The plan for Newcastle:
Work the inside running game more. We've been bouncing outside a lot for fun when we're playing lower teams. I guess we're stat ******.
Newcastle is for real, and we're going 50/50 inside/outside. They are in the 3-4 occasionally, so I'm trying to catch them with an inside run in that formation.
We're going a little deeper in passing then we usually do too. We've been fairly conservative in the passing game this season and I've bumped up the deep ball slightly.
When we play better teams I'll alternate what side we rush to on what down. We've been on semi-cruise since the Death Traders, but I've tossed up the rushing direction based on down/situation yet again.
This helps make scouting us a MASSIVE headache.
I've also re-altered percentages on which plays we use running. Since the Traders we've used a lot of singleback/proset stuff. Strong I will be bumped up too.
If anyone's got any suggestions, they're always welcome.
For fun, I did a mass "self-scout" on our 11 regular season games. We run a lot on first, but we've been trending toward passing on 1st the last few weeks. Because we're not afraid to run on 3rd and 5 and MAKE the 1st down we've got a much higher 3rd down rushing % then a lot of teams.
We run mostly to the right, but I don't anticipate changing that until we get a true play "flip" where the TE/pulling guards actually change sides. The left rushing plays are a nice addition, but far from perfect. Right now left plays on tosses consist of the LG pulling... and that's it. Even when I set it up to rush to the left with a TE pass blocking left it doesn't happen.
We throw to the middle most often, but with the least amount of success. It's not a big a detraction as you might think, we're asking Rock to throw where 3 LB's and a Safety usually hang out. Anything over 65% is a win. We don't throw left very often. I could set it up to try more, but I don't see the point in forcing something like that until the new D builder goes Beta.