The run lane excuse doesn't cut it for me. There's been plenty of teams that get run blitzed on constantly and are still successful running the ball. There are a variety of play-calling options to work against that. Whiz is supposedly an offensive genius, he should have plenty of plays at his disposal if this is the case. I don't care if DA is the QB, coming out in shotgun, etc. and not even making the team consider the chance of a run isn't one of the ways to do it. All that does is tell the blitzers they can go at the QB without worrying too much about the RB.
I'm putting our poor offense more and more on play calling. Whiz had plenty of film on DA to know what he could and couldn't do yet he's not putting him in position to succeed. In 2007, the Browns were 6-0 when running more than passing and 4-6 when passing more than running. Of those 4 wins, 3 of them were still almost a 50-50 ratio. The exception is the overtime Seattle game. That game Jamal Lewis was averaging 1.7 YPC, though he did score 4 rushing TDs. Here are the pass to rush ratios on those 4 games:
35-33
38-34
48-25
33-30
I know, I know, teams generally *do* pass more when they are behind. That wasn't the point of this though. The point was to show that DA is most successful in an offense that takes the pressure off of him. His pro bowl year even proved that he can't win when he has to be the focal point of the offense. That said, if Whiz can't fix the running game, he won't be able to fix DA. Pretty clear cut to me. It's not about getting DA more reps (that will help though). It's about taking the pressure both figuratively and literally, off of him.
