Per Vinny Cerrato, JC is our QB this season!

[MTK]

Generally you pass more when playing from behind. It didn't have anything to do with Zorn trying to open things up. He's not that dumb, with a broken down OL he wasn't trying to open things up just for the sake of showing off his offense. In the 2nd half of the season they were playing from behind more and hence throwing the ball more. Pretty simple.

[53Fan]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Generally you pass more when playing from behind. It didn't have anything to do with Zorn trying to open things up. He's not that dumb, with a broken down OL he wasn't trying to open things up just for the sake of showing off his offense. In the 2nd half of the season they were playing from behind more and hence throwing the ball more. Pretty simple.

Plus, since the running game kinda went south, what else were we suppose to do? Punt?

[BigHairedAristocrat]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Generally you pass more when playing from behind. It didn't have anything to do with Zorn trying to open things up. He's not that dumb, with a broken down OL he wasn't trying to open things up just for the sake of showing off his offense. In the 2nd half of the season they were playing from behind more and hence throwing the ball more. Pretty simple.

Not to be argumentative, but do you have stats to back that up? I dont remember us being from behind any more in the 2nd half than we were in the first. To the contrary, in the first half of the season i remember several games where we came from behind and won games in the 4th quarter.

And I also remember blowing alot of early leads in the 2nd half of the season - specifically, our defense seemed to get tired and cave in when we were trying to hold on to a narrow lead.

What you say makes a nice argument on paper, but i just dont remember the games that way. I think a good way to test your statement (and mine) would be to look at the first quarter of every game in 2008. Generally speaking, whats done in the first quarter would be a good representation of the teams basic philosophy. Unfortunately, i did a google search and couldnt find anywhere that had these stats. Any ideas?

[MTK]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

Not to be argumentative, but do you have stats to back that up? I dont remember us being from behind any more in the 2nd half than we were in the first. To the contrary, in the first half of the season i remember several games where we came from behind and won games in the 4th quarter.

And I also remember blowing alot of early leads in the 2nd half of the season - specifically, our defense seemed to get tired and cave in when we were trying to hold on to a narrow lead.

What you say makes a nice argument on paper, but i just dont remember the games that way. I think a good way to test your statement (and mine) would be to look at the first quarter of every game in 2008. Generally speaking, whats done in the first quarter would be a good representation of the teams basic philosophy. Unfortunately, i did a google search and couldnt find anywhere that had these stats. Any ideas?

I don't know how you want to look at it or what stats you want but in the 8 wins JC averaged 30.375 attempts per game while in the 8 losses he averaged 32.875. Not a huge difference but...

It's interesting to note that Portis averaged 24.25 carries per game in the 8 wins, while only averaging 18.5 in the 8 losses. It's looking like JC didn't necessarily pass that much more in the losses, but the passing game was definitely more effective when the running game was clicking, which down the stretch as we know was pretty bad.

It's also interesting to note that in the 8 wins JC went over 30 attempts 5 times. In the 8 losses he also went over 30 attempts 5 times.

In short, much like most QBs give the guy a running game and he will be fine.

[Paintrain]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

Not to be argumentative, but do you have stats to back that up? I dont remember us being from behind any more in the 2nd half than we were in the first. To the contrary, in the first half of the season i remember several games where we came from behind and won games in the 4th quarter.

And I also remember blowing alot of early leads in the 2nd half of the season - specifically, our defense seemed to get tired and cave in when we were trying to hold on to a narrow lead.

What you say makes a nice argument on paper, but i just dont remember the games that way. I think a good way to test your statement (and mine) would be to look at the first quarter of every game in 2008. Generally speaking, whats done in the first quarter would be a good representation of the teams basic philosophy. Unfortunately, i did a google search and couldnt find anywhere that had these stats. Any ideas?

People can bend stats however they want to in order to suit their arguments. I have rewatched virtually every Redskins game (except for the Steelers and Ravens games) from '08 in the past month or so and trust me, the offense was NOT opened up at all. Campbell was still throwing shallow crosses and deep ins 80% of the time. Very rarely did he even look deep. While his attempts we up, that is not a direct indication to 'opening up the offense'. So back to my original question, which games did we 'open it up' and Campbell wasn't able to handle it?

[BigHairedAristocrat]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

People can bend stats however they want to in order to suit their arguments. I have rewatched virtually every Redskins game (except for the Steelers and Ravens games) from '08 in the past month or so and trust me, the offense was NOT opened up at all. Campbell was still throwing shallow crosses and deep ins 80% of the time. Very rarely did he even look deep. While his attempts we up, that is not a direct indication to 'opening up the offense'. So back to my original question, which games did we 'open it up' and Campbell wasn't able to handle it?

I based my statement about "opening it up" on the fact that we seemed to be passing much more than running in the 2nd half of the season. While I didnt reply directly to you, thats where I was getting it. The fact that our o-line was getting weaker in pass-protection, yet we all but abandoned the running game (exaggeration, but you get the point) while increasing pass attempts? Why? Seems like a shift in focus to me. Why abandon something that was working so well, and still the obvious strength of the team? Portis alluded to this on espn980 during the season.

Also, since you say you watched every game twice, then you, like me, also noticed Campbells tendancy to never get beyond his 2nd read (hard to tell by watching games, but ive noticed it a couple times and have read about it - teams know that about Campbell and exploit it) and lock down on his check-down receiver. As a Campbell supporter, whats your explaination for this? Why does Campbell, in your words, "never even look deep?" Why throw for 3 yards on 3rd down when he needed 5? or 7 when he needed 10? over and over and over again. Did he learn too many bad lessons from mark Brunell?

[Paintrain]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

I based my statement about "opening it up" on the fact that we seemed to be passing much more than running in the 2nd half of the season. While I didnt reply directly to you, thats where I was getting it. The fact that our o-line was getting weaker in pass-protection, yet we all but abandoned the running game (exaggeration, but you get the point) while increasing pass attempts? Why? Seems like a shift in focus to me. Why abandon something that was working so well, and still the obvious strength of the team? Portis alluded to this on espn980 during the season.

Also, since you say you watched every game twice, then you, like me, also noticed Campbells tendancy to never get beyond his 2nd read (hard to tell by watching games, but ive noticed it a couple times and have read about it - teams know that about Campbell and exploit it) and lock down on his check-down receiver. As a Campbell supporter, whats your explaination for this? Why does Campbell, in your words, "never even look deep?" Why throw for 3 yards on 3rd down when he needed 5? or 7 when he needed 10? over and over and over again. Did he learn too many bad lessons from mark Brunell?

As to the first bolded point, I don't completely disagree with you. What I saw was us becoming way too predictable with our running which made it less effective and forced us to pass more. We seemed to run about 5 running plays over and over and over. Stretch right, pump fake draw, dive behind Kendall, straight draw, stretch left. Very unimaginative running attack. I'm sure some had to do with the offensive line being ineffective but a chunk falls onto Zorn as well. When the run was getting stuffed, Zorn had to try to get the offense moving thru the air.

As for the 2nd bolded part, I disagree that Campbell never makes it off of his 2nd read. This was an early criticism, but even Zorn noted near mid season that Campbell may have been progressing thru all of his reads too quickly!

Case in point, against Dallas the 2nd time, on the crucial 4th down near midfield with 6:40 left in the 4th quarter, his first read was Moss, wasn't open, he looked to Cooley, double covered, Portis was coming off a chip block and was 2 yds shy of the 1st with an LB looming, he looked back to Moss under presser-too late but tried to get it to him anyways and it was incomplete.

As for why he doesn't look deep, probably because the patterns aren't send WR deep. Why throw 3 yds on a 3rd and 5, maybe because that's where the receiver ran the route, maybe the D was in a coverage shell that gave everything underneath but nothing past the sticks, who knows. There are plenty of reasons why something like that would happen that are not QB driven. Would you rather see a pass forced into triple coverage?

He learned plenty of 'bad' habits/lessons IMO from the Brunell/Gibbs debacle. Unfortunately he's got to unlearn those before he makes some of the progressions we'd like to see.