Arthur Smith

[titans0021]

Also, @-Hope- I know you’re not some massive Art Smith fan, so sorry if that came off as aggressive. I just hate the idea of the guy stumbling into the rare good playcall and that being used to save his job and potentially give him the first year of our next young QB.

[grizzans3222]

With a average to below average line the whole plan is to get the ball out quick.That was something MM didn't do, along with giving your Play makers a chance to make a play. Thais all i can ask for with RT this season...It also hurts not having a dual threat RB. They know when Henry is in the game he isn't doing an out or wheel route,or just a go.That hinders the offense more than you know as well.

[-Hope-]

1 hour ago, titans0021 said:

Also, @-Hope- I know you’re not some massive Art Smith fan, so sorry if that came off as aggressive. I just hate the idea of the guy stumbling into the rare good playcall and that being used to save his job and potentially give him the first year of our next young QB.

lol sure, me too. but i think it’s important to distinguish from this doom and gloom stone-age Titans offense narrative when it’s clear at this point that although we just don’t have a very good offensive coordinator and that’s a problem, a significant portion of our struggles are attributable to not executing basic QB play and not to us like, not running enough pick plays or whatever.

[SerenityNow]

At this point I'm just along for the ride and wanna see us make a push for the playoffs. Art definitely has his flaws as an OC, but if he can get this offense rolling enough with Tannehill to go on a win streak and make a serious push for the playoffs after how our season has started you won't hear me calling for him to be fired. That's just the reality of where I'm at right now.

[titans0021]

3 hours ago, -Hope- said:

lol sure, me too. but i think it’s important to distinguish from this doom and gloom stone-age Titans offense narrative when it’s clear at this point that although we just don’t have a very good offensive coordinator and that’s a problem, a significant portion of our struggles are attributable to not executing basic QB play and not to us like, not running enough pick plays or whatever.

Yeah, this is definitely where we just disagree. I don’t care about pick plays, our base offense is loaded with 21 and 12 personnel, extra blockers and two and three man routes that end up on the same side of the field. This offense is capped at mediocre with good QB play, it just happens to be the worst in the league with below average QB play. 

[Andrei01]

12 hours ago, titans0021 said:

I mean, if you give me great QB and receiver play, a competent line and a good running back and put me up against a defense missing three linemen and two of its three best players, I’m pretty sure my Madden offense can look somewhat competent.

But the only variable that changed was QB, and that made all the difference. WRs were the same, we just saw they could be used when you have someone to throw to them, and we actually lost two OL starters, yet the line wasn't as much of a problem because, again  QB play improved drastically.

I'm not saying it was a top notch performance against a top notch opponent. But 2.5 points per drive is a very respectable number against a top 10 scoring defense. It's a good performance. I don't doubt you might be able to outdo it on Madden if given the chance, but I don't think we should just dismiss it either.

[TitanSS]

30 minutes ago, titans0021 said:

Yeah, this is definitely where we just disagree. I don’t care about pick plays, our base offense is loaded with 21 and 12 personnel, extra blockers and two and three man routes that end up on the same side of the field. This offense is capped at mediocre with good QB play, it just happens to be the worst in the league with below average QB play. 

In the All 22 on Music City Miracles I really didn't see a lot of the two man routes we thought we saw with Mariota. We occasionally have them off of play-action, but that was the case with LaFleur also.

It also seemed like we had more 11 personnel last week also. I'd be curious to see our percentages for personnel packages. Also, we we running on first down 66% of the time with Mariota and it didn't feel like that was the case last week. I'd like to see that statistic as well.

I don't think Smith is all of the sudden good or anything, but it didn't seem quite as stone age with Tannehill in there.

Also, in the MCM article, they highlight that the short throw on 3rd and 14 wasn't Tannehill checking down and getting bailed out by Jonnu. It was a downfield screen. Decent play call by Arty in that situation.

[titans0021]

21 minutes ago, Andrei01 said:

But the only variable that changed was QB, and that made all the difference. WRs were the same, we just saw they could be used when you have someone to throw to them, and we actually lost two OL starters, yet the line wasn't as much of a problem because, again  QB play improved drastically.

I'm not saying it was a top notch performance against a top notch opponent. But 2.5 points per drive is a very respectable number against a top 10 scoring defense. It's a good performance. I don't doubt you might be able to outdo it on Madden if given the chance, but I don't think we should just dismiss it either.

It was a great QB performance, I guess that’s my thing. It’s a fine offensive output, but we have plenty of talent, great QB performances shouldn’t be the requirement to have an acceptable offense. If Tannehill kills it all year, I guess it’s fine, because we’ll just resign him anyways. 

In the end though, I guess it’s just my fundamental disagreement with what I think this (and really almost any) offense should be. MyCole Pruitt has played nearly as many snaps as Adam Humphries and AJ Brown. We have two good, young outside receivers and a very good slot receiver, I’ll just never be able to justify our inability to run a base offense with all three on the field.

[titans0021]

7 minutes ago, TitanSS said:

In the All 22 on Music City Miracles I really didn't see a lot of the two man routes we thought we saw with Mariota. We occasionally have them off of play-action, but that was the case with LaFleur also.

It also seemed like we had more 11 personnel last week also. I'd be curious to see our percentages for personnel packages. Also, we we running on first down 66% of the time with Mariota and it didn't feel like that was the case last week. I'd like to see that statistic as well.

I don't think Smith is all of the sudden good or anything, but it didn't seem quite as stone age with Tannehill in there.

Also, in the MCM article, they highlight that the short throw on 3rd and 14 wasn't Tannehill checking down and getting bailed out by Jonnu. It was a downfield screen. Decent play call by Arty in that situation.

Yeah, I saw that screen live. I struggle with classifying it. It worked, so I guess it’s a good play, but there’s also something about running a TE screen that requires an immediate broken tackle on third and long that’s tough.

I do agree with the idea that the personnel seemed better, but I also just looked and saw that Pruitt outsnapped Humphries and Jonnu had more snaps than any receiver, so I’m doubtful.

[TitanSS]

54 minutes ago, titans0021 said:

Yeah, I saw that screen live. I struggle with classifying it. It worked, so I guess it’s a good play, but there’s also something about running a TE screen that requires an immediate broken tackle on third and long that’s tough.

I do agree with the idea that the personnel seemed better, but I also just looked and saw that Pruitt outsnapped Humphries and Jonnu had more snaps than any receiver, so I’m doubtful.

With Delanie out Jonnu was our #1 TE in every package so that would be why. 

Our WRs had 150 snaps and our TEs had 105. 15 of those were Firkser who is always spread out as a WR. 

Against the Falcons our WRs had 152 snaps and our TEs had 101, but zero of those were Firkser.

I'd say that suggests we used similar personnel to the Falcons game, so maybe it wasn't mich different. I couldn't find the Colts game.

Edit: Sharp football tracks these snaps! We were 51% 11 personnel which is the same as our season average. So no change at all there. Smith was deceiving. The league average for the season is 61%.

CIN is the highest at 85% and MIN is low at 26%. Other notables:

NE - 49% NO - 57% KC - 60% PHI - 64% SEA - 69% SF - 37%

Edited October 24, 2019 by TitanSS

[TitanSS]

1 hour ago, titans0021 said:

It was a great QB performance, I guess that’s my thing. It’s a fine offensive output, but we have plenty of talent, great QB performances shouldn’t be the requirement to have an acceptable offense. If Tannehill kills it all year, I guess it’s fine, because we’ll just resign him anyways. 

In the end though, I guess it’s just my fundamental disagreement with what I think this (and really almost any) offense should be. MyCole Pruitt has played nearly as many snaps as Adam Humphries and AJ Brown. We have two good, young outside receivers and a very good slot receiver, I’ll just never be able to justify our inability to run a base offense with all three on the field.

I feel this way too. Even if the offense is clicking with Pruitt on the field, it's not the offense I want us to run. I do think it's probably the offense for Henry though so I'm not sure of we move away from him and find a dual threat if we want to spread it out? I've been iffy on him because he's so one dimensional and I don't like paying RBs a lot to begin with.

 

[Andrei01]

7 hours ago, titans0021 said:

It was a great QB performance, I guess that’s my thing. It’s a fine offensive output, but we have plenty of talent, great QB performances shouldn’t be the requirement to have an acceptable offense. If Tannehill kills it all year, I guess it’s fine, because we’ll just resign him anyways. 

In the end though, I guess it’s just my fundamental disagreement with what I think this (and really almost any) offense should be. MyCole Pruitt has played nearly as many snaps as Adam Humphries and AJ Brown. We have two good, young outside receivers and a very good slot receiver, I’ll just never be able to justify our inability to run a base offense with all three on the field.

2.5 points per drive would be a top 5 offense for the year as an average. Ours is currently 1.45. That's a big difference. I'm not saying that's the direction we're heading towards, but it just looked different the way Tannehill ran it instead of Mariota. I'm not saying let's all pretend like we became contenders over night, but I do think the QB upgrade already proved enough to let this offense be run something more effectively. 

We're not running the most modern offensive system, that much is clear. And that will remain so as long as at least Vrabel is the HC of this team, regardless of who's calling the plays, because it's just the philosophy that has been chosen. Lafleur isn't really running the same offense he did last year, because in GB he is the one now controlling the philosophy and he's not hindered anymore by a thin offensive supporting cast and a very questionable QB.

And I guess what I'm trying to say is, that like most of the OCs we have gone through so far, Smith is not necessarily the one holding Marcus back, it was the other way around all along. I do agree though that he's the worst we had so far, but even that could be fine as long as we continue to see this upward trend of QB play after changing the starter. A short pass to set up Jonnu with blockers downfield on 3rd & long is not necessarily what I'd like to see either, but it has been in this team's blood for so long it just might be part of our strengths, whether we like it or not. And at the end of day, that's really what it should be about, not just about running the most innovative and modern offense. And if it works, I guess I'm cool with it.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Andrei01

[TitanSS]

With as good as our defense is, I have don't take issue with a downfield screen on 3rd and 14. If it was a more manageable situation I understand, but I could see that ending up in a sack if we run 3 or 4 guys on long developing routes. Especially with the defense they were playing.

Whether or not something is a good or bad play call often comes down to how well the players execute it. The QB sneak at the end was definitely the right call but looks worse because they didn't convert.

But I don't think Smith is anything special. I just don't think he's as different as it seemed when Mariota was playing. The 49ers have Shannahan who is credited as an offensive genius and they run far less 11 personnel than us. I think I just like 11 personnel, but because I like something that doesn't mean you have to do it to be successful.

[Dr.Doom52]

I would say that his "feel" for the game is something that is good and could become better, my issues are the actual plays that we run. 

His mix of run and pass, and his willingness to call passing plays early in the downs is decent. It's the concepts in the passing game that are the biggest concern. 

This last game I think was an inditement of his scheme and ability to design an offense to get guys open. The prospect of RT or any other QB making the tight window throws every play of every game is just not sustainable. The INT's are coming...and I am not blaming RT...balls that have to be thrown that hard, into such tight windows, to hit a guy for a 7 yrd pass because of the tight coverage will be deflected and/or bounce off of our WR's hands. 

[TitanSS]

16 minutes ago, Dr.Doom52 said:

I would say that his "feel" for the game is something that is good and could become better, my issues are the actual plays that we run. 

His mix of run and pass, and his willingness to call passing plays early in the downs is decent. It's the concepts in the passing game that are the biggest concern. 

This last game I think was an inditement of his scheme and ability to design an offense to get guys open. The prospect of RT or any other QB making the tight window throws every play of every game is just not sustainable. The INT's are coming...and I am not blaming RT...balls that have to be thrown that hard, into such tight windows, to hit a guy for a 7 yrd pass because of the tight coverage will be deflected and/or bounce off of our WR's hands. 

Prior to this week we ran the ball on 66% of first downs. I'm not sure what that number was this week.

That to me is a bigger issue than his route concepts, but was it because of Mariota? We'll see.