dll2000 Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 (edited) I started to put this in around the league, but it got wordy and I see this more as an article drafted by me for people to discuss and disagree with or agree with. So I am not going to add it to an existing thread. I love when people or organizations do things outside the box. It doesn't always work. It often doesn't. What it does is move the needle. Because if idea wasn't insane and completely stupid, it usually partially works and inspires other people to take part of it or adapt it. Most people don't take risks. But without risks and without people doing things differently from crowd we don't get innovation. That was a big part of idea behind our federalist system of govt. If states had a lot of autonomy they would do things different from each other and then states could learn from each other. They could adopt good policies and abandon bad ones. Growth of federal govt. power has curtailed that quite a bit because they can hegemon the states by granting and withholding money - but you get the point. Two teams and a coach in recent years come to mind. 1) Chip Kelly brought college offense concepts to NFL and did a pretty good job of making them work in Philly and not really in SF. He had terrible talent was main problem, the second problem was media hated him and third problem was his ego didn't allow for enough adaptation to his ideas. I believe that was idea of McDaniels had in drafting Tebow (he predated Kelly in this). He wanted to try a more college/NFL hybrid offense. It puts incredible pressure on a defense when they have to account for the QB has a competent runner and passer. That was why he was excited about Newton too, because he had short term success with Jacoby Brisset. It didn't work, but sometimes you have to try something to realize it doesn't work or that it takes a special and rare player. The compromise is you use the run sparingly to keep teams at least thinking about it. Andy Reid took the concepts he liked from Kelly (he openly admits this) and incorporated them into the Bill Walsh west coast offense. Most of league has done same in some capacity. While Kelly failed, he still changed the league by thinking outside the box. 2) Baltimore took it a step further and stepped outside the box when they drafted Lamar Jackson and then changed their offense to suit his skills rather than making him change. The took a straight running QB with some passing skills rather than a passing QB with some running skills. That was and is interesting. They were dominant for a stretch during his MVP season. But they have not been able to take it far enough into playoffs to make other teams copy them. When they get shut down, they tend to get shut down badly. 3) This is what I most wanted to talk about because it is most recent. The LA Rams. The Rams have eschewed the NFL draft. Conventional wisdom says you have to build your team through draft and sprinkle in a few free agents. The Rams have said screw it. Draft is hit or miss. We are going to trade for players we know are good and not worry about the cap - which is not as hard as people believe. It will cost more in dollars, but won't be gambling on college players transitioning to NFL. Have they made some stupid trades? IMO Yes. But they don't seem to care. They keep firing. They added Jalen Ramsey who is arguably best overall secondary player in league. They added Matthew Stafford is a good QB when healthy and good QBs are not easy to find. They added Sony Michel who is a good RB. They added Von Miller who is a good Edge player. They added OBJ who is a good WR. In any 3 drafts you are not going to add that kind of ready now impact talent. I think the problem is they have gone a little overboard in mortgaging the draft. Because they are now out of draft picks to trade for existing studs and the existing studs may have short shelf lives. But what they are doing is and has been very interesting. If Rams can make a SB run it will be interesting if people will emulate it in some fashion - not caring as much about draft picks as most think you should. I think some teams already are a little and poorly - like the Seahawks and 49ers. Edited January 12, 2022 by dll2000 typos 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dll2000 Posted January 12, 2022 Author Share Posted January 12, 2022 (edited) delete Edited January 12, 2022 by dll2000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heinz D. Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 1 hour ago, dll2000 said: I think the problem is they have gone a little overboard in mortgaging the draft. "A little?" 😧 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Romen Posted January 13, 2022 Share Posted January 13, 2022 3 hours ago, Heinz D. said: "A little?" 😧 The draft is such a crap shoot though. How many picks actually work out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAF-N72EX Posted January 13, 2022 Share Posted January 13, 2022 (edited) 9 hours ago, dll2000 said: 2) Baltimore took it a step further and stepped outside the box when they drafted Lamar Jackson and then changed their offense to suit his skills rather than making him change. The took a straight running QB with some passing skills rather than a passing QB with some running skills. That was and is interesting. They were dominant for a stretch during his MVP season. This doesn't fit with theme here. What Baltimore did with Lamar was not innovative at all. Teams taking an athletic QB and utilizing their legs in the pass game is nothing new. This has been happening since the 40's and 50's. Guys like Bobby Layne, YA Little, Franky Albert, CHarlie Trippi, and Toby Rote can be seen as the godfathers of it but Frank Tarkenton really put it on the map. And alot of coaches have tried to emulate it ever since. The problem was that it was so far ahead of it's time that not only were there very few QB who had the athletic ability to pull it off but not many coaches even knew how to draw up a scheme surrounding this type of play-style either. They were focused on designing a playbook fit for pocket passers so that's all they were looking for during the scouting process. It wasn't until about the 60s or 70's when coaches started to slowly implement a full scheme around athletic QBs, which slowly opened the door for Qbs like Kilmer, Bart Starr, Johnny Unitas, Greg Landry, etc. This, in turn, inspired other coaches to start taking chances on guys like; Steve Young, Doug Flutie, Kordell Stewart, Bobby Douglas, Steve McNair, Randall Cunningham, etc. This was followed by the Vick, Culpepper, and McNabb era...... and since then damn near every coach has been looking for a dual threat QB---Rodgers, Young, Tebow, RG3, Mahomes, Cam, Russ, Pryor, Kaep, Taylor, Mitch, Kizer, Watson, Hurts, Kyler, Allen, etc). Quote But they have not been able to take it far enough into playoffs to make other teams copy them. When they get shut down, they tend to get shut down badly. Teams haven't copied it because it hasn't worked and it never will. Essentially having a RB playing the QB position is a bad idea. It's a passing league and Lamar is a sporadic passer much like Vick was with a better supporting cast. Mentality and mechanics are the 2 most important traits in a QB and Lamar lacks a little bit of both, just like Vick did. If any QB can nail these 2 traits then sub traits like decision making, accuracy, ball placement, manipulating and reading defenses will fall into place on there own, naturally. Edited January 13, 2022 by JAF-N72EX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAF-N72EX Posted January 13, 2022 Share Posted January 13, 2022 (edited) If the Rams don't win a SB this year or next then they everything they did would be for nought and they will be doomed moving forward. Edited January 13, 2022 by JAF-N72EX 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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