Was it talent or coaching?

[Ergo Proxy]

23 minutes ago, Optimus_Cr1m35 said:

First 8 games with Quinn as DC = Worst Defense in the league

1 Game with Ulbrich as DC = Defense looks like world beaters, 6 sacks, held one of the better offenses in the league to 3 field goals, 0 TDs.

 

 

Hmm....

Let's be real. Our Secondary played way better and let the DL feast. Those young guys and the S tandem needed a shakeup once we kept going to Ish post-Neal IR...

I think it really boils down to a coaching need; even if the guys were still going to take their lumps (see McGary on the OL)...but forcing the change away from 4-3 and limiting both Takk and Vic in the process? THAT is where the combination of a weak Secondary; mostly from inexperience and losing Neal again, with a bad use of Takk/Vic by forcing the new Base D was a very poor fit.

[PeytonMannings Forehead]

9 minutes ago, Dr Long Shot said:

Yup, I get a little sick of people touting Shanny in San Fran and how he is such a genius for sticking with the run. Very, very easy to stick with the run when you are trotting out the #1 defense in the NFL. Not so much when you are behind by 17 by midway through the second quarter. 

I get what you’re hitting at but being down a couple scores doesn’t take you out of your running game. We had the Dolphins down by 17 at the half a few years ago and they pounded their way right back into it. 16 of their 31 total rushing attempts came in the second half.

Problem with Dirk is until the past few weeks he hadn’t even attempted to establish the ground game. We’d come out relatively balanced for a drive or two, then as soon as the first fifteen ran out, it was bombs away.

[Dr Long Shot]

1 minute ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

I get what you’re hitting at but being down a couple scores doesn’t take you out of your running game. We had the Dolphins down by 17 at the half a few years ago and they pounded their way right back into it. 16 of their 31 total rushing attempts came in the second half.

Problem with Dirk is until the past few weeks he hadn’t even attempted to establish the ground game. We’d come out relatively balanced for a drive or two, then as soon as the first fifteen ran out, it was bombs away.

Except the Dolphins also had no passing game whatsoever to speak of so, of course, they are going to run the ball. We have Julio, Calvin, (had) Sanu, Hooper, a hall of fame QB and are down 17 points before halftime rolls around and we are averaging less than 3 yards per carry when we do run. Sticking with the run isn't so easy in that situation. Running the ball 30 times against the Colts, Cards and Texans wasn't going to get us back into those games. I'll give you that we should have probably ran the ball more against the Titans which was a close game and the passing game was struggling, but outside of that I don't hate the decision to abandon the run based on the context of how the games were playing out. 

[PokerSteve]

17 hours ago, NaGaBoy said:

I view it as more coaching structure than anything else.  While it is popular to bash Quinn on here lately, he has an impressive resume.  He did not lose his ability to coach.  When he took over the defense and added too many coaches to the offense, the team lost focus.  Now that he has changed the structure again and he is functioning as a HC, we seem to have much better focus.

It was a big mistake.  The results are that we lost a lot of games and that our HC is wiser and more experienced.  I am sure he learned from this costly mistake.  That makes him a better coach.  I want Quinn to stay.

Nah. I can't see it. Since Quinn has been a head coach, he's barely over .500. He rode Shanahan's coat tails to a SB. He is not a game-day coach, which hurts his value, and he no longer knows what works on defense. Ulbricht came in and let the guys go after the Saints and they cleaned their clock. So much for Quinn's 3-man rush and soft zone bs.

Anybody believe we would have won that game if Quinn had been running the defense and calling the plays? Not me. The less hands-on Quinn is ~ even on defense, his specialty ~ the better the team performs. He is a great guy, a real player's coach, but he's in over his head as a HC. Better suited to return to his first job as a DL coach imo.

[PeytonMannings Forehead]

4 minutes ago, Dr Long Shot said:

Except the Dolphins also had no passing game whatsoever to speak of so, of course, they are going to run the ball. We have Julio, Calvin, (had) Sanu, Hooper, a hall of fame QB and are down 17 points before halftime rolls around and we are averaging less than 3 yards per carry when we do run. Sticking with the run isn't so easy in that situation. Running the ball 30 times against the Colts, Cards and Texans wasn't going to get us back into those games. I'll give you that we should have probably ran the ball more against the Titans which was a close game and the passing game was struggling, but outside of that I don't hate the decision to abandon the run based on the context of how the games were playing out. 

We had Julio, Calvin, and Sanu, and didn’t do anything passing because playing one dimensional is the same as playing with one hand tied behind your back. And it’s not even always about yards per carry, but attempts.

So what if your only averaging 3 yards a carry in the first half. The attempts are still putting body blows on that defense. Our 300 lb linemen are still leaning on those 260 lb defensive ends, we’re still getting bodies around the knees of those big interior defensive linemen. The attempts themselves take something out of a defense. Come 3rd quarter those legs get a little heavy. Those big DT’s get tired of keeping people from around their knees and our guys start climbing to that second level to those linebackers. Next thing you know those 3 yards turn into 5 then 7, then 8. That frustrates a defense and opens up everything else.

You go away from the running game, you do the defense a favor. Linebackers get to the point they just stop taking read steps and drop right into passing lanes. Safeties stop peeking into the backfield, ends just fly up the field.

We haven’t been good enough at protecting the passer, and Dirk until a few weeks ago was acting like he didn’t know what the quick passing game was, so carrying a 29% rushing rate into the game yesterday was inexcusable. You gotta make the attempts, you gotta keep the defense honest. You can’t abandon your running game in the second quarter, especially if your defense is in pieces. You gotta at least attempt to control the flow of the game

[Dr Long Shot]

1 minute ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

We had Julio, Calvin, and Sanu, and didn’t do anything passing because playing one dimensional is the same as playing with one hand tied behind your back. And it’s not even always about yards per carry, but attempts.

So what if your only averaging 3 yards a carry in the first half. The attempts are still putting body blows on that defense. Our 300 lb linemen are still leaning on those 260 lb defensive ends, we’re still getting bodies around the knees of those big interior defensive linemen. The attempts themselves take something out of a defense. Come 3rd quarter those legs get a little heavy. Those big DT’s get tired of keeping people from around their knees and our guys start climbing to that second level to those linebackers. Next thing you know those 3 yards turn into 5 then 7, then 8. That frustrates a defense and opens up everything else.

You go away from the running game, you do the defense a favor. Linebackers get to the point they just stop taking read steps and drop right into passing lanes. Safeties stop peeking into the backfield, ends just fly up the field.

We haven’t been good enough at protecting the passer, and Dirk until a few weeks ago was acting like he didn’t know what the quick passing game was, so carrying a 29% rushing rate into the game yesterday was inexcusable. You gotta make the attempts, you gotta keep the defense honest. You can’t abandon your running game in the second quarter, especially if your defense is in pieces. You gotta at least attempt to control the flow of the game

We should have been mixing it up more. But you are never going to have a balanced offense when your defense is putting you into crisis mode by the third quarter every single week with no exception. 

[Falcons Fan MVP]

27 minutes ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

I get what you’re hitting at but being down a couple scores doesn’t take you out of your running game. We had the Dolphins down by 17 at the half a few years ago and they pounded their way right back into it. 16 of their 31 total rushing attempts came in the second half.

Problem with Dirk is until the past few weeks he hadn’t even attempted to establish the ground game. We’d come out relatively balanced for a drive or two, then as soon as the first fifteen ran out, it was bombs away.

I have a feeling Dan Quinn or Arthur Blank told Dirk Koetter he had to run the ball more because of the Matt Ryan injury.

[Ergo Proxy]

32 minutes ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

I get what you’re hitting at but being down a couple scores doesn’t take you out of your running game. We had the Dolphins down by 17 at the half a few years ago and they pounded their way right back into it. 16 of their 31 total rushing attempts came in the second half.

Problem with Dirk is until the past few weeks he hadn’t even attempted to establish the ground game. We’d come out relatively balanced for a drive or two, then as soon as the first fifteen ran out, it was bombs away.

To be fair, the other team had 2 scores by the end of our 2nd drive; sometimes 3 if they got the ball first. 

[Dr Long Shot]

2 minutes ago, Ergo Proxy said:

To be fair, the other team had 2 scores by the end of our 2nd drive; sometimes 3 if they got the ball first. 

Also, we did keep running the ball for most of the first half of those blowouts, but we have been fighting the game clock by the mid-third quarter most games. We have been averaging the least amount of drives per game thanks to our defense, so you can't burn precious downs or minutes in establishing the run late into the third quarter when you don't know if you'll have more than 2 or 3 drives total left to make up a 3 possession deficit. 

[Ergo Proxy]

25 minutes ago, PokerSteve said:

Nah. I can't see it. Since Quinn has been a head coach, he's barely over .500. He rode Shanahan's coat tails to a SB. He is not a game-day coach, which hurts his value, and he no longer knows what works on defense. Ulbricht came in and let the guys go after the Saints and they cleaned their clock. So much for Quinn's 3-man rush and soft zone bs.

Anybody believe we would have won that game if Quinn had been running the defense and calling the plays? Not me. The less hands-on Quinn is ~ even on defense, his specialty ~ the better the team performs. He is a great guy, a real player's coach, but he's in over his head as a HC. Better suited to return to his first job as a DL coach imo.

Hate to say it but this isn't all true Steve. We had 3 man rushes yesterday. Grady had a sack on a 3 man rush; coverage sack.

Ulbrich was being groomed to take over playcalling duties for a few weeks now. This wasn't just changing who called the D.

The problem was the secondary and the new 3-4/5-2 front that forced Vic/Takk to stand up too much along with the TERRIBLE secondary player; especially once Neal went down.

Quinn's system isn't the issue. It's the smaller decisions and overthinking; like scheme adjustment but it hurting Vic/Takk trying to rush upright and also valuing Morris with WRs>DBs when considering Sanu/Julio in that WR room vs Tru/Allen with all the young cats in the DB room...while we were getting destroyed due to coverage problems...

That shouldn't have required half the season, a 6 game losing streak, and the Bye week to change but maybe it did when you're in the battle week to week thinking it should be working.

Overthinking is what DQ did this offseason. Ulbrich is now ready to call the D and Morris is there preventing the DBs from being an outright liability. Amazingly, Vic/Takk and 4 man front doing it's job now?

[PeytonMannings Forehead]

8 minutes ago, Dr Long Shot said:

We should have been mixing it up more. But you are never going to have a balanced offense when your defense is putting you into crisis mode by the third quarter every single week with no exception. 

 

4 minutes ago, Ergo Proxy said:

To be fair, the other team had 2 scores by the end of our 2nd drive; sometimes 3 if they got the ball first. 

All the more reason to control the tempo and keep the defense off the field as much as you can. 

[kiwifalcon]

40 minutes ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

I get what you’re hitting at but being down a couple scores doesn’t take you out of your running game. We had the Dolphins down by 17 at the half a few years ago and they pounded their way right back into it. 16 of their 31 total rushing attempts came in the second half.

Problem with Dirk is until the past few weeks he hadn’t even attempted to establish the ground game. We’d come out relatively balanced for a drive or two, then as soon as the first fifteen ran out, it was bombs away.

This and I’m wondering if the penny has really dropped with this guy or if he just gets antsy sees the defense get mauled and just goes back to being Dirk.Instead of being patient letting the game come to him.

[Ergo Proxy]

13 minutes ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

We had Julio, Calvin, and Sanu, and didn’t do anything passing because playing one dimensional is the same as playing with one hand tied behind your back. And it’s not even always about yards per carry, but attempts.

So what if your only averaging 3 yards a carry in the first half. The attempts are still putting body blows on that defense. Our 300 lb linemen are still leaning on those 260 lb defensive ends, we’re still getting bodies around the knees of those big interior defensive linemen. The attempts themselves take something out of a defense. Come 3rd quarter those legs get a little heavy. Those big DT’s get tired of keeping people from around their knees and our guys start climbing to that second level to those linebackers. Next thing you know those 3 yards turn into 5 then 7, then 8. That frustrates a defense and opens up everything else.

You go away from the running game, you do the defense a favor. Linebackers get to the point they just stop taking read steps and drop right into passing lanes. Safeties stop peeking into the backfield, ends just fly up the field.

We haven’t been good enough at protecting the passer, and Dirk until a few weeks ago was acting like he didn’t know what the quick passing game was, so carrying a 29% rushing rate into the game yesterday was inexcusable. You gotta make the attempts, you gotta keep the defense honest. You can’t abandon your running game in the second quarter, especially if your defense is in pieces. You gotta at least attempt to control the flow of the game

Yeah, going shootout mode basically let's them get the ball back.

Matt told Arch he calls them 'dirty' runs.

BUT everything you said here matters.

Plus, Free DID bust open 2 or 3 solid runs on the opening drive and that second drive that went 17 plays...those inside zone runs were a thing of beauty.

Huge holes! Brown pulled from RG while Mack/Carp/Matthews would work based on the design to the second level and seal while Brown helped spring the run.

When Lindstrom comes back, I want to see Brown moving forward at LG. Dude is way more agile laterally than Carp.

[FalconsIn2012]

1 hour ago, GrimeyKidd said:

Quinn has been slowly doing this these past weeks. This time he chose someone specifically. Has nothing to do with Blank 

It actually started vs Arizona.  I was surprised JU has been the DC for so long

[FalconBlood23]

I think a lot of people just need to wait this out honestly, we still don't know for sure what it was. 

To the people saying it's Ulbrich calling the defense for the first time..... wrong! He has been calling the D since the AZ game and they have looked like hot trash since then as well so no matter who was calling it The D was trash. 

I think the change that made the impact was not who was calling the defense but who the DB coach was. Moving Morris back to coach DB seems to have helped but again it's a small sample size, saying it has worked after only 1 game would be asinine. 

Now we have seen what this D is capable of, if they just start to suck *** like they have rest of the season then we'll have our answer, it was the players. It was them just choosing to show up whenever they wanted because we have now all seen what they can do. 

We just need to wait and see the next few weeks, either moving Morris back to DB helped tremendously, or this D just chooses when to show up and when not too. We'll see

Edited November 11, 2019 by FalconBlood23

[PeytonMannings Forehead]

11 minutes ago, Dr Long Shot said:

Also, we did keep running the ball for most of the first half of those blowouts, but we have been fighting the game clock by the mid-third quarter most games. We have been averaging the least amount of drives per game thanks to our defense, so you can't burn precious downs or minutes in establishing the run late into the third quarter when you don't know if you'll have more than 2 or 3 drives total left to make up a 3 possession deficit. 

We had 9 rushing attempts in the first half against the Titans.

9 rushing attempts in the first half against the Colts.

8 rushing attempts in the first half against the Rams.

11 first half attempts against the Cardinals.

 

We had 7 called run plays yesterday ON THE FIRST DRIVE! And 17 total in the first half.

[Ergo Proxy]

3 minutes ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

We had 9 rushing attempts in the first half against the Titans.

9 rushing attempts in the first half against the Colts.

8 rushing attempts in the first half against the Rams.

11 first half attempts against the Cardinals.

 

We had 7 called run plays yesterday ON THE FIRST DRIVE!

I'd be curious what each play was like in those other games compared to vs the Saints.

The run game looked way cleaner and explosive consistently our 1st two drives yesterday.

It also helps that the Defense limited the Saints to a FG for most of the first half.

[FalconsIn2012]

1 hour ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

I get what you’re hitting at but being down a couple scores doesn’t take you out of your running game. We had the Dolphins down by 17 at the half a few years ago and they pounded their way right back into it. 16 of their 31 total rushing attempts came in the second half.

Problem with Dirk is until the past few weeks he hadn’t even attempted to establish the ground game. We’d come out relatively balanced for a drive or two, then as soon as the first fifteen ran out, it was bombs away.

@Ovie_Lover

[FalconsIn2012]

38 minutes ago, Ergo Proxy said:

To be fair, the other team had 2 scores by the end of our 2nd drive; sometimes 3 if they got the ball first. 

Your gameplan should not have to fundamentally change until the 4th quarter.  Even if you’re down 14 points, you can keep running the football well into the 4th quarter.  Doing so will eventually create explosive plays and open up PA, which is Ryan’s bread and butter

[FalconsIn2012]

35 minutes ago, PeytonMannings Forehead said:

 

All the more reason to control the tempo and keep the defense off the field as much as you can. 

Yesterday felt like Mularkey circa 2010 calling the plays

Even tried to set up one of his classic shovel passes but it was read properly by the Saints

[Ergo Proxy]

11 minutes ago, FalconsIn2012 said:

@Ovie_Lover

SB51 still isn’t proof of running the ball...

[Ergo Proxy]

7 minutes ago, FalconsIn2012 said:

Your gameplan should not have to fundamentally change until the 4th quarter.  Even if you’re down 14 points, you can keep running the football well into the 4th quarter.  Doing so will eventually create explosive plays and open up PA, which is Ryan’s bread and butter

That’s fine and good when the Defense also performs according to the gameplan.

You really think we keep the same ratio yesterday had the Defense from the first half of the season showed up?

We always should try to run but establishing it per old school NFL isn’t required. Running on 11 first downs isn’t required. Some times we were wasting 1st downs going to the well too often, but the D gave us the necessary leeway to continue to probe with the run game.

I’ve never been about throwing it 40+ but Pats threw it over 60 times in SB51 because the lead was that large.

We were actually closer to 50:50 than Pats; under 40% runs, that game. Our defense couldn’t get off the field after the first 2 Turnovers.

[KRUNKuno]

The most bothersome stat I saw yesterday were the rushing percentages with Koetter as our OC from this year and years past

2 seasons, including this one, we ranked dead last.  The other 2 seasons we were ranked in the high 20s.

But even worse was that we’ve only run the ball 29% of the time this year under koetter, which is the lowest percentage ever in the nfl.

Koetter sucks.  He sucked before and he sucks now. 

[FalconsIn2012]

2 minutes ago, Ergo Proxy said:

That’s fine and good when the Defense also performs according to the gameplan.

You really think we keep the same ratio yesterday had the Defense from the first half of the season showed up?

We always should try to run but establishing it per old school NFL isn’t required. Running on 11 first downs isn’t required. Some times we were wasting 1st downs going to the well too often, but the D gave us the necessary leeway to continue to probe with the run game.

I’ve never been about throwing it 40+ but Pats threw it over 60 times in SB51 because the lead was that large.

We were actually closer to 50:50 than Pats; under 40% runs, that game. Our defense couldn’t get off the field after the first 2 Turnovers.

Complimentary football is always the objective. But sometimes your defense puts you in a hole.  Becoming 1 dimensional isn’t the way to overcome that hole

[Ergo Proxy]

Just now, FalconsIn2012 said:

Complimentary football is always the objective. But sometimes your defense puts you in a hole.  Becoming 1 dimensional isn’t the way to overcome that hole

It requires D making some stops otherwise you are left with less and less time to try to stay with run game. Ratios simply go wonky when down 3 or 4 scores. It’s also different when the zone stretch looks and PA is built into your pass game and playcalling tactics like Kyle’s.