Ryan Grant

[FritzDontBlitz]

Thanks for digging this thread up.

[Tarlam!]

Bump, and continue

Kudos, you called it; I was backing Wynn.

[Freak Out]

I was impressed with the guy on Monday night....yes Denver has the worst run D in the game but he ran very well. showed some moves, strength, toughness and held onto the ball. I really wanted to see him more down on the goal line but hopefully that will come. We have not seen BJack in so long I forget how the guy even runs and Morency is always trying to get fancy instead of cutting it up the damn field. Hopefully he can be our guy for the rest of the year.

[Merlin]

I was impressed with how hard he ran Monday night. He made some holes for himself and he did the one cut the coaches are crying for. The biggest thing is HE DIDN'T GET INJURED! So he will probably be our 4th starting running back in 8 games. I am not going to pretend that he is great but he showed some things we haven't had in any of our runners since pre-season, the ability to move the pile. He did rush for over 100 yards (barely) but unfortunately the Bronco's run defense is so bad that after the Green Bay game, they were still averaging 166 yards on the ground against them. We didn't come close to that and that is the scary part.

I fully expect another 100 yard performance against the Chiefs unless by some miracle they actually have a defense this year. Right now they are ranked 17th against the run. Their defense has actually done a fairly good job keeping teams out of the end zone (ranked 6th in points allowed).

I don't think Grant is the answer simply because our line is so horrible at the ZBS that by the time they get any good, Grant will be on IR from having to push the pile too many times.

[MJZiggy]

There was sooner info than this; I want to find the thread where I praised TT for pulling the trigger with this guy after reading about him

You just wanted to get rid of that "dam sig."

[BlueBrewer]

I read somewhere that MM was phasing into the power gap scheme. The Grant runs looked more like dives from the Power Gap than zone but what do I know?

[HarveyWallbangers]

I read somewhere that MM was phasing into the power gap scheme. The Grant runs looked more like dives from the Power Gap than zone but what do I know?

McCarthy was asked about this in press conference, and he said they ran only two power gap plays in this last game. Both on draw plays.

[Maxie the Taxi]

I read somewhere that MM was phasing into the power gap scheme. The Grant runs looked more like dives from the Power Gap than zone but what do I know?

From McCarthy's October 23 Press Conference...

(Are you wavering at all on the zone-blocking scheme, thinking of going in a different direction at all, maybe not entirely, just partially?)

To answer your question, no. In my view there's no reason to. Whether it's zone-blocking schemes, pattern-blocking schemes, it still comes down to the fundamentals of footwork, pad level, and those types of things. Our issues are fundamentals, and we need to do a better job.

That should say it all.

[FritzDontBlitz]

I have never understood why they completely dumped the power game anyway, especially when your three best offensive linemen (Barry, Clifton and Tauscher) are more suited for it. Clifton and Tauscher seem to struggle with the ZBS as much if not more than the four new guys (Colledge, Moll, Spitz, Wells) do. IMO it would have made more sense to phase it in over time as you drafted more linemen to fit the scheme. Personally, I feel the scrapping of the power game - and the U-71 package in particular - had more to do with Jeff Jagoffinski's ego and running beef with Mike Sherman (Shermy fired his ass before the 2005 season if I recall correctly, if not I'm sure someone will recall correctly for me ) than being a sound strategy. I have no problem with a new coach trying to stamp his imprint on a new position or job, but the whole approach to it when he took over irked the hell outta me - especially the way he dogged Kevin Barry for basically doing what Sherman had encouraged the year prior. Bolting the team after 1 year doesnt go over well with me, either: you claim that your philosophy is sound and either you get with it or get gone - then, 1 year later "poof!" you bail to be a star coach elsewhere.

Whether they are strictly ZBS now or mixing in the power gap scheme as well (Tony Moll lining up at left TE and drawing a false start penalty suggest they are trying to ease U-71 plays in at least in the red zone?) I hope M3 uses the best combination of run styles that fits his personnel rather than sticking to a philosophy that isnt paying off.

We shall see.

[MJZiggy]

Keep in mind, he said we were a run-first team too...

[The Leaper]

Bolting the team after 1 year doesnt go over well with me, either: you claim that your philosophy is sound and either you get with it or get gone - then, 1 year later "poof!" you bail to be a star coach elsewhere.

The guy got the head coaching gig at a place he had coached before as an assistant. I can't fault a coach for jumping at a chance to get a head job somewhere after 20 years working his way up through the ranks.

The philosophy is sound if you have the right players in place to do the job, but I think a more traditional run blocking scheme has a better chance to be effective long term because it is easier to plug guys in if you need to replace someone.

[BlueBrewer]

Isn't he the HC at Boston College? They are doing very well this year.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Keep in mind, he said we were a run-first team too...

he means they run on the first play of the game. From there, all bets are off.

[Carolina_Packer]

I have never understood why they completely dumped the power game anyway, especially when your three best offensive linemen (Barry, Clifton and Tauscher) are more suited for it. Clifton and Tauscher seem to struggle with the ZBS as much if not more than the four new guys (Colledge, Moll, Spitz, Wells) do. IMO it would have made more sense to phase it in over time as you drafted more linemen to fit the scheme. Personally, I feel the scrapping of the power game - and the U-71 package in particular - had more to do with Jeff Jagoffinski's ego and running beef with Mike Sherman (Shermy fired his ass before the 2005 season if I recall correctly, if not I'm sure someone will recall correctly for me ) than being a sound strategy. I have no problem with a new coach trying to stamp his imprint on a new position or job, but the whole approach to it when he took over irked the hell outta me - especially the way he dogged Kevin Barry for basically doing what Sherman had encouraged the year prior. Bolting the team after 1 year doesnt go over well with me, either: you claim that your philosophy is sound and either you get with it or get gone - then, 1 year later "poof!" you bail to be a star coach elsewhere.

Whether they are strictly ZBS now or mixing in the power gap scheme as well (Tony Moll lining up at left TE and drawing a false start penalty suggest they are trying to ease U-71 plays in at least in the red zone?) I hope M3 uses the best combination of run styles that fits his personnel rather than sticking to a philosophy that isnt paying off.

We shall see.

Hard to say with the Jags situation with Sherman, although, I doubt on the most basic level any OC or HC would run a scheme to exact revenge on a previous coach's style. It may have painted us into a corner to adopt the style so knee-jerk, instead of phasing it in as you suggest. You wonder if McCarthy ever went back and forth in his mind on the decision to implement the ZBS in the first place. It's no small decision as we can all see now. It's another thing to take over a team that is already built for it and keep it (that's just wise). It's another thing to say, we're going the other direction. What if Shanahan was gone from Denver and the coach who followed him decided to go heavily into the power-gap scheme and didn't really have the guys to do it? Likely, they would struggle too, until they had the right personnel. Long-term contracts at key positions make it hard to just adopt a certain scheme. Brett Favre could run a different offense, but since he's so versed in the WCO, it made sense to bring in a coach that ran it. Makes you wonder why they ever experimented with the ZBS when power-gap was working just fine. We just had some personnel issues with guards and centers turning over. I'm sure if we had stayed power-gap, TT would have found the right guys in the draft.