01-04-2021, 07:11 PM
It depends on what part of the season you're looking at.
I think our close losses in week 1, week 3, week 6 and week 7 were like 90% coaching, 10% personnel. Some of the defensive play calling in those games was atrocious. Lou seemed to be dead set on switching to loose zone schemes when we needed to stop them with minutes left to go. You can say all you want about the players, but when you consistently allow points in the last 2 minutes of either half, the main problem is almost certainly play calling.
As the season churned and we continued to lose players, I think it shifted to something around 60% coaching, 40% personnel. There's only so much you can do with Brandon Allen at QB. The defense showed up at times, like in Miami and New York, and the offense just didn't (the sack fumble to end the NYG game after a good return is probably the high mark for "the players' fault" section of the criticism on this team. The meme video of Bobby Hart not even reacting to a player blowing by him is also not really something you can blame on coaches.)
There's a little bit of intermingling of coaching and personnel issues, of course. I blame the coaching for Burrow's injury even though it was the player (Michael Jordan) that technically allowed a guy to topple over him and destroy Joe's knee. Like I said at the time, when you know you have a bad Oline, every passing attempt is tempting fate. And if you tempt fate at a league high average, you're more likely going to suffer for it.
As the season wore on, I think the Dallas game and Baltimore game were 25% coaching and 75% personnel issues. We obviously should have been able to hold Baltimore down with better coaching, but we were playing guys like Margus Hunt and...players I'd never even heard of on the defensive line against the best rushing team in the NFL. That's not going to end well. The Dallas game, our offense was just pathetic. We were facing one of the worst run defenses in the NFL and our patchwork Oline just could not make any holes for our RBs, to the tune of 101 yards on 30 carries (3.4 ypc, 1.6 ypc lower than their average 5.0 ypc allowed). You could tell the coaches knew what the defensive weakness was and created their game plan to deal with it and the players just...didn't execute. Now, maybe you can say they should have shifted the game plan when it obviously wasn't working but, again, Brandon Allen is your QB. What are you even switching to?
They redeemed themselves a little bit as a rushing attack against Houston, but Houston just happens to be the only team in the NFL worse at defending the run than Dallas (besides us).
Our win against the Steelers felt great, but it was more like the Steelers choking than us actually performing well. Ben had multiple open receivers that he just...missed entirely. But the personnel and coaching both seemed pliant and resourceful in that game. Who knew Finley would run options? That was an interesting wrinkle added to the offense at the most critical time that was genuinely impressive. The problem is that was one of very very few impressive moments in the season.
On the season as a whole I'd say it's probably 75% coaching, 25% personnel. It depends on how you consider injuries. Do you consider playing back ups a "personnel problem?" or just an unfortunate circumstance? We had, in my opinion, a roster capable of winning. You saw them perform in those weeks I mentioned in the first paragraph. Especially when Burrow was our QB, I genuinely felt like we could win any game we went into. But we lost most of those games due to bad coaching. This team could have been 9-7 had it not been for MULTIPLE late game collapses and I just have a hard time blaming those on the players, especially since the coaching style and game planning had a lot to do with why Burrow was injured. Don't let them gaslight you by saying it was the injuries that caused this season. We were failing in close games before the injuries occurred.
I just hope the personnel will be good enough to overcome the coaching deficiencies next season.
I think our close losses in week 1, week 3, week 6 and week 7 were like 90% coaching, 10% personnel. Some of the defensive play calling in those games was atrocious. Lou seemed to be dead set on switching to loose zone schemes when we needed to stop them with minutes left to go. You can say all you want about the players, but when you consistently allow points in the last 2 minutes of either half, the main problem is almost certainly play calling.
As the season churned and we continued to lose players, I think it shifted to something around 60% coaching, 40% personnel. There's only so much you can do with Brandon Allen at QB. The defense showed up at times, like in Miami and New York, and the offense just didn't (the sack fumble to end the NYG game after a good return is probably the high mark for "the players' fault" section of the criticism on this team. The meme video of Bobby Hart not even reacting to a player blowing by him is also not really something you can blame on coaches.)
There's a little bit of intermingling of coaching and personnel issues, of course. I blame the coaching for Burrow's injury even though it was the player (Michael Jordan) that technically allowed a guy to topple over him and destroy Joe's knee. Like I said at the time, when you know you have a bad Oline, every passing attempt is tempting fate. And if you tempt fate at a league high average, you're more likely going to suffer for it.
As the season wore on, I think the Dallas game and Baltimore game were 25% coaching and 75% personnel issues. We obviously should have been able to hold Baltimore down with better coaching, but we were playing guys like Margus Hunt and...players I'd never even heard of on the defensive line against the best rushing team in the NFL. That's not going to end well. The Dallas game, our offense was just pathetic. We were facing one of the worst run defenses in the NFL and our patchwork Oline just could not make any holes for our RBs, to the tune of 101 yards on 30 carries (3.4 ypc, 1.6 ypc lower than their average 5.0 ypc allowed). You could tell the coaches knew what the defensive weakness was and created their game plan to deal with it and the players just...didn't execute. Now, maybe you can say they should have shifted the game plan when it obviously wasn't working but, again, Brandon Allen is your QB. What are you even switching to?
They redeemed themselves a little bit as a rushing attack against Houston, but Houston just happens to be the only team in the NFL worse at defending the run than Dallas (besides us).
Our win against the Steelers felt great, but it was more like the Steelers choking than us actually performing well. Ben had multiple open receivers that he just...missed entirely. But the personnel and coaching both seemed pliant and resourceful in that game. Who knew Finley would run options? That was an interesting wrinkle added to the offense at the most critical time that was genuinely impressive. The problem is that was one of very very few impressive moments in the season.
On the season as a whole I'd say it's probably 75% coaching, 25% personnel. It depends on how you consider injuries. Do you consider playing back ups a "personnel problem?" or just an unfortunate circumstance? We had, in my opinion, a roster capable of winning. You saw them perform in those weeks I mentioned in the first paragraph. Especially when Burrow was our QB, I genuinely felt like we could win any game we went into. But we lost most of those games due to bad coaching. This team could have been 9-7 had it not been for MULTIPLE late game collapses and I just have a hard time blaming those on the players, especially since the coaching style and game planning had a lot to do with why Burrow was injured. Don't let them gaslight you by saying it was the injuries that caused this season. We were failing in close games before the injuries occurred.
I just hope the personnel will be good enough to overcome the coaching deficiencies next season.
![[Image: oN5QAdY.png]](https://i.imgur.com/oN5QAdY.png)
