Offensive Philosophy

I guess he didn't forget how to manage the clock either. Sorry - but playcalling killed us. Not talent.
Could you step back for even one moment and consider the thought the play calling was a direct result of the lack of offensive talent last year? It's not like we had Indianapolis type talent or anything close to it. I would imagine that maybe, just maybe, we didn't run certain types of plays becasue WE COULDN'T. We didn't have the proper personell to run them. Not simply because we didn't think of it or didn't want to. The guy is an offensive genius and he didn't forget how to run a successful freaking NFL offense. There was a reason we ran those plays and I more than willing to give him and the rest of his staff the benfit of the doubt that they knew what they were doign since it seemed to work a little back in the day. If people want to argue that Gibbs' style of offense wont work in today's game then fine. I would disagree but that is at least a valid argument. But you cannot argue that he just sucked at play calling for an entire year when he obviously knows what he is doing based on a mountain of past success. You seem to think he thought he was running some grand offense scheme and never realized how vanilla and basic it was. That is an ridiculous assertion.
It is not as simple as many people have said. It's not like Gibbs could just one day say "Hey instead of running the 60 gut 14 times lets throw a couple bombs downfield. why didn't I think of that before?" It takes a comprehensive offensive strategy tailored to the personell you have to run it. Our offense was meant to maximize the talents of the the personel we had. Unfortunately the talent of our personel was far lower than many here want to admit.

Because his conservative playcalling got him so many wins. Okay, so why didn't they put Jacobs in to go deep, he has burning speed and great hands. There were times Coles was wide open and Brunell throws it out of bounds. I think blaming receivers is a fanboy copout. Watching two games this season at the stadium: Pittsburgh at Heinz, and Minnesota at Washington I saw fairly good seperation for an NFL game by our receivers. The MN game was played with a nice mix of playcalling and we made some good plays (Thanks to a dismal MN defense.)

Our receivers were limited by routes, and even opposing defenses laughed when they saw we ran a total of three plays out of every formation. Go check what Wilbon said after the Browns game when he talked to their defense. They had Gibbs's system read like a book.
I actually get mad reading your posts on this issue. I don't know whether to simply give up discussing since it seems you have ability to see anyone else's point of view or whether to sit here and point out the error of your thought for three hours. I think I will simply give up. With one last shot though....
Every argument you have made is right but only in a certain light. In the end you have to ask yourself "Why?" Why was our offense so simple? If you can tell me why our offense was so bad based solely on the play calling of Joe Gibbs with absolutly no other direct causation from any other player or coach then you will convince me. The problem is that you cannot do that because it is plain and simple that our offense was the way it was because Joe Gibbs wanted it that way not because it was a good offense but because it was the best we could do based on talent and injuries. How do I know this? Because I watched every game Joe Gibbs ever coached in his first stint and he never called games like he did last year. We're not talking about some schmoe here. It's Joe Gibbs. He knows football and it is ridiculous to consider that he didn't know how to call a game properly.

I couldn't have said it better Schneed .

Didn't Brunell have two games where he threw for less than 80 yards? Didn't Ramsey throw 6 INTs against the Giants? I don't care who's calling the plays, when your QB sucks, you can't go deep. Last year we had one noodle armed QB who couldn't throw farther than 10 yards and Ramsey, who can overthrow any reciever in the league and has perfected throwing the ball a gagillion miles an hour to a guy whos 7 yards out in the flat. When your QB sucks, you can't "open up the passing game."

Daseal, why in the hell would you want to throw deep against Minnesota when you are up on them the whole game?? Even if the receivers are getting separation, that doesn't mean it makes any sense to throw 45 yard post patterns to them. When you're up on them, you keep the chains moving. The Skins won that game with conservative play calls down the stretch.

Against the Steelers, there wasn't time to throw the ball deep. Gibbs didn't send the receivers deep at any point because he knew the Pittsburgh blitz would be all over Ramsey in a friggin heartbeat. They don't call 'em Blitzburgh for nothin.

And that goes right to the heart of my next point, the separation receivers get isn't the only factor here. For one thing, in the beginning of the season the line was a freakin sieve. Brunell was getting chased all over the place. It doesn't help that he forgot how to throw a football this year, so I'm fine with criticizing Gibbs on that personnel move, but running limited pass routes was necessary because the QB was getting hassled all game.

The playcalling was not the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem was poor offensive line play, receivers that couldn't run deep routes, receivers that couldn't catch the ball consistently (Gardner), a QB who forgot how to throw the football, and a general lack of familiarity with the offensive system. Gibbs adjusted to the team's problems by making the playcalling more conservative. His playcalling was one of the results of the root problem: generally poor play by the entire team.

the number one reason he didn't go deep is the offensive line couldn't hold a block long enough for the play to develop. add to that the dropsy twins and you've got an offense unable to get any momentum and any down field catches. we can only hope that these wr hold on to the ball and that the line is blocking. because if the line isn't we will be no better.it's won in the trenches guys, with the big uglies. not the pretty fast guys.but the frustration everyone feels is that it's right there. but it sin't fireing properly.

What do you mean we had no deep threat? Remember that Pass Brunell through 10 yards to Gardner who made a diving catch to save the ball from hitting the ground and he didn't even drop it. LOL

Could you step back for even one moment and consider the thought the play calling was a direct result of the lack of offensive talent last year? It's not like we had Indianapolis type talent or anything close to it. I would imagine that maybe, just maybe, we didn't run certain types of plays becasue WE COULDN'T. We didn't have the proper personell to run them. Not simply because we didn't think of it or didn't want to. The guy is an offensive genius and he didn't forget how to run a successful freaking NFL offense. There was a reason we ran those plays and I more than willing to give him and the rest of his staff the benfit of the doubt that they knew what they were doign since it seemed to work a little back in the day. If people want to argue that Gibbs' style of offense wont work in today's game then fine. I would disagree but that is at least a valid argument. But you cannot argue that he just sucked at play calling for an entire year when he obviously knows what he is doing based on a mountain of past success. You seem to think he thought he was running some grand offense scheme and never realized how vanilla and basic it was. That is an ridiculous assertion.
It is not as simple as many people have said. It's not like Gibbs could just one day say "Hey instead of running the 60 gut 14 times lets throw a couple bombs downfield. why didn't I think of that before?" It takes a comprehensive offensive strategy tailored to the personell you have to run it. Our offense was meant to maximize the talents of the the personel we had. Unfortunately the talent of our personel was far lower than many here want to admit.


Perhap's you should have watched 1 or 2 of his post game press confrences, when he was constantly asked why he didn't throw downfield, and he would answer we did and everyone would scratch their head's and wonder what they missed.

I have to agree with Daseal, he stated that when he was at the games he saw recievers getting seperation downfield, which I had checked out with some members on this board who actually make the games, reason? It's very hard to determine that from watching on TV, but watching live allows you to see the whole field and that's what they were saying, we have WR's open but it's like Gibbs preprogramed Ramsey to throw it short no matter what.

How many times did we hear last year opposing defenses say how easy it was for them to read our offense? Portis said the opposing defenses new what we were running, some of the defenses were shouting out what we were running before the play's, I know we didn't have HOF WR's out there, but they were more than capable of making play's downfield, and as Daseal stated if they weren't then why not put in Jacobs and McCants? I find it ironic that no sooner does McCants hit the field and Ramsey immediatly start's hooking up with him, McCants also probably had the best pre-season of any of our WR's and yet he was banished to the inactive list. I keep hearing how horrible our O-line was, well don't you think that the fact that we didn't throw downfield and defenses knew what to key on when we did throw the ball, allowed them to keep most of their defense in the box to suffocate the run? The ankle bone is connected to the shin bone and so on!

We hear all the time that the game has finally passed by this coach or that coach, and yet Gibbs who was out of football for 12 years has no relearning curve according to you? He was as good last year as any other year of his career? Do you have any idea how long 12 years is to be away from something? You are going to lose your edge at the very least, and with a game that envolves so much strategy Gibbs head had to be spinning out of control all season.

He now has a better grasp of his personell and has seen the difference in the league since he left, the big question is can and will he adjust? I say yes, but I don't know if we will see a drastic improvement at the start of next season, but I do believe we will see a much more improved Gibbs who is on the rise, rather than the stuck in the mud Gibbs we saw this past season.

Firstdown- Yeah, that was friggin awesome. Great post.

Obviously I am a defender of Gibbs. I think that he did things last year for reasons we will never truely know, but some things we know are...

1. Our offense was not that good and took half the year to get in sync. We lost games on penalties and turnovers early in the year. Gotta blame players and coaches for that but most of that falls on Gibbs and his adjustment to the speed of the game. Good news is those problems were solved by the end of the year.
2. Injuries caused us to pull guys off special teams and put them in the starting lineup. This made our special teams weaker than they should have been.
3. Coles hurt his finger and dropped a few passes in the middle of the year that stopped drives. Yeah, Gardner did it all the time, but we had to be able to count on one of them and with a dislocated finger, he just couldn't hang on a few times.
4. Gibbs ran the same plays over and over. BUT... this is not the bad thing that it has been made out to be. Gibbs won his superbowls by running a limited number of plays to perfection knowing that when it started clicking, defenses could not stop it. I know this is true because I watched almost every game the man ever coached the Redskins in.
5. Gotta agree with Daseal about this one troubling point. Gibbs did not adjust at halftime last year the way he did in his first stint. He used to get his butt kicked in the first half, go back at halftime, and dominate the rest of the game. For him to be successful, Superbowl successful, he has to learn to do that again. Maybe it's just that he needs to get truely comfortable with his core group, but this is the one thing that has worried me.
6. Like it or not, 7 points more a game last year would have put us in the playoffs. Ramsey knows what he is talking about. You start by scoring 7 more points, then 10, then 14 ..... I'm all for that way of thinking.