Harry
ASFN Consultant and Senior Writer
One of the things Vince Lombardi was fond of saying was he could give you the Pack’s playbook and you still couldn’t stop them. Their execution was good enough their plays would still work. Post game when Murray was asked about the now notorious fourth and one he said, without the profanity, the Cards were out-schemed. What he meant was they were apparently going to sellout to stop the run.
First if they just run on third and one it would have been easier. Second how could the Cards not anticipate they’d be facing an alignment that was apparently targeted to stop a run; duh! Third the Chargers had already been pulling up their secondary and mostly Connor had just broken through. I’m confident with two tries he’d have gotten a yard against this defense. Simply, just run the play as called and assume your team is better than theirs. If you’re not you should be punting in the first place. The fact was they weren’t just selling out against the run and they motioned enough to convince Murray they were taking away his McBride outlet. They weren’t. Yet another reason to run the play as called. A little film study would likely have shown this feint in previous Charger short yardage defense.
In the end most of the blame still lies with Kingsbury’s ego. He should have kicked. He should have Murray better prepared after all this time. He should not still be the coach. If the Cards truly have a shot at Payton they should open the position and start negotiations immediately. Sadly, they will most likely never start negotiations.
First if they just run on third and one it would have been easier. Second how could the Cards not anticipate they’d be facing an alignment that was apparently targeted to stop a run; duh! Third the Chargers had already been pulling up their secondary and mostly Connor had just broken through. I’m confident with two tries he’d have gotten a yard against this defense. Simply, just run the play as called and assume your team is better than theirs. If you’re not you should be punting in the first place. The fact was they weren’t just selling out against the run and they motioned enough to convince Murray they were taking away his McBride outlet. They weren’t. Yet another reason to run the play as called. A little film study would likely have shown this feint in previous Charger short yardage defense.
In the end most of the blame still lies with Kingsbury’s ego. He should have kicked. He should have Murray better prepared after all this time. He should not still be the coach. If the Cards truly have a shot at Payton they should open the position and start negotiations immediately. Sadly, they will most likely never start negotiations.