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Mulli

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I wouldn't go that far... As bad as things were yesterday, if we had even a marginal QB at the helm, we had a legit shot. Our defense did all they could. Played tough. Held Gore to under 4 YPC. Smith completed an ugly 52% of his passes and ended up with an 81 rating...

Graves needs to go. However, it's hard to completely bail on Whiz when "his guy" (Kolb) has missed the last 3 games...
And I see no basis for dumping Fitz... none.
The ultimate control-alt-delete.
 

Chopper0080

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I want Whiz fired, I want Graves fired, then I want the team to trade LF and start the F over.

Again.

It's gotten to be that bad.

I can understand this mentality. I wish more would just go this route than trying to hedge around Skelton. I wouldn't because I see progress in our defense which is something a team can rally around. Sign C Campbell, DeSean Jackson, and a OT in the offseason. Draft offensive help in the draft and at least have an offense that can protect a QB and has enough weapons to be successful with.
 

Russ Smith

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Mitch has said it many times around this board & he's spot on about the differance in toughness & physicality of each team. They hit the Cards in the mouth with a shovel & we retaliate fly swatters.

Bickley wrote a good article about this

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/car...-cardinals-toughness-san-francisco-49ers.html

I actually thought we played tougher yesterday, not Peterson but most of the guys. Early in the game I pointed out Anthony Davis 76 was hitting people late on almost every running play. One of the Cards DB"s took a shot at him and then apparently got warned by the ref and he turned around and yelled at the ref. I didn't see another cheap shot by Davis the rest of the day.

Doucet was mad and went after Goldston. I think Williams got into a near fight etc. I don't think we backed down I think the guy who said it best was Darryn Colledge who said they don't make big plays they just don't make mistakes. They all know their role and they're where they're supposed to be on every play. They might give you 4-5 yards but they don't make mistakes that lead to big plays.

I think he's righ tmost of our bad plays are 1-2 guys being way out of position or screwing up.

They ran the naked bootleg pas for a big first down they've done that all year but our D fell for it anyways. They ran pick plays the whole game and we fell for them. They ran the play where Crabtree went in motion and then came back, Peterson got hung up in traffic and nobody on the defense helped him until it was too late. They just took advantage of our mistakes over and over.
 

Russ Smith

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I wouldn't go that far... As bad as things were yesterday, if we had even a marginal QB at the helm, we had a legit shot. Our defense did all they could. Played tough. Held Gore to under 4 YPC. Smith completed an ugly 52% of his passes and ended up with an 81 rating...

Graves needs to go. However, it's hard to completely bail on Whiz when "his guy" (Kolb) has missed the last 3 games...
And I see no basis for dumping Fitz... none.

Dumping no but if there was the right offer I'd do it.

I thought Fitz bailed on that 2nd throw by Bartell he reached for it but Whitner was clearly up higher than him whcih is unheard of for Larry on high balls. I just think he figured I got my TD, I'm not going to take a big hit to get this one.

not that I can fault him but I think Larry has coasted at times this season.
 

Chopper0080

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I actually thought we played tougher yesterday, not Peterson but most of the guys. Early in the game I pointed out Anthony Davis 76 was hitting people late on almost every running play. One of the Cards DB"s took a shot at him and then apparently got warned by the ref and he turned around and yelled at the ref. I didn't see another cheap shot by Davis the rest of the day.

Doucet was mad and went after Goldston. I think Williams got into a near fight etc. I don't think we backed down I think the guy who said it best was Darryn Colledge who said they don't make big plays they just don't make mistakes. They all know their role and they're where they're supposed to be on every play. They might give you 4-5 yards but they don't make mistakes that lead to big plays.

I think he's righ tmost of our bad plays are 1-2 guys being way out of position or screwing up.

They ran the naked bootleg pas for a big first down they've done that all year but our D fell for it anyways. They ran pick plays the whole game and we fell for them. They ran the play where Crabtree went in motion and then came back, Peterson got hung up in traffic and nobody on the defense helped him until it was too late. They just took advantage of our mistakes over and over.

I agree that we seemed to step up physically, but we are a much more inexperienced team and it showed. We will get better, and this will become a much more balanced rivalry.
 

SunCityCarl

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Mitch has said it many times around this board & he's spot on about the differance in toughness & physicality of each team. They hit the Cards in the mouth with a shovel & we retaliate fly swatters.

Bickley wrote a good article about this

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/car...-cardinals-toughness-san-francisco-49ers.html

I too found this an interesting read. Last night after the Vince Young led iggles beat the Gints I left channel 12 on whilst loading the dishwasher & heard Dale Hellestrae (Sp?) say something that hurt to the core, please forgive my paraphrasing; "Was Kurt Warner running Ken Whisenhunt's offense or was Kurt Warner running Kurt Warner's offense?" Based on the last couple years & knowing full well Kurt Warner is a lock HOF'er, I am starting to believe the latter to be true as no other QB has shined in Whisenhunt's Cardinal offense. Acid test this week if old Captain Checkdown plays well...
 

Duckjake

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I agree but I do think Whiz went into the game with notion that the Cards weren't going to be able to run the ball and that is understandable seeing as SF was the #1 rated run defense. However, Wells looked as healthy as he has been in awhile and he was making some nice runs. I think they should have seen what he could do rather than seemingly accept that they couldn't run the ball. I don't bash Whiz too much but I think he didn't adjust his gameplan very well this game. I would have made them stop the run, especially when SF was normally only playing 7 up front. At least in the other games, Stl. and Philly made more of a concerted effort to stop the run by bringing guys to the line.

To SF's credit, they basically played their base defense all game and knew the Cards and Skelton weren't good enough to beat them. If Wells started gashing them for 4-5 yards per pop, which looked like may be the case, SF would have had to adjust and maybe the passing game would open up. On the other hand, as bad as Skelton looked they probably could have played with 9 guys on defense and shut the Cards down. I don't know what happened to Skelton's poise and composure out there. He looked like a completely different player. He made Max Hall look good and that's hard to do.

Very good analysis Cbus. I watched the 1st quarter last night and saw that SF was usually playing only 4 guys in the box. I kept wondering why the Cards didn't run the ball more to try and get SF out of the 7 man umbrella they were throwing at Skelton. To me it looks like SF wanted to take away the Cards passing game knowing that Beanie couldn't beat them.
 

Totally_Red

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I too found this an interesting read. Last night after the Vince Young led iggles beat the Gints I left channel 12 on whilst loading the dishwasher & heard Dale Hellestrae (Sp?) say something that hurt to the core, please forgive my paraphrasing; "Was Kurt Warner running Ken Whisenhunt's offense or was Kurt Warner running Kurt Warner's offense?" Based on the last couple years & knowing full well Kurt Warner is a lock HOF'er, I am starting to believe the latter to be true as no other QB has shined in Whisenhunt's Cardinal offense. Acid test this week if old Captain Checkdown plays well...

Probably a little of both. But Warner was so far ahead of what we have now it isn't even funny. Mike Martz said one time that Kurt had the best field vision of any quarterback he'd ever seen. That meant he loved 5-receiver sets with an empty back-field. He could sense where the blitz was coming from and find the open receiver.

You really have to feel sorry for Fitz. I mean he is still one of, if not THE best wide receiver, in the league. But good defenses are going to be able to scheme him out of the game IMO, and Roberts and Doucet are not going to pick up the load. What really, really hurts the Cardinal offense right now, is not having either of our above average receiving tight ends on the field. And IMO, none of our running backs contributes anything close to what Tim Hightower did in the Warner years in the passing offense.
This is an offense running on empty. Teams are going to take Fitz away from us, and unless or until we get better QB play, and Housler and/or Heap return, we are in trouble.
 

conraddobler

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I can understand this mentality. I wish more would just go this route than trying to hedge around Skelton. I wouldn't because I see progress in our defense which is something a team can rally around. Sign C Campbell, DeSean Jackson, and a OT in the offseason. Draft offensive help in the draft and at least have an offense that can protect a QB and has enough weapons to be successful with.

I see progress in our defense too.

With more regression by far in our QB's.

Horton seems to me to be a keeper but he IMO has unfortunate timing.

Part of it is just frustration talking, part of it is legitimate, we're doing it all wrong.

We have a WR paid more than small countries budgets which is going to cause any QB to have to tend to him.

Everyone does it, Kolb, Sketlon, Hall, DA, they all keep trying to feed it to him, until a QB can step onto the field and just hit the open guy without fear of his job we're toast.

To all who've built this situation I'd say, later.
 

LarryStalling

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I wouldn't go that far... As bad as things were yesterday, if we had even a marginal QB at the helm, we had a legit shot. Our defense did all they could. Played tough. Held Gore to under 4 YPC. Smith completed an ugly 52% of his passes and ended up with an 81 rating...

Graves needs to go. However, it's hard to completely bail on Whiz when "his guy" (Kolb) has missed the last 3 games...
And I see no basis for dumping Fitz... none.

Exccuse me, but Kolb appears to have missed the last nine games in my book.
 

Proteus

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Probably a little of both. But Warner was so far ahead of what we have now it isn't even funny. Mike Martz said one time that Kurt had the best field vision of any quarterback he'd ever seen. That meant he loved 5-receiver sets with an empty back-field. He could sense where the blitz was coming from and find the open receiver.

You really have to feel sorry for Fitz. I mean he is still one of, if not THE best wide receiver, in the league. But good defenses are going to be able to scheme him out of the game IMO, and Roberts and Doucet are not going to pick up the load. What really, really hurts the Cardinal offense right now, is not having either of our above average receiving tight ends on the field. And IMO, none of our running backs contributes anything close to what Tim Hightower did in the Warner years in the passing offense.
This is an offense running on empty. Teams are going to take Fitz away from us, and unless or until we get better QB play, and Housler and/or Heap return, we are in trouble.
Shouldn't Fitz be able to do more against doubles? Guys like Andre Johnson and Calvin Johnson don't seem to be taken out of the game as much.
 

Phrazbit

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Shouldn't Fitz be able to do more against doubles? Guys like Andre Johnson and Calvin Johnson don't seem to be taken out of the game as much.


Fitz does fine against doubles. Fitz's stats the last 2 years despite not having a single QB worthy of starting a NFL game are a testament to his unbelievable talent.
 

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1. "See You on Wednesday"---for a game of this magnitude, as I iterated at the time in terms of capitalizing on momentum and getting the team ready for its toughest task of the season---this was a regrettable decision---and speaks to Whisenhunt's inability to properly focus and motivate the entire football team.

2. Offensive game planning---have said this repeatedly and have to say it again---there is NO offensive game planning. Whisenhunt runs the same plays at every team---he does not break down enough film to detect a weakness in the other team, because every week he rolls out the same predictable plays...case in point---#3

3. 2nd and 2. It make absolutely NO sense to go into shotgun and throw a three yard pass into coverage on 2nd and 2. We have been saying this for several weeks right now. If you are going to pass on 2nd and 2 it's off play-action and you take a long intermediate or deep shot---and THEN if it's not there you go to the checkdown.

4. I am not excusing Skelton for his bad throws---he was bad---and the IRONY was his pass protection was about as good as it has been all year, although last second hands in his face altered several of his passes.

5. For those of you who are happy that Skelton stunk---you are now going to get your way. We have seen the last of Skelton for this year unless both Kolb and Bartel get hurt. Knowing Whisenhunt and what faint praise he's given Skelton all along, Skelton was never his guy anyway.

6. Part of the reason is---Skelton is not the right kind of QB for Whisenhunt's finesse dink and dunk offense---which is why drafting him was a joke.

7. I will stay on record and say that despite today's flat-out awful performance by Skelton---put him with a power running game and a HC who understands play action and how to exploit a defense from beyond 12 yards---and I see no reason why he can't be very effective.

8. Now that we say goodbye to Skelton---let's just give him credit for doing two things in the last 2 games:

Breaking a six game losing streak
Breaking an 11 game road losing streak

And LAST year for breaking a 7 game losing streak.

Thank you, John.

But, sorry--John---with Whisenhunt, not good enough.

You are back to being #3. Bartel moves up--and Kolb moves back in when ready.

9. The 49ers' GM and HC are so far ahead now of the Cardinals'---we have to hope and pray that the Bidwills recognize this and find the GM and HC who can match wits with Trent Baalke and Jim Harbaugh.

10. This game was pretty much a total domination---the irony is that the Cardinals with an offensive HC and one who tilted the draft and FA heavily in favor of the offense---since last year the only improvement we saw versus the 49ers today was on defense and STs---and the DC is new. Yup. "See you on Wednesday."

11. PP21 = DRC today. That bad.

12. Guys who showed up:

Levi Brown
Daryn Colledge
Lyle Sendlein
Rex Hadnot
Brandon Keith/Jeremy Bridges
Larry Fitzgerald
Dan Williams
DD & CC
Paris Lenon
Daryl Washington
Stewart Bradley
Sam Acho
LSH
Mike Adams
Dave Zustadil

13. Lastly---two coaching decisions that make no sense whatsover:

Calling a TO before 3rd down to try to get the ball back late in the first half---then stopping them short on 3rd down and then NOT calling the 2nd TO and letting Harbaugh run the clock down under a minute.

Squib kicking the kickoff with a totally gassed defense (instead of trying for the on-sides with the one surge of momentum the offense had in the whole game)---down 16 points. with 7:32 left.

14. This game was pure torture---especially the 49ers running out half of the 3rd quarter on their first drive of the second half---for a TD---against a Cardinals' defense that had been on the field the entire game thus far.

Nice post, don't agree with all of it, but nice post. Wanted to address one thing you said, something I've been denying: about Whis giving them the day off. Normally I don't think it's a big deal, but this time I agree. Especially after how they played Sunday. Although I will say the D was there mostly through the whole game--or at least the parts that still mattered.

Giving them time off just made the players, apparently feel like they had done something, winning 2 games in a row, against crap opponents. As if that's something deserving of days off, given our record. I wonder how many days off the Packers have?

I was already worried by the way players and coaches and fans and posters were talking after our two wins. As if we'd done something significant. We suck, and we're going to continue to suck. Poor QB play, again this year!!!!!!!, is obviously to blame for almost all of our losses. I'm hesitant to blame Whis, but honestly, where and when does the suckage end?

:bang:
 

JeffGollin

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Coaching is an issue - because - technique-wise and field-smart-wisewe're not seeing enough improvement from our younger guys we need to have if we're to get better. You seem to see more improvement fro other teams than you see from ours. (note - as much as I love PP21, there was one time where he actually missed tackling Crabtree twice on the same play).

When you net out the bad stuff (i.e. giveaways , missed tackles etc.) and the good stuff (i.e. blocked kicks, red zone defense etc.), the difference between the 49ers and us is that their passing attack was better than our passing attack, and their running attack was better than our running attack.

Conclusion -our offensive line play is inferior and it's on our coaches and FO for not fixing what has been a chronic problem.
 

Darkside

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Disagree, our young guys have made a difference. On D there's PP, Jefferson (he's a noob), Scho, Acho. PP and Jefferson should never have been in the position they're in, but that's life. The young guys have been a bright spot frankly, in this terrible season. Crab and their playcalling nullified PP bigtime, good for them, doesn't mean he sucks or that he's a bust. Difference wasn't the running game either, although we didn't run nearly enough (our running attempts were a joke). Difference was the passing game. Smith made key 3rd down throws against our D, we didn't do the same. When we weren't throwing interceptions or fumbling, we were punting.
 

AzCards21

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If I were you Mitch I would write Michael Bidwill a letter.
 

Fiasco

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I am with you on this. The difference between good and bad play calling is usually execution. When it work the coach is a genius and when it doesn't he is predictable and a moron. Whis is a good coach with a bad team.....actually it isn't really a bad team it is just a new team. To many new parts to expect it to run smoothly right out of the gate.

When you can watch from your couch and predict the upcoming play with 90% accuracy, that's a problem with the play calling.
 

Catfish

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I wouldn't go that far... As bad as things were yesterday, if we had even a marginal QB at the helm, we had a legit shot. Our defense did all they could. Played tough. Held Gore to under 4 YPC. Smith completed an ugly 52% of his passes and ended up with an 81 rating...

Graves needs to go. However, it's hard to completely bail on Whiz when "his guy" (Kolb) has missed the last 3 games...
And I see no basis for dumping Fitz... none.

I guess you just don't get it. Whiz is death to ANY marginal QB. His only real success with his offensive scheme came with Kurt Warner at QB. Kurt often checked out of Whiz plays at the LOS, actually negating Whiz's calls for the most part. Whiz has been appallingly terrible with his handling of QB's, especially the younger ones. He is a destroyer of marginal QB's, not a mentor or teacher you would want developing one. He has literally ruined every one of them that he has had any amount of time with except Big Ben, who detested the way Whiz handled him his rookie year. Whiz was gone the next year, and Ben did just fine without him.

Whiz does not change his scheme to fit his players, (especially not his QB's). He changes the player to fit his more or less useless scheme, rendering the players more or less useless the whole time he has control of him. Kurt Warner, (a HOF'er), was the only one to survive him beyond one year. What became of Matt Leinart, Derek Anderson, John Skelton, Bryan St.Pierre, and Moxie. Can you even begin to see what he will continue to do for the confidence of Kevin Kolb? The same goes for running backs. Not one of them has been good enough for Whiz, yet they go on to other teams and do fine.

By the way, Kolb is NOT his guy. Kolb is merely the one he is trying to pound into shape to fit his scheme right now.
 
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Cbus cardsfan

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I guess you just don't get it. Whiz is death to ANY marginal QB. His only real success with his offensive scheme came with Kurt Warner at QB. Kurt often checked out of Whiz plays at the LOS, actually negating Whiz's calls for the most part. Whiz has been appallingly terrible with his handling of QB's, especially the younger ones. He is a destroyer of marginal QB's, not a mentor or teacher you would want developing one. He has literally ruined every one of them that he has had any amount of time with except Big Ben, who detested the way Whiz handled him his rookie year. Whiz was gone the next year, and Ben did just fine without him.

Whiz does not change his scheme to fit his players, (especially not his QB's). He changes the player to fit his more or less useless scheme, rendering the players more or less useless the whole time he has control of him. Kurt Warner, (a HOF'er), was the only one to survive him beyond one year. What became of Matt Leinart, Derek Anderson, John Skelton, Bryan St.Pierre, and Moxie. Can you even begin to see what he will continue to do for the confidence of Kevin Kolb? The same goes for running backs. Not one of them has been good enough for Whiz, yet they go on to other teams and do fine.

By the way, Kolb is NOT his guy. Kolb is merely the one he is trying to pound into shape to fit his scheme right now.
I would argue that any team is going to struggle with a marginal QB unless you have a top notch defense. Those guys I bolded aren't bad QB's because of Whiz, they are just bad QB's. It's like the argument that Alex Smith has struggled because he's had 7 OC's. My argument is, if he was any good, he wouldn't have gone through 7 OC's.

Also, I don't buy the argument that Warner was successful because he changed plays at the line of scrimmage. He may have audibled but he was audibling to plays that are part of Whiz's offense.

I can see you having an argument with play calling at times but I don't think it's the overall Whiz offense as the reason the QB's are failing, it's the QB themselves. You pointed out the Ben was fine after Whiz. That's because he was going to be a good QB with any OC, just like Smith has struggled with numerous OC's.
 

Jetstream Green

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we can't seem to find a QB. That is the staff's fault but it is something hard to find...it all comes down to the most important position on the field and that is the position we are most lacking in
 

cardpa

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Nice post, don't agree with all of it, but nice post. Wanted to address one thing you said, something I've been denying: about Whis giving them the day off. Normally I don't think it's a big deal, but this time I agree. Especially after how they played Sunday. Although I will say the D was there mostly through the whole game--or at least the parts that still mattered.

Giving them time off just made the players, apparently feel like they had done something, winning 2 games in a row, against crap opponents. As if that's something deserving of days off, given our record. I wonder how many days off the Packers have?

I was already worried by the way players and coaches and fans and posters were talking after our two wins. As if we'd done something significant. We suck, and we're going to continue to suck. Poor QB play, again this year!!!!!!!, is obviously to blame for almost all of our losses. I'm hesitant to blame Whis, but honestly, where and when does the suckage end?

:bang:

I don't really think its solely on the QBs. There are 10 other guys on the field that need to do their job and they are not getting it done either. Now over the last couple of seasons and into this one their is one common denominator and that is Whiz and his staff, especially the offensive side. I still say its has to do with a lack of expecting the offense to perform at a high level on a consistent basis. That is on Whiz, Miller, Grimm, etc. The system doesn't work plain and simple, at least not with the personnel on this team. If your system can't adjust to the personnel you have then the system is broke.
 

cardpa

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I guess you just don't get it. Whiz is death to ANY marginal QB. His only real success with his offensive scheme came with Kurt Warner at QB. Kurt often checked out of Whiz plays at the LOS, actually negating Whiz's calls for the most part. Whiz has been appallingly terrible with his handling of QB's, especially the younger ones. He is a destroyer of marginal QB's, not a mentor or teacher you would want developing one. He has literally ruined every one of them that he has had any amount of time with except Big Ben, who detested the way Whiz handled him his rookie year. Whiz was gone the next year, and Ben did just fine without him.

Whiz does not change his scheme to fit his players, (especially not his QB's). He changes the player to fit his more or less useless scheme, rendering the players more or less useless the whole time he has control of him. Kurt Warner, (a HOF'er), was the only one to survive him beyond one year. What became of Matt Leinart, Derek Anderson, John Skelton, Bryan St.Pierre, and Moxie. Can you even begin to see what he will continue to do for the confidence of Kevin Kolb? The same goes for running backs. Not one of them has been good enough for Whiz, yet they go on to other teams and do fine.

By the way, Kolb is NOT his guy. Kolb is merely the one he is trying to pound into shape to fit his scheme right now.

Great post Catfish. It's exactly what i have been trying to say for some time now. And wasn't Haley calling a lot of plays by Warner's second year under center not Whiz.
 
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