Arthur Smith

[titans0021]

2 hours ago, Andrei01 said:

And yet the amount of negative runs is virtually equal to that of big runs on 1st down. 4 to 3, which again would've been 4:4 if not for the holding call on Pruitt. So I'm sorry, but especially when there's basically a 50/50 chance of either being in 2nd & 11 or 1st & 10 15+ yards down the field, the moronic thing to do is not take advantage of those odds. I don't know off the top of my head what the average percentage across the league is in deep passes completed down the field, but I bet it's below 50%. And yet you'd have to be a moron to suggest abandoning the deep ball for fear of an incompletion and finding yourself in 2nd & 10.

I understand not loving the philisophies this offense is built around or the way it has been run for the majority of time, but if you average 7.2 YPC on 1st down, no way in hell is running on 1st down your biggest issue.

How are you possibly arguing the holding call as a positive play? It ended with us having a 1st and 20. It’s a complete and total negative. The only reason it didn’t kill our go-ahead touchdown drive is because Tannehill bailed him out. There were three positive plays and five plays that immediately put us behind the sticks.

We had five three and outs, four of them started with runs.

We had three touchdown drives. We threw 15 times and ran once on them. 

We had nine other drives (excluding the kneel downs at the end of each half). Those nine drives scored six points. We threw 18 times and ran 20 times.

If you can’t see the pattern here and recognize the fundamental problem with the game plan, I’m starting to think you’re either Arthur Smith or a really, really loyal Fedex employee.

 

Edit: It’s also worth noting that one of the three successful first-down runs came with three receivers on the field. We also lost a fumble on a first-down run, so I’m going to go ahead and make that six negatives and three positives, with at least one of the positives coming in the formation and look we’ve been begging them to run from for two months.

[Andrei01]

20 minutes ago, titans0021 said:

How are you possibly arguing the holding call as a positive play? It ended with us having a 1st and 20. It’s a complete and total negative. The only reason it didn’t kill our go-ahead touchdown drive is because Tannehill bailed him out. There were three positive plays and five plays that immediately put us behind the sticks.

We had five three and outs, four of them started with runs.

We had three touchdown drives. We threw 15 times and ran once on them. 

We had nine other drives (excluding the kneel downs at the end of each half). Those nine drives scored six points. We threw 18 times and ran 20 times.

If you can’t see the pattern here and recognize the fundamental problem with the game plan, I’m starting to think you’re either Arthur Smith or a really, really loyal Fedex employee.

Where have I counted that holding penalty as a positive?

I'm taking it out and we're still netting 7.2 YPC. That's more than a respectable average, with a 4:3 ratio of negative to big gain runs. So just homor me for a second, if you were 3/7 on deep passes, which is roughly 43% completion rate and if I were to bet I'd say better than the average for quarterbacks all across the league, would you stop throwing the football deep?

[titans0021]

2 minutes ago, Andrei01 said:

Where have I counted that holding penalty as a positive?

I'm taking it out and we're still netting 7.2 YPC. That's more than a respectable average, with a 4:3 ratio of negative to big gain runs. So just homor me for a second, if you were 3/7 on deep passes, which is roughly 43% completion rate and if I were to bet I'd say better than the average for quarterbacks all across the league, would you stop throwing the football deep?

“And yet the amount of negative runs is virtually equal to that of big runs on 1st down. 4 to 3, which again would've been 4:4 if not for the holding call on Pruitt. So I'm sorry, but especially when there's basically a 50/50 chance of either being in 2nd & 11 or 1st & 10 15+ yards down the field, the moronic thing to do is not take advantage of those odds.”

This. This is nonsense. Because it isn’t 50/50. There were three positive runs and six negative runs. So there’s a 33% chance for a good run and a 66% chance to either kill a drive, make things significantly more difficult, or turn the ball over. If you’re comfortable with that, then I guess this conversation is useless.

What are we counting as a deep throw? Are there four interceptions? Let’s call a deep throw 20 yards. Probably a fairly modest gain for a “deep” pass, but for the sake of argument, that’s fine. So that’s 60 yards on seven attempts. 8.6 yards per attempt.

Henry was at 67 yards on the three big runs, then we will go ahead and subtract  4 yards for the -1 yard runs to go to 63, subtract 10 for the holding call. And we’re at 53 yards on nine plays with a turnover. So including three of Henry’s five or six (?) longest runs of the season amongst nine plays, we’re talking 5.9 yards per play. With a giveaway 11% of the time.

But let’s even go beyond that,-a passing game isn’t predicated solely on deep passes (though actually, Arthur appears to be completely unaware of the concept of throwing downfield), you can still have success and keep the offense unpredictable with short and intermediate passes.

Our run game is not capable of doing that. It can’t sustain drives. It  can’t grind a defense down. It can’t make us unpredictable. Because we can’t run block. Even when we put three tight ends and a great run-blocking receiver on the field we can’t run block. Teams don’t respect Arthur Smith. They don’t respect his ability to be creative. They don’t respect his ability to use misdirection. They don’t respect even the possibility that he will do anything other than exactly what they think he will do. And they’re right.

We’re talking about three attempts that gained 67 yards. We ran the ball 18 other times Sunday. For five yards. So this isn’t completing 3 of 7 deep passes. It’s completing 3 of 21 intermediate passes.

And you know what? Yeah, if our QB was 3-21 on 15-yard attempts, I’d give up on the pass game. Or at least try something, anything, different. Not just keep bashing my dumb, stubborn head against a brick wall for  24 hours of football while playing a massive role in a talented unit underperforming in the worst way.

[titans0021]

4 minutes ago, titans0021 said:

Our run game is not capable of doing that. It can’t sustain drives. It  can’t grind a defense down. It can’t make us unpredictable. Because we can’t run block. Even when we put three tight ends and a great run-blocking receiver on the field we can’t run block. Teams don’t respect Arthur Smith. They don’t respect his ability to be creative. They don’t respect his ability to use misdirection. They don’t respect even the possibility that he will do anything other than exactly what they think he will do. And they’re right.

We’re talking about three attempts that gained 67 yards. We ran the ball 18 other times Sunday. For five yards. So this isn’t completing 3 of 7 deep passes. It’s completing 3 of 21 intermediate passes.

And you know what? Yeah, if our QB was 3-21 on 15-yard attempts, I’d give up on the pass game. Or at least try something, anything, different. Not just keep bashing my dumb, stubborn head against a brick wall for  24 hours of football while playing a massive role in a talented unit underperforming in the worst way.

I’m going to go ahead and separate this from the post above, because it’s probably more related to my thoughts on Arthur and this thread in general as much as it is the above convo.

Because, in the end, it strikes at the heart of the issues with Arthur Smith. His incompetence. He tries to borrow a concept from Shanahan and LaFleur, but doesn’t fundamentally understand how or why the play works. He sees that the offensive line is struggling, so all he can think to do is use a second tight end. When the line continues to struggle, his next thought is to just bring in a third tight end.

There’s no critical thinking. No borrowing of actual play designs. He’s a collage of everything that didn’t work for LaFleur and everything that got Whiz and Robiskie fired. He was a tight end coach, so he has to use tight ends. Hopefully he can go back to being a TEs coach somewhere next year, because he was good at it from all reports.

I almost feel bad for the guy. He’s just in so far over his head that I’m sure he feels like he’s drowning. Or at least my hope is that he feels like he’s drowning. Because the alternative is that he’s so dumb that he doesn’t even know he’s over his head.

[TitanSS]

Using the average YPC because we had one big play is a pretty flawed argument. It's why I wasn't a huge fan of keeping Chris Johnson. It was a boom or bust. He'd average 2 YPC in the 3rd quarter and then break an 80 yarder and it looks like running the ball with him is a good idea by YPC even though it's causing every other drive to stall. If all that only lead to 7 points and hurts your chances on 5 other drives, it's not worth it.

We can't abandon the run completely, but we can't be so predictable with it on first down because it's not working. We are not a good running team right now and a lot of it has to do with how predictable we are and how easy it is for teams to load the box.

Arthur Smith is bad and there's no real denying it.

[Andrei01]

7 hours ago, titans0021 said:

“And yet the amount of negative runs is virtually equal to that of big runs on 1st down. 4 to 3, which again would've been 4:4 if not for the holding call on Pruitt. So I'm sorry, but especially when there's basically a 50/50 chance of either being in 2nd & 11 or 1st & 10 15+ yards down the field, the moronic thing to do is not take advantage of those odds.”

This. This is nonsense. Because it isn’t 50/50. There were three positive runs and six negative runs. So there’s a 33% chance for a good run and a 66% chance to either kill a drive, make things significantly more difficult, or turn the ball over. If you’re comfortable with that, then I guess this conversation is useless.

What are we counting as a deep throw? Are there four interceptions? Let’s call a deep throw 20 yards. Probably a fairly modest gain for a “deep” pass, but for the sake of argument, that’s fine. So that’s 60 yards on seven attempts. 8.6 yards per attempt.

Henry was at 67 yards on the three big runs, then we will go ahead and subtract  4 yards for the -1 yard runs to go to 63, subtract 10 for the holding call. And we’re at 53 yards on nine plays with a turnover. So including three of Henry’s five or six (?) longest runs of the season amongst nine plays, we’re talking 5.9 yards per play. With a giveaway 11% of the time.

But let’s even go beyond that,-a passing game isn’t predicated solely on deep passes (though actually, Arthur appears to be completely unaware of the concept of throwing downfield), you can still have success and keep the offense unpredictable with short and intermediate passes.

Our run game is not capable of doing that. It can’t sustain drives. It  can’t grind a defense down. It can’t make us unpredictable. Because we can’t run block. Even when we put three tight ends and a great run-blocking receiver on the field we can’t run block. Teams don’t respect Arthur Smith. They don’t respect his ability to be creative. They don’t respect his ability to use misdirection. They don’t respect even the possibility that he will do anything other than exactly what they think he will do. And they’re right.

We’re talking about three attempts that gained 67 yards. We ran the ball 18 other times Sunday. For five yards. So this isn’t completing 3 of 7 deep passes. It’s completing 3 of 21 intermediate passes.

And you know what? Yeah, if our QB was 3-21 on 15-yard attempts, I’d give up on the pass game. Or at least try something, anything, different. Not just keep bashing my dumb, stubborn head against a brick wall for  24 hours of football while playing a massive role in a talented unit underperforming in the worst way.

Basically a 50/50 chance means almost 50/50. Which is what a 4:3 ratio or roughly 43/57% is supposed to mean. I'm not counting it as a positive. For the sake of the argument we're trying to make, it shouldn't count as anything.

Yes, 20+ yards is considered a deep pass. I'm counting 3 out of 7 for the hypothetical to make any sense, because an incompletion will net you 0 yards, more or less the equivalent of a -1 yard run. That's, again, for the sake of the argument, a 43% completion rate. Best deep ball quarterbacks in the league are at slightly above 50%, worst ones are at around 20%. So that would put you at an above average completion rate, and so an above average rate of netting a big gain for any other incompletion. So, yeah, if you can't see the reasoning behind not abandoning the run on 1st down due to those numbers, I'd say the conversation is useless as well.

Anything else is not really what we're talking about here, which is why I'm not really trying to respond to all of it. Yes, Smith for the sake of his job should start doing a better job at calling plays, but it doesn't start with abandoning the run on 1st down. If he was a moron banging his head against the wall out of stubbornness, we wouldn't have a game winning drive of a 11:1 pass to run split. Off the top of my head, I also remember at least three deep passes that were called on 1st down that we missed on. At least two of them, IMO, should've been completed. There was a play action corner route Davis ran towards the back of the EZ that Tanny could've had if he timed it well and led him more towards the corner, and another one down the sideline to Davis that he just overthrew.

[deeluxx3]

A huge issue I'm having with Smith, as was also the case a bit with LeFleur and probably even Robiskie, is that you can know by the end of the 1Q if our WRs are going to be involved in the game or not. We either come out targeting WRs (ATL and LAC game) early and often (and then reap the benefits of that), or we come out running and throwing to TEs (like TB game), and then Corey/AJ/Hump are after-thoughts.

 

It's senseless to me. Our offense runs so much better when we make it a point to get the ball to our WRs. And I don't think it's a case of them NOT getting open, as a lot of the throws to TEs last week were first-reads. We need to call 11 and 84's numbers early and often, because we have too many games where we're at halftime and they each have like 1 catch for 8 yards.

[titans0021]

2 hours ago, Andrei01 said:

Basically a 50/50 chance means almost 50/50. Which is what a 4:3 ratio or roughly 43/57% is supposed to mean. I'm not counting it as a positive. For the sake of the argument we're trying to make, it shouldn't count as anything.

Yes, 20+ yards is considered a deep pass. I'm counting 3 out of 7 for the hypothetical to make any sense, because an incompletion will net you 0 yards, more or less the equivalent of a -1 yard run. That's, again, for the sake of the argument, a 43% completion rate. Best deep ball quarterbacks in the league are at slightly above 50%, worst ones are at around 20%. So that would put you at an above average completion rate, and so an above average rate of netting a big gain for any other incompletion. So, yeah, if you can't see the reasoning behind not abandoning the run on 1st down due to those numbers, I'd say the conversation is useless as well.

Anything else is not really what we're talking about here, which is why I'm not really trying to respond to all of it. Yes, Smith for the sake of his job should start doing a better job at calling plays, but it doesn't start with abandoning the run on 1st down. If he was a moron banging his head against the wall out of stubbornness, we wouldn't have a game winning drive of a 11:1 pass to run split. Off the top of my head, I also remember at least three deep passes that were called on 1st down that we missed on. At least two of them, IMO, should've been completed. There was a play action corner route Davis ran towards the back of the EZ that Tanny could've had if he timed it well and led him more towards the corner, and another one down the sideline to Davis that he just overthrew.

I just think you’re arguing something that nobody ever really said. Nobody wants to never run on first down, they want to pass more on first down and run more from pass looks. It’s the incredible predictability of the first down runs that has been, and continues to be,  the problem.

I mean, I think our first-down run percentage is far too high and would rather pass the ball on first downs, but even if you want to run, you’re not required to bring in three tight ends and basically tell the defense that you’re running. One of the three successful runs we’re talking about came after a few successful passes and from a passing look. It’s weird how that works.

If you’re arguing that we shouldn’t pass the ball on literally every first down, sure, no arguments there. If you’re arguing that the calls are fine, the personnel groupings are fine, the situational awareness is fine, that’s where you totally lose me.

[titans0021]

Also, I have no idea why the font changes or how to fix it on my phone lol.

[titans0021]

2 hours ago, Andrei01 said:

If he was a moron banging his head against the wall out of stubbornness, we wouldn't have a game winning drive of a 11:1 pass to run split.

It took over three quarters to run one drive that tried to exploit their glaring weakness, which yeah, is moronic.

2 hours ago, Andrei01 said:

There was a play action corner route Davis ran towards the back of the EZ that Tanny could've had if he timed it well and led him more towards the corner

This was just the Arthur special where he has no understanding of how to draw up a play. You move Tannehill right and then have CD show a deep crosser running left to right before cutting back to the left corner. A long-developing play that forced the QB to throw 35 yards to the opposite side of the field. Made worse by the fact that Corey was clearly getting space running the deep crosser to Tanny’s side of the field on what would’ve been a far easier throw.

[Andrei01]

46 minutes ago, titans0021 said:

It took over three quarters to run one drive that tried to exploit their glaring weakness, which yeah, is moronic.

This was just the Arthur special where he has no understanding of how to draw up a play. You move Tannehill right and then have CD show a deep crosser running left to right before cutting back to the left corner. A long-developing play that forced the QB to throw 35 yards to the opposite side of the field. Made worse by the fact that Corey was clearly getting space running the deep crosser to Tanny’s side of the field on what would’ve been a far easier throw.

The ball comes out in about 3 seconds. I don't have the All-22, but it looks like the Bucs are running cover 3. Corey sells his run inside then breaks it to the corner. That leaves only the outside CB trying to catch up to him in time to disrupt the catch, which he does. But the design works, there's room for the QB to put that ball over the CB and more towards the corner of the endzone, throwing from the right hash marks. I mean if you really want to play couch OC and try to come up with plays that would've worked better, sure I guess we can do that too, but although not the easiest, it's not an impossible throw to make.

52 minutes ago, titans0021 said:

I just think you’re arguing something that nobody ever really said. Nobody wants to never run on first down, they want to pass more on first down and run more from pass looks. It’s the incredible predictability of the first down runs that has been, and continues to be,  the problem.

I mean, I think our first-down run percentage is far too high and would rather pass the ball on first downs, but even if you want to run, you’re not required to bring in three tight ends and basically tell the defense that you’re running. One of the three successful runs we’re talking about came after a few successful passes and from a passing look. It’s weird how that works.

If you’re arguing that we shouldn’t pass the ball on literally every first down, sure, no arguments there. If you’re arguing that the calls are fine, the personnel groupings are fine, the situational awareness is fine, that’s where you totally lose me.

Sure, and again, I understand the personnel groupings are not for everyone's taste, which is why I stopped arguing that awhile ago. We knew that the hiring of Smith would mean the continuity of much of what was shown by the previous offensive staffs, because it's literally just about the only reason he got the job. So to blame him for not doing something other than what he was literally hired for is a bit extreme, in my book. Obviously he's not among the brightest offensive minds in the NFL. If you want to hate him for it, I guess that's fine. I just think that, especially since the QB change, his play calling has gotten a little better, and there are examples of it on film if you really want to look for them.

And to bring it back to the point I thought we were arguing, the rate at which we run on 1st down is roughly 60%. The league average is roughly 52%. League average for YPC on 1st down rushes is 4.3, ours is 4.1. So, again, I understand those numbers aren't ideal, but I don't think that just going by splits, which is what I was arguing all along, we're too extreme to become fully predictable.

[TitanSS]

1 hour ago, Andrei01 said:

The ball comes out in about 3 seconds. I don't have the All-22, but it looks like the Bucs are running cover 3. Corey sells his run inside then breaks it to the corner. That leaves only the outside CB trying to catch up to him in time to disrupt the catch, which he does. But the design works, there's room for the QB to put that ball over the CB and more towards the corner of the endzone, throwing from the right hash marks. I mean if you really want to play couch OC and try to come up with plays that would've worked better, sure I guess we can do that too, but although not the easiest, it's not an impossible throw to make.

Sure, and again, I understand the personnel groupings are not for everyone's taste, which is why I stopped arguing that awhile ago. We knew that the hiring of Smith would mean the continuity of much of what was shown by the previous offensive staffs, because it's literally just about the only reason he got the job. So to blame him for not doing something other than what he was literally hired for is a bit extreme, in my book. Obviously he's not among the brightest offensive minds in the NFL. If you want to hate him for it, I guess that's fine. I just think that, especially since the QB change, his play calling has gotten a little better, and there are examples of it on film if you really want to look for them.

And to bring it back to the point I thought we were arguing, the rate at which we run on 1st down is roughly 60%. The league average is roughly 52%. League average for YPC on 1st down rushes is 4.3, ours is 4.1. So, again, I understand those numbers aren't ideal, but I don't think that just going by splits, which is what I was arguing all along, we're too extreme to become fully predictable.

Where did you get 60%? The last time I saw the stat it was either 64% or 66% and it's hard to believe the last two games would drop it that much.

That's a pretty big gap from the league average.

Edit: Sharp Football has us at 61% and league average at 51%. The graphic I saw from NFL matchup may not have been accurate, but 10% higher than league average is a pretty big margin.

Only drops to 59% if you only consider weeks Tannehill started at QB. Number is 64% in the first half of Tannehill's starts despite a ridiculously high 75% success rate on first down passes with Tannehill in the first half.

Success rate suggests we are not as bad running on first down as it seems. 47% success rate should suggest that it's not all boom or bust runs on first down carrying his average YPC ( league average 44%).

 

Edited October 31, 2019 by TitanSS

[titans0021]

Just looked it up. Pro football reference has us at 128 rushes and 81 pass attempts on first downs. So, 61.2%. League average is roughly 52%. However, the average team averages 4.3 yards per carry on first and 7.6 yards per pass attempt. We average 4.1 yards per carry on first and 8.9 yards per pass attempt. 

So, we run 10% more on first than your average team (we obviously skew the league-wide numbers, but I’m not going to take the time time to recalculate it for 31 teams), while averaging fewer yards per carry than the league average. We pass 10% less than other teams on first while averaging 1.3 yards more than the league average per attempt. 

So that’s fun.

[titans0021]

Just some other things I noticed looking at the splits.

We’ve run 211 total plays from under center. We’ve run the ball 144 times and averaged 3.6 yards per carry. We’ve only thrown it 59 times (also 8 sacks). We’ve actually averaged 10 yards per pass with a 124 QB rating under center.

We’ve run 269 plays from shotgun. We’ve only ran 65 times, but have averaged a half yard more per attempt than under center (4.1). We’ve passed 178 times from the gun and averaged 6.8 yards per attempt.

So under center - Run 68.2% of the time, terrible yards per carry, good passing numbers.

Shotgun - Pass 76% of the time, better rushing average, mediocre passing numbers.

It is almost like this super predictable offense telegraphs our play call over 70% of the time and makes it ridiculously easy for defenses to prepare and shut it down.

[Andrei01]

Yeah, I used pro football reference because I couldn't find any other data elsewhere. Seems like I miscalculated it a bit, which is why I got 60 instead of 61%.