Slingin Sammy 33's - Unforgiven

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Continuing with the Eastwood western theme....
There is no "Man on the Wihte Horse" to come save us. There's also no one single "bad guy" to blame for our current situation.

Positives:
- Thank God for Hunter Smith and his 45.8 avg.
- First offensive drive, up until 2 & GL from the 9.
- Rinehart, struggled a little early but settled down and played solid.
- OL Pass-pro overall solid. For the most part JC had time to throw or lanes to step up in.
- Great play call on TD play to Moss
- Still like the Cobra and Nickel personnel with 98 at RDE.
- 92 & 98 get sacks this week on great individual effort.

Negatives:
- Lack of creativity in the run game. You cannot have 12 rushes by Portis and have 7 of them be the same play (R or L was balanced though).
- Red-Zone playcalls (although we weren't there but once when Detroit wasn't in a Prevent). The fade on 1st down is fine. 2nd down delay draw...ugh. 3rd down screen, inside the 8...don't like the call, but it went for 7 yds. 4th down OL steps laterally with a G pull ????? How about line up and run an ISO between 60 & 66. D overloads left, audible to your strength on the right.
- Receivers not finding the 1st down marker. Moss & Cooley (vets) both killed drives in the first half because of this.
- Without Haynesworth the DL isn't very good.
- Carter, making mistakes in keeping contain.
- Carter overall did not play real well.
- I know Haynesworth is about 6'5", but he tackles too high at times.
- Smoot in Man coverage is a liability, nothing new to report here.
- DL must do a better job of clogging things up and keeping the OL from getting to the second level.
- Fletcher, on the rare occasion he is allowed to blitz, seems tentative is finding/hitting the gap.
- Horton still struggling in coverage
- Orakpo making a costly rookie mistake on 3-13 (Stafford run). A stunt is called with 92 & 98. 92 goes outside and 98 should slide right behind him into the open gap. The LG picks up the stunt and 98 keeps going down the line laterally, opeing up a huge lane for Stafford. 98 must stay in his rush lane, rookie mistake.

Unforgivables:
- Jason Campbell's ball handling skills. 1 mishandled shotgun snap, 2 UUUUGLY fumbles. This cannot continue. If either one of the fumbles ins't recovered it's disaster.
- JC's reads and decision-making this week were poor. 2 throws into double coverage, 1 dropped INT and 1 INT. This also cannot continue. Without a couple of lucky bounces and a dropped INT. Campbell could've been the cause of 4 turnovers. Figure best case, 13 points off them and we lose 32-14.
- DTs getting offside penalties. The ball is less than 3 ft. from your face, how do you jump offsides????
- Carlos Rogers' ball skills. On the TD and at least one other play that was overthrown, he's got the WR covered, he makes the turn to play the ball and gets lost.
- 154 yds rushing allowed.
- 51% 3rd down percentage for opposing offenses through 3 games (last in NFL)
- Finally and most importantly....Blache's defensive playcalls. What we saw here is back to the same things we saw in Week 1 and through much of the season last year. Our defense is very predictable. Landry is 15 yds deep and of 80% of the time it's Cover-1 Man. Two safeties and unless it's +10 or more it's Cover 2 Zone. Cover 2 Zone can also be read by Fletch's drop. If he's 7 yds deep it's C-2 Zone. I counted less than 10% of total defensive plays as blitzes.
This is the NFL, you cannot stay in a vanilla front and coverage and not expect to get gashed like we did against the Lions. Our DL pressure wasn't awful, they didn't get man-handled for the most part. Stafford had the ball out in 2.5 to 3 seconds. Why, because his pre-reads stayed correct and he knew where to go with the ball. What will an Eli Manning later in the season, Brees, Ryan, and Rivers do to this type of D? They'll probably throw for 350+.
Why did we give up 154 yds on the ground, not becuase the players are soft, but because the OL knows exactly who/where to block and there is no confusion or uncertainty created for the OL. Blache is either completely not creative, set in his ways, lazy or all three. It isn't rocket science to come up with Zone Blitz schemes, change DL fronts, etc. Hell, we play the Giants and Eagles twice a year and their DCs are/were great at this.
All the NFL teams have full field film (even ESPN has that), additonal staff, and hours upon hours to break it down. If a guy with a DVR, a TV view, and three hours can see this stuff, what are guys who get paid 6-7 figures to win football games going to do? They're going to destroy this defense all year long.

As Paintrain said, "So What Now". Here's what my recommendations are:
1) Fire Blache now. He is a known quantity, he isn't going to change. He was going to retire two years ago. Promote either Olivadotti or Gray whoever is more capable of designing and calling an aggressive, attacking defense that makes the QB question his pre-reads and makes the OL have to question their assignments.
2) Orakpo needs to move to RDE now. Orakpo can be a game changer from that position, not at LB. Move Carter to LB or into the rotation at LDE.
3) Activate Barnes and get him on the field in man coverage situations. Get Tryon on the field more also. The only time Smoot should see the field is playing some sort of short zone.
4) Use more run plays that are primarily straight ahead and make the blocking assignments easier than the stretch. Call straight ahead power runs inside the 5 yd line not the finesse crap. Put in some counters & traps from the Gun
5) On O, Let the young guys play (DT, Kelly, Davis) and don't protect them with play selection. We need to see what we've got going forward, especially with JC. He needs to succeed or fail this season.
6) Long term if we can get Holmgren, make the deal. Give the guy control as GM. If it doesn't work out, start interviewing now (and take plenty of time to find the right guy) so an experienced GM or seasoned coach/GM can step in to the GM role and make all football decisions.