New Coaches

[VigilantZombie]

I like Canada as the OC but I also agree that Ben is not a good fit for the offense he will run.

[Dcash4]

I pretty much had the same issues with the hire as you, War. But thought I would comment on some of them, in no way to try to change your mind, but to share where my head is at with them.

17 hours ago, warfelg said:

1) He consistently is jumping from job to job and doesn't have a long resume at one spot to look at how he changes things over time.  Often times he took a "step back" with a new position as well, whether that be quality of program or coaching level.

This was honestly my first worry. Why is this dude constantly on the move? I did read a nice article about him, written before the Steelers even hired him I believe. Apparently his mark is that he is "hard to work with", though Eddie Faulkner (our RB coach who worked with Canada at NC State) doesn't understand that. But his history is just kinda....strange. His time at NC State saw record being broken but they just kinda made a change. Pitt he was tremendous and that got him the gig at LSU. No one knows what really happened at LSU thanks to a $1.7M settlement with an NDA. Maryland was another really strong showing but I think them not only changing the page, but going to another book entirely was a good idea. 

The thing that really gets me is all the info coming out over the weekend about how NFL teams love this guy and love to pick his brain.......but no one had just gone ahead and hired him. Why? Are we the dumb ones or is he going to make us look like geniuses? 

17 hours ago, warfelg said:

2) He runs a lot of things out of a ton of different formations.  While in a way it's good, it's also bad if you only run certain plays out of certain formations.  Much like Fitchner it's quite predictable.  Additionally a ton of that shifting and motion action is just eye candy at the NFL level.

You mean like when Ray-Ray McCloud is on the field and we run a jet? Who ever would have thought the guy that doesn't play receiver during any other times would be in for a jet motion!

Shanahan is so fun to watch run an offense because with his use of formations, shifts, and motions -- He will show something different to be the same and he will show something the same to be different. That's the fun of really creative offensive minds. Being able to run the same concepts from a variety of formations and looks and then having a multitude of option to be run from the same looks. 

I dont agree with shifting and motion just being eye candy - i think its becoming increasingly important - but if your motions, shifts, and even personnel are tells? Thats trouble. 

17 hours ago, warfelg said:

3) If this goes well, he's gonna be gone in a year or two for the NCAA or NFL at a HC level gig.  I would have rather seen an established NFL level OC that's been a HC and isn't a hot name with some big names working under him bringing the new stuff.

Eh, this one I am fine with. Its the new age we live in in terms off offensive guys. I want guys that are so good they are coveted by other teams. Only way you get a really good offensive guy to stick around now is for him to be your HC. Ill take the 2-3 years of a really good play caller and hope we have another guy on staff that learned well under him. 

17 hours ago, warfelg said:

4) Even if he manages to bring a ton of his college concepts to the NFL level it will not work with Ben at QB.  Ben cannot move, and isn't versed in RPO reads, which Canada's system is built on.

Im half in half out on this one. I think more about how college coaches operate out of the spread and can be more advanced in creating mismatches and open windows for their QBs. Fichtner couldnt create a mismatch if his life depended on it and didn't seem to realize how two receivers could work together in route concepts. Sark and immobile Matt Ryan created some very good numbers, but Sark didn't seem to remember that in the NFL, really good players > concept. He particularly forgot that in the redzone. It's really going to depend how much under center/PA work Canada would be interested in doing. I am not as much worried about RPO (though, ben tends to forget the R part of the acronym). 

I don't know anything about his usage of uptempo, but we really need to weaponize pace and no huddle. It drives me crazy that Ben has always been so good at it, but we wont unleash it unless we are losing. Haley did it occasionally (the Colts and Ravens games stick out in my mind - cannot remember the year), but never enough. Those are other parts of the college game I want to carry over. I love how McVay weaponizes pace. 

All in all, I have the same fears. Points 1, 2, and 4 are for sure concerns. I just kinda sit in the middle because we wont know until we actually see it. Unfortunately, it will be too late by the time we learn anything if things go wrong. I think this is a big hire for Tomlin as the coals heat under his feet, so for his sake I hope he nailed it. 

[warfelg]

4 minutes ago, Dcash4 said:

You mean like when Ray-Ray McCloud is on the field and we run a jet? Who ever would have thought the guy that doesn't play receiver during any other times would be in for a jet motion!

Shanahan is so fun to watch run an offense because with his use of formations, shifts, and motions -- He will show something different to be the same and he will show something the same to be different. That's the fun of really creative offensive minds. Being able to run the same concepts from a variety of formations and looks and then having a multitude of option to be run from the same looks. 

I dont agree with shifting and motion just being eye candy - i think its becoming increasingly important - but if your motions, shifts, and even personnel are tells? Thats trouble. 

So these are the two parts I want to respond to.  If you go back and look at Canada's play calling and use of motion he tends to use certain players for certain tasks.  Like, and I can't remember if it was Blitzburgh or SD, but there was video where the same personnel came out 5 times, started in different formations and places, but then shifted to the same formation and ran the same place.  So when I say his is a lot of eye-candy, that's what I mean.  It looks good and great on film, but from a football perspective it's not that useful. 

I remember one where he had (I think from LSU) the LT line up outside the TE in line and a WR in line, and Bama lined up with heavy pressure to that side.  The motion shifted the LT over, WR out, and brought the TE lined up wide in tight in line with the TE on the offensive right.  Bama never shifted coverage, brought the blitz, 10 yard loss.  Now I know that's an example of it not working but it's what I'm worried about with this move of Canada as OC.  He'll come out in a bunch of funky formations and shift into traditional, defenses won't be confused.  To me it really only works if then you run something from that funky formation and defenses have to account for playing it.

4 minutes ago, Dcash4 said:

It's really going to depend how much under center/PA work Canada would be interested in doing. I am not as much worried about RPO (though, ben tends to forget the R part of the acronym). 

Ben doesn't forget about the R part of RPO.  He's not good at it.  Our OL kept getting illegal man downfield flags because Ben was slow to read the DE, pulled the ball too late.  That read has to happen fast, the OL has to zone block horizontally, and the WR behind needs to beat his man one-on-one.  But the last part to that working is Ben needs to be a threat to be the extra runner.....and he just isn't.  So the slamming unblocked (by design) DE knows he can always go at the RB because Ben won't go deep and he has time to recover in pass rush mode if Ben keeps it.  So Ben needs to do a better job at reading that DE quicker and getting them to commit to pass rushing sometimes.

Lastly on the under center/PA work: I wouldn't hold my breath on it with Ben.  The rumor I heard is he doesn't like having his back to the defense at any time and doesn't like having his field of vision cut in half due to the roll out.  He feels it makes him and his WR's less dangerous because not everyone is a threat to catch the ball.  Personally I say tough **** you are a 17 year vet you should be good at that stuff anyways.  But this goes back to his pre-injury years when he kept having ankle and foot issues.

[Dcash4]

28 minutes ago, warfelg said:

So these are the two parts I want to respond to.  If you go back and look at Canada's play calling and use of motion he tends to use certain players for certain tasks.  Like, and I can't remember if it was Blitzburgh or SD, but there was video where the same personnel came out 5 times, started in different formations and places, but then shifted to the same formation and ran the same place.  So when I say his is a lot of eye-candy, that's what I mean.  It looks good and great on film, but from a football perspective it's not that useful. 

I remember one where he had (I think from LSU) the LT line up outside the TE in line and a WR in line, and Bama lined up with heavy pressure to that side.  The motion shifted the LT over, WR out, and brought the TE lined up wide in tight in line with the TE on the offensive right.  Bama never shifted coverage, brought the blitz, 10 yard loss.  Now I know that's an example of it not working but it's what I'm worried about with this move of Canada as OC.  He'll come out in a bunch of funky formations and shift into traditional, defenses won't be confused.  To me it really only works if then you run something from that funky formation and defenses have to account for playing it.

This is the stuff that I have no clue who Canada is. I like everything I hear about what he does, but have no clue how he does it. If this is true -- that all his action is just window dressing....we are in trouble. 

29 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Ben doesn't forget about the R part of RPO.  He's not good at it.  Our OL kept getting illegal man downfield flags because Ben was slow to read the DE, pulled the ball too late.  That read has to happen fast, the OL has to zone block horizontally, and the WR behind needs to beat his man one-on-one.  But the last part to that working is Ben needs to be a threat to be the extra runner.....and he just isn't.  So the slamming unblocked (by design) DE knows he can always go at the RB because Ben won't go deep and he has time to recover in pass rush mode if Ben keeps it.  So Ben needs to do a better job at reading that DE quicker and getting them to commit to pass rushing sometimes.

Why I dont fear the RPO is because this wasnt the first year we have done it. It's been happen all the way back into the Haley years. This year it was highly unsuccessful because of how we changed to the short passing game and teams just destroyed us after they caught on to our schemes. They understood our quick passing games route concepts by formation tells better than we did and DE's just started to stop pass rushing. 

Overall its not a tool I want to use often, but we have been running it long enough without the QB threat of the run and it can be a highly effective option, specifically if you plan on being in gun often. I see Ben's desire to only throw as a much bigger deterrent to it than his inability to run at the NFL level. Only a handful of guys you would want doing that anyway (See Reid, Andy: on how to ruin your super bowl run because you called a designed QB run). 

32 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Lastly on the under center/PA work: I wouldn't hold my breath on it with Ben.  The rumor I heard is he doesn't like having his back to the defense at any time and doesn't like having his field of vision cut in half due to the roll out.  He feels it makes him and his WR's less dangerous because not everyone is a threat to catch the ball.  Personally I say tough **** you are a 17 year vet you should be good at that stuff anyways.  But this goes back to his pre-injury years when he kept having ankle and foot issues.

I would be HAMMERING Ben with Aaron Rodgers number and tape, because he said the same thing. Look at him with his motion running, play action calling, under center loving butt now? (also, Aaron is 10xs the athlete and just stupidly good, but lets ignore that for a minute)

But I totally agree your attitude in the underlined, and that's why I wanted a really well respected coach like Anthony Lynn or even a Doug Peterson with some clout walking into the room fresh. I think they have a better change of telling Ben, look we NEED to do this stuff. We cannot delete 1/2 the playbook because you don't want to go under center or turn your back. NFL evolved. Move on or get on. 

[MOSteelers56]

I'm agnostic about the hire. I have no idea what he'll be like as the OC. I'm hopeful he can install some good stuff, but he might be terrible. 

[43M]

On 1/18/2021 at 11:27 AM, MOSteelers56 said:

I'm agnostic about the hire. I have no idea what he'll be like as the OC. I'm hopeful he can install some good stuff, but he might be terrible. 

I lean more towards the negative side.   He was never that good anywhere in his college coaching days and he spent one year here under one of the worst offensive coordinators Ive ever seen.

I know he has his own system and the offense will look different, but given the ineptitude of our offense this year, the entire offensive coaching staff and several players needed to be replaced IMO.  

I dont expect much to change in 2021.   Ben will likely still play 95% from shotgun, the running game will still suck and teams will force Ben to push the ball downfield, which he wont be able to do effectively.

I expect us to finish 9-7 or so next year....which is probably what we should've been this year.

[August4th]

 

[mwalker]

If this is Marrone, I'm fine with it.

[Dcash4]

1 hour ago, mwalker said:

If this is Marrone, I'm fine with it.

Reports having him going to Alabama. 

[mwalker]

8 hours ago, Dcash4 said:

Reports having him going to Alabama. 

cheers. i'd not heard that.

[warfelg]

I'm not a fan interviewing of Hank Fraley for the OL Coach position.  He doesn't have that "feather in the cap" .  They need to get Marc Columbo (had the Giants line playing well, developed that Cowboys line), James Campen (developed David Batikari), or many many other options.

[jebrick]

Canada was calling plays in the 2nd 1/2 of the Browns playoff so that gives you a small sample size.  The real question is why did it take until then to realize that Fitchner was a problem?  I would have fired Fitchner at halftime of the Bengals game.

 

I do not expect to see much "Canada" offense if Tomlin goes all turtlely with the game plan

[warfelg]

 

[Dcash4]

13 minutes ago, warfelg said:

 

[MOSteelers56]

32 minutes ago, warfelg said:

 

Less than ideal