Props to halftime adjustments

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(10-24-2021, 11:03 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Zac Taylor has impressed me with his ability to win the players over, his motivational capabilities and I do think his game management decisions are (Generally) much better than what we had under Marvin. Very rarely do we waste timeouts, very rarely do we waste challenges, very rarely do we make 4th down calls that are in opposition to the analytics. The one black mark on his record regarding game management was his play calling in GB when he ran on 3rd down prior to the potential game winning kick(s). They felt like give up plays and relying on the kick rather than playing for the TD and settling for the kick when needed. But that is more of a playcalling issue than a game management issue.

And that is where we get to Zac's major weakness as a head coach; his playcalling. He's not the worst in the NFL by any means, but his lack of success on third and short is actually staggering. Twice today the Bengals opened a series with a 9 yard run and both times they ended up at 4th and 1. That's ***** crazy. One they did convert, but his inability to secure short yardage scenarios is something he really needs to work on. I made a joke in the gameday chat that he should hire a coordinator whose only job is to call 3rd and short plays...but it's actually how I feel haha.

If we hire a bright, young offensive mind as our OC (or, if Callahan is that) I do think it would be a major improvement for that person to call the plays, at least on third down. That's what KC did for a few years with Bieniemy, I believe.

But, I digress. Zac has shown he knows how to build and manage a team and while I wish he'd hand off playcalling duties, he isn't horrific at it, so they'll probably keep that going as well. Unless we have a monumental collapse in the 2nd half of the season, I think Zac will be here for at least 2 to 3 more years (and potentially much longer).

Play-calling looked damn-fine to me.

As I said in the other thread, one can only comment from hindsight.

If the sneak/other plays are executed and not blown up, you wouldn't comment on getting to 4th down, 'cause we wouldn't have.

It's one thing if you run a drag at 7 yards (that's caught), when you need 9 for the FD, it's another to call a play that should get you a yard, but you don't execute and it doesn't work. The first is actual bad play-calling (and Zac hasn't called anything close to that, this year). The other is poor execution and really, has nothing to do with the playcall.

EDIT* we had a back and forth about this in the offseason; that kind of criticism is nitpicking/complaining, just to complain/nitpick.

Until Zac calls numerous plays that even if executed correctly, don't end up with a positive result, the person criticising is only playing armchair OC and from a position of hindsight, which isn't, "fair."