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Why Does the Offense Work so Much Better with Smith than Haskins?


MKnight82

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One thing I haven’t seen mentioned too much so far is protections. 

We have a decent OL now, with Lucas/Schweitzer stepping in to be competent veterans in place of the two young guys who couldn’t play. They can generally hold up when they’re lined up right, and Alex definitely has a better sense of doing the math and setting the protections than Dwayne does. Not only that, he’s also clearly better at anticipating where he could be wrong and having an escape hatch in case the defense has fooled him and the OL. You can see Dwayne trying to set the protection, but he seems to screw it up sometimes. And he definitely has not reached the point of having an exit plan if he’s surprised by what the defense ends up doing. When they bring more or different pressure than he’s expecting, that’s when you see the backpedal and bail out throws.

That’s the kind of thing that takes time. I’m sure as a second-year pro, even an extraordinarily bright guy like Alex struggled with it. In fact, as we know of course, he rather famously struggled with damn near everything for his first three seasons — and didn’t really start to improve until returning in 2009 after missing the entire previous season. That was his FIFTH season. There’s still hope for Dwayne. 

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7 hours ago, e16bball said:

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned too much so far is protections. 

We have a decent OL now, with Lucas/Schweitzer stepping in to be competent veterans in place of the two young guys who couldn’t play. They can generally hold up when they’re lined up right, and Alex definitely has a better sense of doing the math and setting the protections than Dwayne does. Not only that, he’s also clearly better at anticipating where he could be wrong and having an escape hatch in case the defense has fooled him and the OL. You can see Dwayne trying to set the protection, but he seems to screw it up sometimes. And he definitely has not reached the point of having an exit plan if he’s surprised by what the defense ends up doing. When they bring more or different pressure than he’s expecting, that’s when you see the backpedal and bail out throws.

That’s the kind of thing that takes time. I’m sure as a second-year pro, even an extraordinarily bright guy like Alex struggled with it. In fact, as we know of course, he rather famously struggled with damn near everything for his first three seasons — and didn’t really start to improve until returning in 2009 after missing the entire previous season. That was his FIFTH season. There’s still hope for Dwayne. 

For sure, almost all young QBs struggle with this. The only guys I don’t remember struggling with it much are guys like Mahomes but he probably did when he first started, he just got the entire season to play as a 2nd year player in 2018. Haskins didn’t get a chance to play and learn those protection calls better and what defenses are doing better to improve on the field.

After two years guys like Allen, Goff & Mahomes have mastered the protections but it took them at least half a season or more to get it all down, they were just afforded the opportunity to learn while playing. They didn’t have the rug pulled out from them by a coach expecting to play like a vet in a new offense w/ no real offseason after 4 games.

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7 hours ago, e16bball said:

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned too much so far is protections. 

We have a decent OL now, with Lucas/Schweitzer stepping in to be competent veterans in place of the two young guys who couldn’t play. They can generally hold up when they’re lined up right, and Alex definitely has a better sense of doing the math and setting the protections than Dwayne does. Not only that, he’s also clearly better at anticipating where he could be wrong and having an escape hatch in case the defense has fooled him and the OL. You can see Dwayne trying to set the protection, but he seems to screw it up sometimes. And he definitely has not reached the point of having an exit plan if he’s surprised by what the defense ends up doing. When they bring more or different pressure than he’s expecting, that’s when you see the backpedal and bail out throws.

That’s the kind of thing that takes time. I’m sure as a second-year pro, even an extraordinarily bright guy like Alex struggled with it. In fact, as we know of course, he rather famously struggled with damn near everything for his first three seasons — and didn’t really start to improve until returning in 2009 after missing the entire previous season. That was his FIFTH season. There’s still hope for Dwayne. 

I def agree with this. You pointed in the feel for the pocket when the defense brings something he's not expecting I get it. Along with him managing protections or handling the blitz it’s just something that if he’s going to get it then it’s through action and serious study and just working like crazy in the offseason

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On 12/14/2020 at 8:56 PM, lavar703 said:

Gibson and Terry are exceptional talents. Gibson wasn’t seeing much of the field when Haskins was starting and Cam Sims wasn’t even on the active roster. Thomas took awhile to start playing well. 

To add to this, Haskins was playing when we were sticking with Christian and Martin on the left side, which was a disaster. And he got less than 1.5 games of Scherff before he went down with his first injury this season. The improvements on the offensive unit since then are numerous, and they certainly can’t all (or even mostly) be attributed to swapping out Dwayne for the other QBs. 
 

I also, just to maintain the record, have to push back on the original post you quoted that included Cam Sims in the list of weapons (but not JD McKissic, oddly). I love what he’s done for us in a few of these games, but I just don’t think he’s a “decent” WR2. I guess he could be a decent WR3, and a very solid WR4, but you need a WR2 to be someone who can pretty consistently get open on his own. His production, such as it is, has been extremely inconsistent and largely dependent on the fact that many teams are singling him up constantly to roll coverage to 17. It’s also buoyed tremendously by what I consider to be an extremely unsustainable 9.3 YAC per reception. For reference, that’s #2 in the entire league among WRs (RBs naturally rank more highly in the stat because they’re always catching the ball at or behind the LOS and running with it by design). The only WR ahead of him is Deebo Samuel, who basically gets used like a RB. Show of hands, who thinks Cam Sims is actually the best YAC receiver in the league?

I’m really not trying to slight the guy. As I said, I love the plays he’s made for us, and I think he has a role and a spot on this roster moving forward — which I didn’t think two months ago. So he’s definitely proved something to me. But I just don’t want the team to get caught up in the idea that a couple good games from Cam Sims means we don’t need to make a significant addition at WR2. 

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12 minutes ago, e16bball said:

To add to this, Haskins was playing when we were sticking with Christian and Martin on the left side, which was a disaster. And he got less than 1.5 games of Scherff before he went down with his first injury this season. The improvements on the offensive unit since then are numerous, and they certainly can’t all (or even mostly) be attributed to swapping out Dwayne for the other QBs. 
 

I also, just to maintain the record, have to push back on the original post you quoted that included Cam Sims in the list of weapons (but not JD McKissic, oddly). I love what he’s done for us in a few of these games, but I just don’t think he’s a “decent” WR2. I guess he could be a decent WR3, and a very solid WR4, but you need a WR2 to be someone who can pretty consistently get open on his own. His production, such as it is, has been extremely inconsistent and largely dependent on the fact that many teams are singling him up constantly to roll coverage to 17. It’s also buoyed tremendously by what I consider to be an extremely unsustainable 9.3 YAC per reception. For reference, that’s #2 in the entire league among WRs (RBs naturally rank more highly in the stat because they’re always catching the ball at or behind the LOS and running with it by design). The only WR ahead of him is Deebo Samuel, who basically gets used like a RB. Show of hands, who thinks Cam Sims is actually the best YAC receiver in the league?

I’m really not trying to slight the guy. As I said, I love the plays he’s made for us, and I think he has a role and a spot on this roster moving forward — which I didn’t think two months ago. So he’s definitely proved something to me. But I just don’t want the team to get caught up in the idea that a couple good games from Cam Sims means we don’t need to make a significant addition at WR2. 

 

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