even have time to check his 1st read in the progression.
Sure, we could go to "max protect" and only send out 2 receivers, but we honestly don't have any "Megatron" receivers who always get open.
Our guys have trouble getting off the line and separating on a consistent basis so we didn't do it much.

Like it or not, "dink and dunk" did help keep Ben on his feet more and did result in moving the chains. Consistency ended up being the problem.
The problem was, the patchwork O-line didn't do a good enough run blocking down the stretch and our running game took a dive after coming alive for a few weeks mid-season.
Play-action works great...unless the defense is instantly in the backfield. Then it just gives the QB no time to throw the ball. That happened frequently during the 2nd half of the season.

About that comment regarding throwing the 1-yard route to the RB...The RB was the "outlet" receiver or last option. That meant that the guys who should have been catching the ball for a first down were simply not open in time for Ben to deliver the ball. Again, that's related to defenders running free in the backfield before the play develops. It's better to dump the ball off to a back and hope he can run for 8 yards than to take a sack.

Most of our offensive woes were due to injuries and player execution. While I don't always agree with the play calling, the coaches study film and draw up the plays based on tendencies.
It's easy to second-guess the coaches after we see the play. My only continuous complaint about our offense is the fact that we run way too many slow-developing running plays.
Sure, it takes time for the guards to pull around...I get that. Our guards have always done a lot of pulling. It just seems like we have "lost" those plays where the RB hits the hole (yeah, I know...what hole?) quickly at full speed and plows through the second tier of defenders for 7 yards. That's been replaced by Ben running 7 yards back and handing the ball to a back with no momentum who is hit 2 yards behing the line of scrimmage and fights for a 1-yard gain.

I firmly believe that, providing we get a good OL coach this offseason, we can be a fairly dominant offense, but the OL must remain healthy. Consistency on the OL is one of the top reasons why teams are successful or unsuccessful. We had a banged-up patchwork line during the last Superbowl win...but the injuries were in preseason and early-on. They were healthy after that and jelled into a solid unit where the sum of the parts were WAY better than the individual players.

There's hope! It just really SUCKS at the current moment because we have no playoffs.

 

Actually that isn't true. We had Legurskey at center starting the game and by the end , j scott and someone else were at the tackles.

 

i think the dink and dunk worked in the beginning till the other teams started
to play tight then our wrs struggled to get open even on short route

 

Those delay plays drive me crazy, and we run them all the time. Why does Ben run back to the RB with his arm stretched out and hand it to a RB who is standing still. Did that play ever work?

 

Those TOP numbers and 3rd down numbers are SERIOUSLY flawed when looked at relatively. Ben got hurt and everything went south. Of COURSE the numbers went down with Batch and Lefty in there. Of COURSE TOP went down with Batch and Lefty in there. Look at the 9 games before Ben got hurt and compare them to BA's first 9 last year and I bet you Haley's offense looks a lot better. Also don't forget the fact that before the KC game Ben was upright almost all the time. There was a point in this season where we were talking about how good the line looked actually. There was a point in this season where Ben was being mentioned among MVP conversations. The stats don't tell the real story of Haley's first year. This year is almost a tale of two seasons in a lot of ways. Offensively AND defensively.

 

I think this offense would've been a lot better if not for the o-line injuries no continuity 3 players who were starters on the o-line went on injured reserve. After Ben's injury he went back to his old habits of holding the ball too long taking sacks.

 

I might agree with that if we hadn't lost Ben last year as well. You can also look at 2010 when we didn't have Ben for the first 4 games of the season our TOP and 3rd down conversion rate was better then as well. They're not huge margins, but they are still better. Regarding sacks as it stands we're talking about a difference of 6 sacks for the season with a good chance that margin will shrink after Sunday. Almost every single aspect of our offensive game declined under Haley. Breaking down statistics in smaller sample sizes does nothing but diminish their accuracy. You can play with that garbage all you want I'll stick with seasons and the one number that matters most. WINS

On one hand we have an OC that's consistently put up winning seasons and the other we have an OC that has put together ONE winning season. Ultimately it boils down to one thing we went from a 12-4 team decimated by injuries to a 8-8 team(at best) decimated by injuries.

 

So you are comparing the stats from year 5 of Arians where Ben is totally comfortable in "his" system to year 1 of Haley's where the whole team is adjusting to the offense not just rookies or back-ups? What were the numbers for Arians year 1? Just out of curiosity, I am not saying that there isn't a drop off I just would think if you are comparing the offense under Arians to one under Haley than it should be a like comparison and not a slanted one looking at year 5 vs year 1