Harry
ASFN Consultant and Senior Writer
I know KK has people truly divided on the offense. What has surprised me is how vanilla the play design is. I was expecting to see several plays I hadn’t seen before in virtually every game. Except for Murray’s adlibs they just haven’t been part of this offense. Did you see Saban’s sneak with a TE in motion, dropping under the center and sneaking for a first down. The Niners just ran a multiple misdirection run to score on fourth down. The Cards’ receivers run very traditional routes.
The passing game seems dependent on post routes and receivers winning 50/50 balls. Seldom does any route result in an open receiver. Even with everyone in the pattern, patterns rarely seem to intersect. That is the usual method of getting receivers open like on Arnold’s long reception. Those plays seem the exception. More routes simply depend on the receiver flat out beating his defender. I know that is his job, but preventing that is the defenders’ job and they often get over the top help. This seems compounded by Murray’s reluctance to throw into single coverage. Also by not doing rollouts defenders seldom have to decide between taking the QB or the receiver. I will admit receivers are seldom seen coming back to the QB when he’s under pressure. Of course since Murray seldom pulls up to throw so that behavior is rarely rewarded even when seen.
The running game rarely has a creative plays beyond options on which Murray seems to seldom choose to keep the ball. They simply sweep wide while lacking great on-the-move blockers or backs who have the speed to get the corners regularly. I watch the Vikings run that way but Cook has burst Drake can only dream of having. Again a very vanilla set of plays yo choose from.
No coach can design hundreds of never-seen plays, but shouldn’t we be seeing more?
The passing game seems dependent on post routes and receivers winning 50/50 balls. Seldom does any route result in an open receiver. Even with everyone in the pattern, patterns rarely seem to intersect. That is the usual method of getting receivers open like on Arnold’s long reception. Those plays seem the exception. More routes simply depend on the receiver flat out beating his defender. I know that is his job, but preventing that is the defenders’ job and they often get over the top help. This seems compounded by Murray’s reluctance to throw into single coverage. Also by not doing rollouts defenders seldom have to decide between taking the QB or the receiver. I will admit receivers are seldom seen coming back to the QB when he’s under pressure. Of course since Murray seldom pulls up to throw so that behavior is rarely rewarded even when seen.
The running game rarely has a creative plays beyond options on which Murray seems to seldom choose to keep the ball. They simply sweep wide while lacking great on-the-move blockers or backs who have the speed to get the corners regularly. I watch the Vikings run that way but Cook has burst Drake can only dream of having. Again a very vanilla set of plays yo choose from.
No coach can design hundreds of never-seen plays, but shouldn’t we be seeing more?
