Early Season Adjustments

[Iron Mike]

How many years have we heard this though? At some point you have to accept that those flashes are not the norm, and he is not suddenly going to become better than he is. Everyone else has it figured out - that Jones has to be facing the ball to catch it with any reliability. I wish the coaches would use him accordingly.

Remember how well Turd Ferguson shined when he went to Minnesota?

[pbmax]

McCarthy has 3 running plays - scrum left, scrum right, and scrum up the middle. Never heard of a trap, pulling guard, or sweep - the scrum running game is what needs to be "adjusted" - for my money, needs to be scrapped.

Several times the Packers pulled Sitton over to the opposite A gap on a power play that looked pretty good.

Apparently he has heard of Mike Sherman and the Power running scheme.

[wist43]

Apparently he has heard of Mike Sherman and the Power running scheme.

Actually, I did notice Sitton pull a couple of times - wonders never cease. Certainly didn't see that play "several times"; and it is small consolation to the multitude of scrum runs.

I had hope that McCarthy and Capers would make some fundamental adjustments to their ballarina approach... pulling Sitton a couple of times might be baby steps in the right direction, but a leopard tends not to change his spots. Neither McCarthy nor Capers cares anything about running the ball, or stopping the run - I think they've proven that over and over and over and over...

I could live with McCarthy's wimpy ways - but I hate soft defense to my core... it's painful to watch. Capers has to go.

Go back and look at the SF game - no excuse for that; but that's who the Packers are - a soft team.

[gbgary]

i disagree that personnel changes aren't adjustments. he sat bush and played tighter coverage on passing downs. these two things alone made a big difference from the sf game. the "scrum" up-the-middle worked pretty well i think.

[Packers4Glory]

Geezus. I like jones. He ran a shit route. True. But fucking jordy hasn't been any better at WR this yr dropping pass after pass. Let's be fair.

[Brandon494]

How come folks don't rail on Jones for not being reliable catching the ball but crucify Finley when he isn't either? If you are bitching cuz of his tweets that's pretty sad. I for one don't give a rats ass what players say - except if they give teams bulletin board material. As long as a player is out there trying and not getting into trouble off the field I don't care what nonsense they tweet.

Didn't hear a peep about Jordy's drop passes either.

[Brandon494]

Geezus. I like jones. He ran a shit route. True. But fucking jordy hasn't been any better at WR this yr dropping pass after pass. Let's be fair.

I stand corrected

[wist43]

Bush is a complete disaster, and shouldn't be in the league.

As for the Bears game - I went thru the tape again (sick today and vegging on the computer and couch ). The back end played very well, and getting rid of Bush certainly had a positive effect.

Capers played a good deal of 3-4 in the 2nd half as the Bears did what they should have been doing the whole game - run the ball. When the Bears ran it, we couldn't stop them. They stopped themselves with penalties and Cutler being Cutler. If Cutler had simply managed the game, as opposed to trying to force the ball, it would have been a very close game.

Marshall dropped an easy TD; and Cutler simply tossed us the game with his idiotic play.

Our running game consisted entirely of scrum left-middle-right, save one play where Sitton pulled. We gained 84 yards on 24 carries - a 3.5 yd/carry avg. One 11 yard run was all Benson as he was stuffed behind the LOS. Without his Houdini act on that play, the average would have been 3.0 yd/carry. 2 seperate 3rd and 1's, were stuffed for minus yardage. We scored 1 offensive TD, set up by Cutler, we never really mounted a drive. We gave up 5 sacks, and had 2 turnovers.

Taking out the fake punt TD, we had 294 yds of total offense; taking out Cobbs run, we had 266 yards from our base offense. For the most part, our offense didn't do much of anything; and our defense only had to run thru a sieve OL, and catch passes from Cutler.

For my money, the SF game is still the yard stick that should be used to measure this team. Hopefully they will improve as the season goes on; but to date, we don't have much to hang our hats on. 1-1 will have to do.

[pbmax]

wist, you cant take out the best plays and then bemoan the mediocre leftovers. Cobb had a 28 yard run and it counts whether you wish to consider it conventional and emblematic of power football or not. You choose to include Kuhn's two short yardage plays. Just adding Cobb into your numbers gets you 25 for 112/4.48. That's hard to complain about. Looking for conventional runs? Benson alone was 20 for 81 for better than 4 ypc.

In the second half, the horrible Packer run defense yielded 54 yards on 14 carries for a horrid 3.85 ypc. You're right by golly, the Packers couldn't stop the Bear run game.

Bush can play slot corner and I would not be surprised to see him back in over Hayward at some point. I hope not to see him outside anymore.

Face it, the 49ers game matches your preconceived notions of what the Packers are better than the Bears game. So of course you hang your hat on that game. Considering success against the Bears, Steelers or Falcons simply doesn't comport with your view.

[Smeefers]

Wist is correct in some stances. Our team is going to have problems if they're playing from behind against a good running team. We have to get two scores ahead of a team before we play packer football. Last year that was no problem. It seemed like every time our offense touched the ball, we were going the distance. This year, not so much. Our offense, Aaron especially are not going to be able to keep up the offensive supremecy that they did last year. Luckily I have seen improvements on our defense. We do have a weak running game and MM's play calling always starts the year off very suspect. He usually cools his jets by the end of the first quarter of the season and then we start really hammering teams. I don't know if his scouting improves over time or he's just trying out some gimmicks to see what works and then just sticks with what works, but that is how it seems to go with this team.

One main disagreement is that I wouldn't say we're a soft team. Especially on defense. Just throwing out one DL every once in a while does not make us a gimmick defense.

[MJZiggy]

Maybe we will have some problems this season, but if wist is off the bandwagon and back to bitching about everything, then the universe has righted itself and we should be just fine.

[Pugger]

Maybe we will have some problems this season, but if wist is off the bandwagon and back to bitching about everything, then the universe has righted itself and we should be just fine.

[wist43]

wist, you cant take out the best plays and then bemoan the mediocre leftovers. Cobb had a 28 yard run and it counts whether you wish to consider it conventional and emblematic of power football or not. You choose to include Kuhn's two short yardage plays. Just adding Cobb into your numbers gets you 25 for 112/4.48. That's hard to complain about. Looking for conventional runs? Benson alone was 20 for 81 for better than 4 ypc.

In the second half, the horrible Packer run defense yielded 54 yards on 14 carries for a horrid 3.85 ypc. You're right by golly, the Packers couldn't stop the Bear run game.

Bush can play slot corner and I would not be surprised to see him back in over Hayward at some point. I hope not to see him outside anymore.

Face it, the 49ers game matches your preconceived notions of what the Packers are better than the Bears game. So of course you hang your hat on that game. Considering success against the Bears, Steelers or Falcons simply doesn't comport with your view.

I looked at base offense runs. Cobb was a nice wrinkle, was glad to see it; glad to see MM is using him in more ways.

Take the emotion out of the Bear game and just break it down for what really happened on the field, and it was all about Cutler. If Cutler doesn't play like Cutler, it is a very close game that we very well could have lost - and certainly Packer nation would be singing a different tune.

We ran the ball fairly well against their fronts which were geared toward getting after Rodgers. When we had to run it?? of course we could not. As I said for their running game - they shot themselves in the foot with penalties as often as not. They had positive running plays wiped out by penalties that had no effect upon the play itself, and they put themselves in desperately long down and distance situations out of which they ran a few times in effect punting on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th down.

The Bears came out with a terrible game plan in the 1st half; made the proper adjustment for the 2nd half, but self destructed on just about every series.

On the plus side Matthew played lights out; and I'm very encouraged by Worthy and Daniels; looking forward to House coming back. On defense, I think our talent is vastly improved - my complaint is Capers.

Offensively, we did not play well. I laid the stats out - 1 offensive TD; < 4 yds/carry; 2 turnovers, etc...

I'm glad we won. 1-1 is a hell of a lot better than 0-2; but we're a long ways from playing well, and unless Capers gets his head out of his ass, I don't expect to see much improvement from the defense as the season wears on. When we go up against good, tough teams, the same old gremlins will be evident unless Capers and McCarthy make adjustments.

[wist43]

Maybe we will have some problems this season, but if wist is off the bandwagon and back to bitching about everything, then the universe has righted itself and we should be just fine.

Agreed, feeling much more like myself these days

[mraynrand]

Capers played a good deal of 3-4 in the 2nd half as the Bears did what they should have been doing the whole game - run the ball. When the Bears ran it, we couldn't stop them. They stopped themselves with penalties and Cutler being Cutler. If Cutler had simply managed the game, as opposed to trying to force the ball, it would have been a very close game.

I thought for sure Tice wouldn't replicate Martz, but you don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?