What exactly was the problem with play calling?

[fredtoast]

I know we all ahd problems with the short yardage shotgun calls, and a lot of people complain about not throwing to the TEs against Arizona. But that is all just a very small percentage of the offensive play calls.

What specifically do you all want to see changed. And not just calling "better" plays. I want to know specifically what will make you think play calling is getting better.

[Whatever]

(05-06-2020, 04:34 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I know we all ahd problems with the short yardage shotgun calls, and a lot of people complain about not throwing to the TEs against Arizona.  But that is all just a very small percentage of the offensive play calls.

What specifically do you all want to see changed.  And not just calling "better" plays.  I want to know specifically what will make you think play calling is getting better.

It was a common theme among Taylor's post game press conferences that assignment errors were a constant issue, so it's hard to harp on play calling when there were serious issues with execution.  The success rate would have likely been higher if everyone was doing the right things.  

[*jason*]

(05-06-2020, 11:05 PM)Whatever Wrote: It was a common theme among Taylor's post game press conferences that assignment errors were a constant issue, so it's hard to harp on play calling when there were serious issues with execution.  The success rate would have likely been higher if everyone was doing the right things.  

I'm not a UC fan, and for all I know neither are you. I didn't even know Zac Taylor was at UC for any period of time. Hell, I'd never heard of him til he was a candidate for the Bengals job. My question is this... Were assignment errors a big problem when his offense was sucking at UC too? If they were it may be a case of when you point the finger, three fingers point back at you... Not sure I nailed the saying, but whatever.

[impactplaya]

My issue I had was the.design of the routes
In the passing game
I dont have All 22...so I'm going off memory

Too many times I saw the TEs and WRs catch the
Ball with their back to the defense. Which leads
To me thinking their was alot of curl and sit down routes
I didn't see alot of routes that allowed a WR like John Ross
Catch the ball in stride and let him spilt safties for example
Even a guy like Auden Tate didn't have alot of opportunity
To catch and go.
I didnt see alot of wheel routes either
Screen pass to a TE....non existent.

With the running game i think a lot more pulling would be 
Super effective.
A occasional draw play on 1st down would be fresh 
And not just on 3rd and 21 to Gio for 4 yards 
Quick tosses to Mixon were getting big yards in the 
2nd half of the season.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(05-06-2020, 11:32 PM)impactplaya Wrote: My issue I had was the.design of the routes
In the passing game
I dont have All 22...so I'm going off memory

Too many times I saw the TEs and WRs catch the
Ball with their back to the defense. Which leads
To me thinking their was alot of curl and sit down routes
I didn't see alot of routes that allowed a WR like John Ross
Catch the ball in stride and let him spilt safties for example
Even a guy like Auden Tate didn't have alot of opportunity
To catch and go.
I didnt see alot of wheel routes either
Screen pass to a TE....non existent.

With the running game i think a lot more pulling would be 
Super effective.
A occasional draw play on 1st down would be fresh 
And not just on 3rd and 21 to Gio for 4 yards 
Quick tosses to Mixon were getting big yards in the 
2nd half of the season.

My biggest complaint of the Marvin era was that the receivers ran their routes . . . and then just ***** stood there with their defender attached to their hip. I rarely saw a drag route or crossing route which Brady has leaned on for about a decade now. I was hoping that Taylor brought that route with him . . . but no. He didn't. Well, at least so far he hasn't installed it. It may be brought up by Burrow and then implemented..

[Mobster]

There was no play calling issues. They just sucked for much of the year and didn't execute. If a play isnt executed and doesn't work, people say it was a bad call. The same plays started working later on as players started performing better.

[EatonFan]

They need to go long way more often. I'd send a WR deep nearly every single pass play. If there's a broken coverage, boom... TD! If you have a QB that recognizes one on one on the deep WR. Throw it deep. Let your WR make a play. This dink and dunk around the LOS is not all that exciting, nor does it usually pay off as you must execute nearly every single play for the obligatory 3-4 yards. Rarely does it result in big yardage.

[GreenCornBengal]

My biggest gripe was with the tempo. We would be down multiple scores in the 2nd half and seemed to be easing along instead of going into hurry up mode. Didn't feel the sense of urgency from Zac when it was needed.

I would like to see more TE seams routes... This was something Andy, Eifert and Uzo were pretty efficient at, but didn't seem to happen often. I would also like to see us use Mixon more in the passing game ala Kamara in N.O.

I do think it's tough to judge since they lost AJ for the entire season. AJ opens up the offense and hopefully he can stay healthy as that gives any QB much more to work with by keeping the safeties honest. After Ross went down, there really was no deep threat. Boyd is great but he isn't a burner and Tate isn't going to blow the top off of a defense either.

[impactplaya]

It's funny...ZT was super aggressive in the Hawks game.
Then after that he went into conservative mode untIL
The Dolphins game.

[BengalChris]

(05-06-2020, 11:05 PM)Whatever Wrote: It was a common theme among Taylor's post game press conferences that assignment errors were a constant issue, so it's hard to harp on play calling when there were serious issues with execution.  The success rate would have likely been higher if everyone was doing the right things.  

Sounds like a different way of saying, "we've gotta play better."

 

[Whatever]

(05-06-2020, 11:32 PM)impactplaya Wrote: My issue I had was the.design of the routes
In the passing game
I dont have All 22...so I'm going off memory

Too many times I saw the TEs and WRs catch the
Ball with their back to the defense. Which leads
To me thinking their was alot of curl and sit down routes
I didn't see alot of routes that allowed a WR like John Ross
Catch the ball in stride and let him spilt safties for example
Even a guy like Auden Tate didn't have alot of opportunity
To catch and go.
I didnt see alot of wheel routes either
Screen pass to a TE....non existent.

With the running game i think a lot more pulling would be 
Super effective.
A occasional draw play on 1st down would be fresh 
And not just on 3rd and 21 to Gio for 4 yards 
Quick tosses to Mixon were getting big yards in the 
2nd half of the season.

In all honesty, hitting guys in stride was never one of Andy Dalton's strong points.  Trying to build a RAC based offense that relied on Dalton consistently making those kinds of throws  wouldn't really be playing to your strength.

A lot of the short stuff with the receiver's back to the defense is an issue of primary receivers not being able to get separation and forcing the QB to dump it short.  What route the receivers run is also often predicated on what the defense shows them. With no AJ all year and no Ross half the year, the only guy defenses had to show a little respect to on deep stuff was Boyd. Eifert was a shell of himself and couldn't threaten the seam anymore.  The defense will concede stuff like that to guys they know have no chance to make guys miss and take it to the house all day.

I remember Ross scored against Seattle on a wheel route out of jet sweep presnap motion, which I thought was great play design.  Never saw it again after that.   

[Whatever]

(05-07-2020, 12:00 AM)EatonFan Wrote: They need to go long way more often.  I'd send a WR deep nearly every single pass play.  If there's a broken coverage, boom... TD!  If you have a QB that recognizes one on one on the deep WR.  Throw it deep. Let your WR make a play.  This dink and dunk around the LOS is not all that exciting, nor does it usually pay off as you must execute nearly every single play for the obligatory 3-4 yards.  Rarely does it result in big yardage.

Pass pro aside, we have to remember that 18 LB's at the NFL combine this year ran faster 40's than the guy who was our #2 WR most of the year.  That severely limits what you can do on offense.  We only really had one starting caliber WR all year in Boyd, and you have to try and scheme him open because any DC worth his salt will key on him.  The only other guy we had that DC's had to really account for was Ross, and that's mainly because of the speed threat.  But the issue there is that the guy you would logically send deep everybody's looking at because he's the combine record holder.

[Pat5775]

(05-06-2020, 11:21 PM)jason Wrote: I'm not a UC fan, and for all I know neither are you. I didn't even know Zac Taylor was at UC for any period of time. Hell, I'd never heard of him til he was a candidate for the Bengals job. My question is this... Were assignment errors a big problem when his offense was sucking at UC too? If they were it may be a case of when you point the finger, three fingers point back at you... Not sure I nailed the saying, but whatever.

I’m a UC fan. And if what I remember is correct, Taylor was simply there for the sake of being there. Retired-in-place coach Tommy Tuberville was the main reason UC was so awful that year. I’m fairly certain Tuberville was the play caller.

Unfortunately for UC, Tuberville simply couldn’t care less about winning games (he even said after he was hired at UC he was “done winning championships”), he had a personal vendetta against starting QB Gunner Kiel and jerked the QB’s around at the expense of the rest of the offense... it was a complete nightmare.

Taylor’s critics and doubters love to point out how awful UC was while he coached there, but trust me... Taylor was not the problem there. Not by a long shot.

[Pat5775]

(05-07-2020, 12:38 AM)BengalChris Wrote: Sounds like a different way of saying, "we've gotta play better."

 

At least Zac allowed personnel changes throughout the season and was aggressive in free agency. Marvin was all to content to let “his guys” stick around and figured they just “needed to play better”

[BengalChris]

(05-07-2020, 01:10 AM)Pat5775 Wrote: At least Zac allowed personnel changes throughout the season and was aggressive in free agency. Marvin was all to content to let “his guys” stick around and figured they just “needed to play better”

Free agency with the Bengals is dictated by the front office, not the coach. Look at the 2019 free agency signings. That was one of the worst and laziest free agency years the team has had. Webb, Miller, Jerry, Hart, Smith and Brown. Only Hart is left on the team and he could be replaced by a practice squad pickup. 

 

[Joelist]

Let's see.

Constantly calling outside run plays with a OL that was terrible at zone blocking. QB sneaks out of the shotgun. Leaving terrible tackles out on islands. EXTREMELY predictable screen passes. Granted the playbook got cut back a lot by the shaky OL and all the WR injuries but there seemed to be little imagination in use for trying to find things that worked.

[Sled21]

(05-07-2020, 01:33 AM)BengalChris Wrote: Free agency with the Bengals is dictated by the front office, not the coach. Look at the 2019 free agency signings. That was one of the worst and laziest free agency years the team has had. Webb, Miller, Jerry, Hart, Smith and Brown. Only Hart is left on the team and he could be replaced by a practice squad pickup. 

 

The final say may go to the front office, since they have to pony up the money, but if you think the HC has no say in who they go after then you're highly mistaken.

[Sled21]

(05-07-2020, 12:00 AM)EatonFan Wrote: They need to go long way more often.  I'd send a WR deep nearly every single pass play.  If there's a broken coverage, boom... TD!  If you have a QB that recognizes one on one on the deep WR.  Throw it deep. Let your WR make a play.  This dink and dunk around the LOS is not all that exciting, nor does it usually pay off as you must execute nearly every single play for the obligatory 3-4 yards.  Rarely does it result in big yardage.

Who was going to go long? Green and Ross were on the sideline. 

[*bengalfan74*]

As is most often the case it wasn't just one thing it was a combination of several things that added up to the disaster. We all know the list.

[Au165]

(05-06-2020, 04:34 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I know we all ahd problems with the short yardage shotgun calls, and a lot of people complain about not throwing to the TEs against Arizona.  But that is all just a very small percentage of the offensive play calls.

What specifically do you all want to see changed.  And not just calling "better" plays.  I want to know specifically what will make you think play calling is getting better.

The truth, if people are willing to be truthful with themselves, is they don't really know they just know "those plays" didn't work. Execution is always WAY more important then play calling. Any complaint about when a run/pass was called in terms of situation is always based on the outcome not the actual play. Even the shotgun running on short yardage is kind of comical because you can find people who think going "heavy" on short yardage is a dead giveaway it's a run, or if they pass out of a heavy set they were being too cute and they should have ran. The "too predictable" complaint is the most obnoxious comment from fans.

Not to pick on this person, it's just one example, but I saw someone say receivers would stop with their back to the defense, so they were running too many "curls or sit down" routes. This is a HUGE over simplification of what a modern offense is. First, there are route combinations (especially against zone) that use the combination to create conflict. For instance a smash concept uses a hitch and a corner route to create conflict. Let's say I have a cover 2 defense, the flat defender has two options he can sink off the hitch and play it soft trying to make the hole shot throw more difficult, or he can come down to take away the quick hitch. If the defender sinks you are throwing the quick hitch, which would qualify as turning around with your back to the defense route, but if the defender comes down you are throwing a corner in the gap. 

Second, Sitting down between a zone is an option, and good technique, on many crossing routes. There are windows in between zones and the QB and WR should be on the same page to know where those windows sit in various zone coverages. It sounds great to say "hit the WR in stride" but in reality that doesn't make sense depending on the coverage. Sure, if you get man coverage and are running away get it in front of them, but throwing in front of a receiver running through zone can be a recipe for disaster. Often times you will see guys sit down a dig or a drag in between zones because THAT IS THE RIGHT PLAY. 

Therein lies the biggest problem, fans think they understand football at a much deeper level than they really do. If you asked 100 fans from here to go up and draw defensive coverage and then explain how those assignments change in various alignments such as 2x2, 3x1, empty they'd look at you like an alien. Someone right now is sitting at their computer saying "What are you talking about we are talking about offense", which I would like to explain that many offensive checks and site adjustments are based on what the defense is doing both pre and post snap. The thing is, that's okay, you can be critical of teams and execution without knowing anything about the intricacies of the game but when people start criticizing play calling I always laugh because it shows how out of touch with reality fans can be at times.