An Alternate Reading of the Cards Offense

[Crazy Canuck]

Oh yea I read it. Still don't think it applies with today's bombshell.

To my mind, it applies even more so.

 

[TJ]

Lets not sugar coat this. If Leinart completes more intermediate to long passes, none of this is happening (by that I mean lambasting by the media and being benched in the most important preseason game. As it stands, if Anderson has at least a solid outing, this spells the end of Leinart. DA would have to pull a Brian St. Pierre at this point to not be the starter. Or Leinart would have to look like USC Leinart. Not saying it is impossible, but improbable. And this is coming from one of his biggest advocates since he ws drafted

 

[kerouac9]

Lets not sugar coat this. If Leinart completes more intermediate to long passes, none of this is happening (by that I mean lambasting by the media and being benched in the most important preseason game. As it stands, if Anderson has at least a solid outing, this spells the end of Leinart. DA would have to pull a Brian St. Pierre at this point to not be the starter. Or Leinart would have to look like USC Leinart. Not saying it is impossible, but improbable. And this is coming from one of his biggest advocates since he ws drafted

Which of these passes are you talking about? The ones where he had 4.2 seconds in the pocket waiting for guys to get open?

Leinart attempted one long pass off play action, and the incompletion was a result of confusion between the QB who has been in the system for three years and an undrafted rookie who has been in the system for five months.

Despite the "Captain Checkdown" moniker, Leinart still has a better YPA average than Derek Anderson, and hasn't turned the ball over. The evidence just doesn't line up with this reasoning.

 

[MadCardDisease]

Lets not sugar coat this. If Leinart completes more intermediate to long passes, none of this is happening (by that I mean lambasting by the media and being benched in the most important preseason game. As it stands, if Anderson has at least a solid outing, this spells the end of Leinart. DA would have to pull a Brian St. Pierre at this point to not be the starter. Or Leinart would have to look like USC Leinart. Not saying it is impossible, but improbable. And this is coming from one of his biggest advocates since he ws drafted

Maybe I've missed something but to me Anderson has looked terrible this preseason. Anderson has zero touch and has the accuracy of a blind sharp shooter. I've seen zero improvement in Andersons accuracy or touch over the last couple of weeks. I don't see how he all of a sudden becomes the favorite to start for the Cards?

 

[kerouac9]

Maybe I've missed something but to me Anderson has looked terrible this preseason. Anderson has zero touch and has the accuracy of a blind sharp shooter. I've seen zero improvement in Andersons accuracy or touch over the last couple of weeks. I don't see how he all of a sudden becomes the favorite to start for the Cards?

What is it that the coaching staff emphasizes with every player?

Consistency.

I think the coaches would like to see some consistency from Anderson. If Anderson can be consistent in what he does, he may very well win the starting job. But if Whis has been getting in Anderson's face about anything all offseason, it's possibly the maddening lack of consistency that Anderson has shown his entire career.

 

[TJ]

Maybe I've missed something but to me Anderson has looked terrible this preseason. Anderson has zero touch and has the accuracy of a blind sharp shooter. I've seen zero improvement in Andersons accuracy or touch over the last couple of weeks. I don't see how he all of a sudden becomes the favorite to start for the Cards?

Listen....I want Matty to succeed. Trust me. I dont like Anderson and I feel Matty has a much higher ceiling. But I am also a results-oriented person and right now, all Im seeing is tentativeness and ultra conservative play.

If DA is the starter, my expectations for the season decrease.

 

[Catfish]

How can any of us say that they haven't already put these "new" plays into the practices that we're not seeing? Not only do the Cards also have two and a half more weeks of practices before opening day, but they've had more closed practices (between OTAs, closed practices in Flagstaff, and practices once the preseason closes) than open ones. Why do you think Leinart would move the offense effectively in practices, but suddenly not show anything on game day?

Whis isn't going to use the preseason to do what he thinks can work; he's going to use the preseason to put players in positions where they'll be challenged and then give them a chance to learn from that challenge. Why would Whis allow Brandon Keith to go one-on-one with Mario Williams otherwise? Because he hopes that Leinart will break his collarbone again?

Listen to Matt's press conference from yesterday on AZCardinals.com (or off iTunes). He doesn't sound like a kid who's fighting for a roster spot; he sounds like a guy who had a productive practice against a good defense.

As I said, you can see elements of the Cards' "real" offense--just not when Leinart is on the field. Anderson's been playing with more 2TE sets and fewer players out in patterns. That 3rd-and-1 play finally WAS a play-action that worked and Leinart went down the field. Unfortunately, an undrafted free agent rookie was there and maybe ran the wrong pattern but definitely failed to look for the ball.

EDIT: Thanks for all the positive feedback, guys. Honestly, I don't come here to instigate; I come here because there are things that I see and want to share.

Wow-----K-9, not only do I NOT believe that you come here to instigage, I think that what you have come up with is brilliant. It just may be that you have helped ALL of us to figure out what is going on. By taking EVERYONE out of their comfort zones, Whiz has created a nearly perfect way to see how each player is responding to what he has given them to accomplish. This would ensure that ALL are fighting for a chance to compete, (and since each one's knowlege and skills are different from the next-----then each one has to respond in a different manner in order to succeed, but THEY ALL HAVE TO COMPETE. Forcing this competition in this manner ensures that Whiz is able to evaluate EVERYONE, AND EVERYONE'S ABILITY AND WILLINGNESS TO COMPETE REGARDLESS OF THE PLAYER'S KNOWLEGE OF THE SYSTEM OR THEIR STATUS WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION.

My God-----If what you have come up with is Whiz's plan, I believe it to be even more brilliant than your discovery of it, and that was no small feat in my estimation. I certainly hope that you are correct with your assumption, because it could not only let Whiz evaluate everyone under equal, (or at least similar stressors), but would force each to work to the best of his ability to achieve the desired results. This, of course, would sacrifice valuable time in allowing the top finishers to work together as a unit, but it would be superb in determining who the one's, the two's, and the three's ARE. Once this has been established, (and I don't think it would leave much doubt who belongs where), then you still have some time to make it jell for each of the units, and you are no longer in doubt as to who the one's, two's, and three's should be.

Every time I have come to a spot where I have not understood what Whiz was doing, or have doubted WHAT he was doing, he has come up with something that just dazzled me. If you are right about this, then he has just blown me away again, this time more profoundly than ever before.

K-9-----you and I haven't always seen everything eye to eye, but if you are right about this, (and I hope you are), we may just be in for one super surprise this year. I hope the use of that word is prophetic.

 

[BigRedArk]

Good stuff K9! I have been thinking to myself "why isn't ML rolling out any"? Every pass play he either drops back or is in the shotgun it seems.

 

[Longcolts]

Good stuff K9! I have been thinking to myself "why isn't ML rolling out any"? Every pass play he either drops back or is in the shotgun it seems.

Because it's preseason and Whiz isn't playing to his supposed strengths.

 

[Lomax to Green 84]

Very well thought out post K9! I think you may be on to something with that idea.

The flipside to not gameplanning at all during the preseason is obviously to gameplan and as the 2003 preseason showed us (Mac's last year), even a horrible team can look really good during the preseason when they gameplan for the preseason game. I recall watching the Cards/Bears preseason game in 2003 where the Cardinals defense looked like the 2nd coming of the Steel Curtain defense. The Cards were putting constant heat on the Bears quarterbacks and the Bears looked slow and very unprepared and come to find out that is exactly what was going on. McGinnis decided to put a full gameplan in against the Bears and the Bears treated the game much like Whisenhunt does in the preseason, as a meaningless game. The result was a bunch of overly excited Cards fans that were to soon be shown that a 4-0 preseason means nothing.

Mike Ditka was announcing for the Bears network during that game and he mentioned a couple of times about how amazing it was to see the Cardinals employing a full gameplan in a preseason game. Ditka was trying to get Bears fans to realize that what they were seeing was not reality, but instead a desperate attempt by a lame duck coach (Mac) to instill some confidence in a terrible team. The Bears were by no means a great team that year, but they were much better than what they showed in that preseason game.

I still think we see a much better product come the regular season.

 

[Garthshort]

Reference K9's Watch List. Don't think that Andre Roberts will play, though I hope he does. And I think that we'll see Kerry Rhodes and not A-Dub covering (or trying to) Olsen. Nevertheless, all good things to watch.

 

[Duckjake]

Reference K9's Watch List. Don't think that Andre Roberts will play, though I hope he does. And I think that we'll see Kerry Rhodes and not A-Dub covering (or trying to) Olsen. Nevertheless, all good things to watch.

Great point. And something I'd love to see live. But unfortunately the game isn't televised here so I'll have to wait until Sunday to see how things work out.

Of course with recent developments maybe it is better that I don't see it live.

 

[Cardiac]

I'm pi$$ed. Because I was away from my computer for several hours during the flipping of ML and DA I came back to 40 + pages of debate on that topic. It took me until now to find this gem of a Thread.

Outstanding stuff.

 

[RonF]

Great post K-9, it may simply be the "Peter Principle" in play here where you promote someone to a position where they can't perform well and thus, they fail. Matt has performed well at the college level but struggles at the professional level.

 

[Bobcat]

The NFL is a "PASS FIRST OFFENSE" today 3 yards and a cloud of dust left with as soon as P. Manning, Kurt Warner, Tom Brady arrived. Brent Just went along for the ride. Please you are sounding like "Woody Hayes was still Coaching."

Pass first set-up the run and option to the RB out of the Back Field. Not everyone has a RB like Minny, or Titans.

BOBCAT

 

[Duckjake]

The NFL is a "PASS FIRST OFFENSE" today 3 yards and a cloud of dust left with as soon as P. Manning, Kurt Warner, Tom Brady arrived. Brent Just went along for the ride. Please you are sounding like "Woody Hayes was still Coaching."

Pass first set-up the run and option to the RB out of the Back Field. Not everyone has a RB like Minny, or Titans.

BOBCAT

The Cardinals do.