Halftime Adjustments

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(02-26-2017, 10:42 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I'll bet you can't list one single halftime adjustment made by the Steelers against the Bengals in the last several years.  For example what hal time adjustment did the Steelers make in the last playoff game that lead to them blowing a 15 point lead.

That is the problem with so many posters around here.  They just believe in a myth because of a win or a loss.

"I have no idea what a halftime adjustment is, but if the Bengals lose and people tell me it is because of halftime adjustments i will just blindly believe it."

I am sure that like most things, coaching football is more complicated than it looks. And, it looks pretty complicated to begin with.

But, I do feel like we are often out coached. So, if it isn't half time adjustments, what is it? We have all talked about having an owner who is loyal - a good quality - but loyal to a fault which gets you five years of Dave Shula. Maybe it is something similar in Marvin. Maybe he has a tendency to stick with the game plan too long before adjusting? We've all seen coaches who go to the same well too often (think Brat and the shovel pass). Maybe Marvin and his staff get so convinced they should be able to exploit a certain match up or have an advantage out of a certain formation that even when the evidence is mounting that they were wrong or that the other team game planned to not let that advantage materialize they just stick with what they thought would work for far too long.

And, to be fair, that has to be a tough call to make in a game, especially when you consider the ego of players and the overall confidence level. Example, if they go in saying, "Tyler Eifert is the first option on every play we run in the first quarter" and after 3 series they have run 3 plays, gained 7 net yards, and punted three times what do they do? If they pull Eifert or start running plays where he not only isn't the first option he is no option what does that do to Eifert's confidence. He has to think, wow, I was a key to the game plan this week and I failed everyone. And, the rest of the team has to think, wow, we came into this game with a crap plan - wtf is going on?

But, they alternative is to stick too long with a plan that is not working (and it seems this what they usually do) and only when they are desperate do they deviate.

Still, beyond any of that, I think Marvin has two big problems. 1. (Too much confidence in defense:) He still thinks he is coaching that Ravens defense. A team comes out and scores a touchdown on the opening drive against them and Marv thinks, "Well, that was a fluke, they will be lucky to get another field goal today." Might have been true that one season in Baltimore, but the result is we get down by two and three scores and he still coaches like he is ahead. 2. (Not aggressive enough on offense:) A similar thing hurts us from the offensive side. We get a 3 point lead and Marvin coaches like he is up by 3 scores, not 3 points. He never seems to try to extend a lead and it seems amazing how many times Dalton (and Palmer before him) led furious come backs that fell short (or led to victory often - as Fred pointed out). But the reason they come into the fourth quarter behind and often by quite a bit is when a team gets a lead they don't open the play book wider to try to catch up until the game is almost over and when they have a lead of a point they are content to sit on it and not try to extend it.