Why our offense isn't clicking.

[benny]

The Atlanta Falcons are 4-2 going into week 8, a good record, but if you've been watching the games, you will know that we havn't looked good on offense in any game aside from the SF game.

I have 2 reasons why i think our offense is sucking hard this year.

- Mularkey's play calling/scheme

- the presence of Tony Gonzalez *gasp*

I know most of you stopped reading, and went ahead and gave me a -1 after you read the Gonzalez comment but hear me out.

Everyone has heard how in 08, our offense only completed 19 total passes to all of our TEs. It wasn't because our TEs weren't very good as most of you like to believe, it was because Mularkey's playbook didn't have many plays involving the TEs in passing. Most plays had TEs blocking (whether it be run blocking or pass protection). And when our TEs pass protected, Matt had tons of time, and could wait until his receivers ran completely through their routes, making it an easy completion.

Then, all of a sudden, TD makes a(what seemed at the time) crazy awesome move to go get Tony Gonzalez from KC. Now espn and nfln are hanging on our nuts for making a huge move, and sucking on those nuts by saying we are a "pick your poison" offense, and how no one will be able to shut down Matt Ryan. Tony is telling everybody hes here for a superbowl, and every Falcons fan (myself included) starts drooling. But the problem is, Mularkey's scheme isn't built for pass catching TEs. So now Mularkey has a dilemma. Should he keep the offense as it was last year, or should he try and change it. He figured, "I may never have another chance to coach a hall of famer like Gonzalez, so i need to use him as much as possible." Wrong choice. Now we over-use the same 10-12 vanilla plays, just so we can have Tony G running routes. We're taking out blockers so Matt doesn't have the same amount of time as before, throwing off his timing so now he has to force the ball to the receivers before they even finish the routes, causing bad throws, and INTs. Not only does the presence of Gonzalez make Mularkey look bad, but it also makes Matt Ryan look bad. He hasn't been going through the proper reads, hes been staring down Gonzalez and forcing it to him way too much.

This Gonzalez move isn't paying off as much as we all hoped, and it needs to change or we will continue to see this average offense every week.

Mularkey, open the playbook back up and stop trying to use Gonzalez as much. Stick with the scheme that brought us success last year. You are not supposed to change your scheme over one player. Instead, just plug him in to the existing scheme. Sure Gonzalez may not catch as many balls and he will be blocking a lot more, but the team will function the way it is used to, and we will win more games.

Or at least thats how i see it.

[benny]

bump?

[Jaymadd]

bump?

Wow Benz bumping your own thread LOL. I dont know if we need to completely go back to our scheme from last year, but our current scheme needs to be revised and we need to stop forcing the ball to TG. I also think that the loss of HD is showing up at this point. WE need more explosiveness on the field, the only person who has that explosiveness is Roddy White, especially with Norwood hurt. I do get tired of the same formations and the same plays over and over again, and as teams have more tape on us this year combined with an extra week to study it, it might not be a good look.

[Peyton]

We can't run our scheme from last year anyway. HD is out and Jerious can't stay on the field for 5 minutes. We don't have players to match the skills of those two guys.

[MilleniumFalcon]

We can't run our scheme from last year anyway. HD is out and Jerious can't stay on the field for 5 minutes. We don't have players to match the skills of those two guys.

From the little I saw of Weems, he can be a HD-lite. But we need some burners to stretch the field that can keep defenses honest. Our receivers currently don't really run down the field well and the defensive backs are all compact, close to each other, hard to throw into those small windows.

[benny]

Wow Benz bumping your own thread LOL. I dont know if we need to completely go back to our scheme from last year, but our current scheme needs to be revised and we need to stop forcing the ball to TG. I also think that the loss of HD is showing up at this point. WE need more explosiveness on the field, the only person who has that explosiveness is Roddy White, especially with Norwood hurt. I do get tired of the same formations and the same plays over and over again, and as teams have more tape on us this year combined with an extra week to study it, it might not be a good look.

why not? most consistant winning teams use the same scheme every year. they'll add a wrinkle here and there but its basically the same playbook. instead of Mularkey adding new ways of getting Gonzalez the ball, or just sticking with what worked, he cuts the playbook in half and goes with that.

we are just getting too predictable because we only run the same 10-12 pass plays because those are the ones with Tony running routes.

[benny]

We can't run our scheme from last year anyway. HD is out and Jerious can't stay on the field for 5 minutes. We don't have players to match the skills of those two guys.

heck, thats what we got Booker for. and he showed in the Carolina game he can be pretty dependable. And i agree with the Norwood part, but its not like he is the x-factor of our O. We keep trying to run our passing game out of the same power formation and it isnt working. we need to get back to spreading defenses out with 3 receivers and start picking teams apart again.

[supremedarius]

Ryan has terrible windows to throw to because of the sucky *** route combinations that are being run. All the routes are out, short curls, short dig routes...It was just terrible play calling and that is how it has been all season..Its starting to get frustrating because if playcalling does not change, our offense will be in trouble

[hakim24]

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

People won't admit it, but Gonzalez has really messed up the flow. As I watch us play, it does seem like we only run 5 or 6 different pass plays.

Gonzalez is a good player, but We need to revert back to what we were doing last year. TONY GONZALEZ CANNOT BE THE FOCAL POINT OF OUR OFFENSE!

We are too predictable and unfortunately I put most of the blame on Mularkey. TG is now a crutch for Matt Ryan instead of a security blanket.

Think about this:

Roddy White caught the most balls on 3rd down in the league in 2008. He converted most of them. Now he is not even getting the looks.

The addition of Gonzalez might be actually hurting the flow of our offense more than it is helping.

[Gimmesomo!!!]

The Atlanta Falcons are 4-2 going into week 8, a good record, but if you've been watching the games, you will know that we havn't looked good on offense in any game aside from the SF game.

I have 2 reasons why i think our offense is sucking hard this year.

- Mularkey's play calling/scheme

- the presence of Tony Gonzalez *gasp*

I know most of you stopped reading, and went ahead and gave me a -1 after you read the Gonzalez comment but hear me out.

Everyone has heard how in 08, our offense only completed 19 total passes to all of our TEs. It wasn't because our TEs weren't very good as most of you like to believe, it was because Mularkey's playbook didn't have many plays involving the TEs in passing. Most plays had TEs blocking (whether it be run blocking or pass protection). And when our TEs pass protected, Matt had tons of time, and could wait until his receivers ran completely through their routes, making it an easy completion.

Then, all of a sudden, TD makes a(what seemed at the time) crazy awesome move to go get Tony Gonzalez from KC. Now espn and nfln are hanging on our nuts for making a huge move, and sucking on those nuts by saying we are a "pick your poison" offense, and how no one will be able to shut down Matt Ryan. Tony is telling everybody hes here for a superbowl, and every Falcons fan (myself included) starts drooling. But the problem is, Mularkey's scheme isn't built for pass catching TEs. So now Mularkey has a dilemma. Should he keep the offense as it was last year, or should he try and change it. He figured, "I may never have another chance to coach a hall of famer like Gonzalez, so i need to use him as much as possible." Wrong choice. Now we over-use the same 10-12 vanilla plays, just so we can have Tony G running routes. We're taking out blockers so Matt doesn't have the same amount of time as before, throwing off his timing so now he has to force the ball to the receivers before they even finish the routes, causing bad throws, and INTs. Not only does the presence of Gonzalez make Mularkey look bad, but it also makes Matt Ryan look bad. He hasn't been going through the proper reads, hes been staring down Gonzalez and forcing it to him way too much.

This Gonzalez move isn't paying off as much as we all hoped, and it needs to change or we will continue to see this average offense every week.

Mularkey, open the playbook back up and stop trying to use Gonzalez as much. Stick with the scheme that brought us success last year. You are not supposed to change your scheme over one player. Instead, just plug him in to the existing scheme. Sure Gonzalez may not catch as many balls and he will be blocking a lot more, but the team will function the way it is used to, and we will win more games.

Or at least thats how i see it.

I agree.

[benny]

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

People won't admit it, but Gonzalez has really messed up the flow. As I watch us play, it does seem like we only run 5 or 6 different pass plays.

Gonzalez is a good player, but We need to revert back to what we were doing last year. TONY GONZALEZ CANNOT BE THE FOCAL POINT OF OUR OFFENSE!

We are too predictable and unfortunately I put most of the blame on Mularkey. TG is now a crutch for Matt Ryan instead of a security blanket.

Think about this:

Roddy White caught the most balls on 3rd down in the league in 2008. He converted most of them. Now he is not even getting the looks.

The addition of Gonzalez might be actually hurting the flow of our offense more than it is helping.

that and the fact that almost all of Roddys routes are short is a big reason why we are not putting up big points.

[ballfan]

The Atlanta Falcons are 4-2 going into week 8, a good record, but if you've been watching the games, you will know that we havn't looked good on offense in any game aside from the SF game.

I have 2 reasons why i think our offense is sucking hard this year.

- Mularkey's play calling/scheme

- the presence of Tony Gonzalez *gasp*

I know most of you stopped reading, and went ahead and gave me a -1 after you read the Gonzalez comment but hear me out.

Everyone has heard how in 08, our offense only completed 19 total passes to all of our TEs. It wasn't because our TEs weren't very good as most of you like to believe, it was because Mularkey's playbook didn't have many plays involving the TEs in passing. Most plays had TEs blocking (whether it be run blocking or pass protection). And when our TEs pass protected, Matt had tons of time, and could wait until his receivers ran completely through their routes, making it an easy completion.

Then, all of a sudden, TD makes a(what seemed at the time) crazy awesome move to go get Tony Gonzalez from KC. Now espn and nfln are hanging on our nuts for making a huge move, and sucking on those nuts by saying we are a "pick your poison" offense, and how no one will be able to shut down Matt Ryan. Tony is telling everybody hes here for a superbowl, and every Falcons fan (myself included) starts drooling. But the problem is, Mularkey's scheme isn't built for pass catching TEs. So now Mularkey has a dilemma. Should he keep the offense as it was last year, or should he try and change it. He figured, "I may never have another chance to coach a hall of famer like Gonzalez, so i need to use him as much as possible." Wrong choice. Now we over-use the same 10-12 vanilla plays, just so we can have Tony G running routes. We're taking out blockers so Matt doesn't have the same amount of time as before, throwing off his timing so now he has to force the ball to the receivers before they even finish the routes, causing bad throws, and INTs. Not only does the presence of Gonzalez make Mularkey look bad, but it also makes Matt Ryan look bad. He hasn't been going through the proper reads, hes been staring down Gonzalez and forcing it to him way too much.

This Gonzalez move isn't paying off as much as we all hoped, and it needs to change or we will continue to see this average offense every week.

Mularkey, open the playbook back up and stop trying to use Gonzalez as much. Stick with the scheme that brought us success last year. You are not supposed to change your scheme over one player. Instead, just plug him in to the existing scheme. Sure Gonzalez may not catch as many balls and he will be blocking a lot more, but the team will function the way it is used to, and we will win more games.

Or at least thats how i see it.

I think you have too add that Jenkins has dropped a ton of passes and has once again become the interception guy.

[Jaymadd]

why not? most consistant winning teams use the same scheme every year. they'll add a wrinkle here and there but its basically the same playbook. instead of Mularkey adding new ways of getting Gonzalez the ball, or just sticking with what worked, he cuts the playbook in half and goes with that.

we are just getting too predictable because we only run the same 10-12 pass plays because those are the ones with Tony running routes.

yeah i dont get why he cut the playbook in half. I am really not understand the decision and it it affecting our offense and will affect his career if he ever wants to be a head Coach again.

[War Damn Eagle]

Ryan has terrible windows to throw to because of the sucky *** route combinations that are being run. All the routes are out, short curls, short dig routes...It was just terrible play calling and that is how it has been all season..Its starting to get frustrating because if playcalling does not change, our offense will be in trouble

Post of the day brother. I was at the game and the number of "out" routes to the sidelines was ridiculous. I would say atleast 5 times during the game there were 2 or 3 receivers within 10 ft of one another. It truly looked like the receivers took the wrong route or the play design was terrible.

[FlyingHigh69]

I agree with this post as well. Is it just me or does it seem like Matt Ryan is going out of his way trying to find Gonzales. It seems the last couple of games that if Tony G is covered well then Matt will throw away the pass or try to force it to him. It’s like he gets caught on that one read for Gonzales and if it’s not there he dumps it.

[Deacon 13]

Post of the day brother. I was at the game and the number of "out" routes to the sidelines was ridiculous. I would say atleast 5 times during the game there were 2 or 3 receivers within 10 ft of one another. It truly looked like the receivers took the wrong route or the play design was terrible.

Prime example is the ball that Roddy caught late in the game that Gonz thought was being thrown to him.

Edited October 26, 2009 by Deacon SquirrelDawg

[supremedarius]

I agree with this post as well. Is it just me or does it seem like Matt Ryan is going out of his way trying to find Gonzales. It seems the last couple of games that if Tony G is covered well then Matt will throw away the pass or try to force it to him. It’s like he gets caught on that one read for Gonzales and if it’s not there he dumps it.

The offense is going through him which is stupid.I do not know why the whole offense was changed just to accomodate T.Gonzales....

[freakyfalcon]

I agree with this post as well. Is it just me or does it seem like Matt Ryan is going out of his way trying to find Gonzales. It seems the last couple of games that if Tony G is covered well then Matt will throw away the pass or try to force it to him. It’s like he gets caught on that one read for Gonzales and if it’s not there he dumps it.

Nope, I've noticed it since the Miami game. Ryan will stare Gonzalez down and if he is not open, he will either force the throw or throw the ball away.

[supremedarius]

Mularky has made the offense to be designed to go Gonzalez first. When we do a no huddle, its oddly strange, Gonzalez does not get alot of catches...