Excellent proposal: reduce the complexity of the offense

[Patspsycho]

Reduce the offense in '12? - New England Patriots Blog - ESPN Boston

I, for one, agree with this notion. For one thing, it would cut down on the number of busts we've had at the receiver position.

 

[Betterthanmost]

Mike Lombardi: Pats need to reduce complexity of offense.

delete thread. Patspyscho, I hate you.....................

 

[Betterthanmost]

Yes, I agree, it should never be that hard. I mean guys like Santonio Homles can win superbowls playing this game and I doubt he is all that in the dome.

Not calling for dumbing down, but at the moment, it is too complicated and elitist or should I say the offense is unnecessary esoteric.

 

[Rob0729]

Yes, it is the complexity of the offense that turned Chad Johnson, Taylor Price, and Brandon Tate into busts. Look all three WRs left the Pats and went to simpler offenses and are now league superstars.

Sorry. Yes, the Patriots' offense is complex which means that a lot of WRs cannot pick it up, even seasoned veterans. But the reason why many of the WR draft picks have been busts have been because they were not good NFL players, not that the system is too hard for a WR with no NFL to grasp. Several have like Deion Branch and David Givens. Hernandez has a lot of the same responsibilities as any WR and he seems to have no problem with the offense either.

McDaniels is a better OC than O'Brien was. So he should make the offense better, but the complexity of the offense isn't the problem. It is the players selected to play in it that has been the problem when comes to drafting.

Chad Jackson was a bust because he was immature and wasn't dedicated to football. Taylor Price was a bust because he came from an option offense and may not be suited for the NFL game. Brandon Tate was a bust because he messed up his knee and he was never much of a receiver in college (although showed some promise before getting injured). He was more of a returner (which he has been mixed as a returner at the NFL level too).

 

[Patspsycho]

Yes, I agree, it should never be that hard. I mean guys like Santonio Homles can win superbowls playing this game and I doubt he is all that in the dome.

Not calling for dumbing down, but at the moment, it is too complicated and elitist or should I say the offense is unnecessary esoteric.

Looks like I beat you by a mere three minutes.

I do agree that it sometimes gets to be unnecessarily esoteric, not only does it make drafting a receiver such a toss-up, but it also undermines the amount of trust Brady has in any of the receivers that make the cut.

Taylor Price was a perfect example of this- I think he was truly talented and a real burner, but could never catch a fair break with Brady, even though he clicked with Hoyer in preseason for a 100+ yard game when the offense was vanilla, and that proves this point even further.

 

[Rob0729]

Yes, I agree, it should never be that hard. I mean guys like Santonio Homles can win superbowls playing this game and I doubt he is all that in the dome.

Not calling for dumbing down, but at the moment, it is too complicated and elitist or should I say the offense is unnecessary esoteric.

C'mon. The Pats passed for over 5,000 yards and went to the Super Bowl last year. And people want to weaken the offense by making it simpler thus more predictable? Why not become a Ground and Pound team.

The offense can always use tweaking here and there, but the complexity is not the problem. It is getting the right players to run it. I think they added one key one this year with Lloyd who knows the offense. They just need the college scouts to do a better job finding guys who understand it better in the college ranks.

 

[Rob0729]

Looks like I beat you by a mere three minutes.

I do agree that it sometimes gets to be unnecessarily esoteric, not only does it make drafting a receiver such a toss-up, but it also undermines the amount of trust Brady has in any of the receivers that make the cut.

Taylor Price was a perfect example of this- I think he was truly talented and a real burner, but could never catch a fair break with Brady, even though he clicked with Hoyer in preseason for a 100+ yard game when the offense was vanilla, and that proves this point even further.

How does that prove the point? Because Price had 100 plus yards being covered by a guy who waited on me at Subway yesterday in a meaningless preseason game where both sides of the ball run vanilla plays? It just proved that Price was good enough to excel against another team's back up players.

The fact of the matter is that Price came from an option offense. Option WRs run very basic routes and many times see a lot of single teams and soft coverages because teams are so concerned with the running game (hence why I want no part of Stephen Hill who will probably be a bust at the NFL level for that reason). I wonder if he could excel in a simplified offense.

 

[Deus Irae]

The offense is so complex that it seemingly took Gronk and Hernandez a good 20 minutes to grasp it enough to play effectively.

Brandon Lloyd picked up the offense in Denver. Jabar Gaffney picked up the offense in 2006, Moss and Welker picked it up in 2007, Branch was able to re-adapt to it upon his return to the team and Julian Edelman has been able to get the slot WR portion of the offense down enough to contribute when Welker goes down. The offense has been the cog getting this team to the Super Bowl since the early-century defense got too old and could no longer hold up its end of things.

When there starts being a real list of WRs who fail miserably in NE but quickly make a positive impact on the field for other teams, I'll start worrying about the complexity of the offense. Until then, I'll limit my concerns to the WR3 position, the unknown that is 2/3 of the HB corps, and what may be Brady's increasing tendency to lock on his pre-snap read.

 

[patsfaninpittsburgh]

If an offense has 3 guys with 5 options, it means there are 15 possibilities.

If an offense has 5 guys with 3 options, it still means there are 15 possibilities.

The latter is "simpler" for the receivers yet has the same complexity.

I would bet the offense will be more "complex" because the additions by definition provide more skills over a greater part of the field. However, at the individual game basis, plays will be simplified with fewer but better play by play matchups.

 

[andrewgarrr]

When there starts being a real list of WRs who fail miserably in NE but quickly make a positive impact on the field for other teams, I'll start worrying about the complexity of the offense.

This ends the discussion.

Poor drafting at WR. Not poor coaching.

 

[DarrylS]

Cannot tell if this is tongue and cheek or not...

But we want to dumb down an offense that has taken to a 64 - 16 record in the past five years with a mediocre defense..

Some of these receivers are not the sharpest tools in the shed, and they all get it... some extremely well.

Has to be tongue and cheek, nothing else makes any sense.

 

[letekro]

Sounds like he is also calling for more running and playaction/down field passing. Wouldn't mind seeing that. The 5 wide short game is nice against crappy teams during the regular season but it is too easy for good teams to choke it off in the playoffs.

His point about Brady focusing on certain receivers has nothing to do with the complexity of the offense, in my view. It has to do with Brady and his rapport with those players. You could make the playbook 2 pages long and Brady is still looking at Welker, Branch, Gronk and Hern before the no. 5 option.

 

[everlong]

They're not taking option routes out of the offense so at the end of the day receivers need to be able to read the defense, adjust and run precise routes. If you can do those things Brady will get you the ball. Lloyd's going to get the ball. If Gonzalez can stay healthy he'll get the ball. Stallworth in 2007 got the ball. His rookie year Hernandez wanted to ad-lib and Brady froze him out. He learned and started getting the ball again.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

I like Mike Lombardi. He tends to be more insightful than most of the converted mediots. Particularly when it comes to Bill and the foundation of his system. That said, there is probably a reason he hasn't worked in a FO since Oakland and wasn't tapped to follow Bill from Cleveland. He made these observations on the heels of a super bowl loss during which had a couple of players made a couple of plays, it isn't... And any analogy to what ailed Marino and Miami could only be achieved via flawed over-analysis...

 

[PrairiePat]

Dumbest thing I've read in a while. Clearly the offense is geared to the personnel they have to run it. There was a lack of downfield passing because they had no receivers who could stretch the field, not because they're 'more comfortable' running shorter patterns. The running game wasn't dominant because they didn't have that type of running back and had OL injuries. Etc etc.

The Pats were a 'dink and dunk' offense in 2003 also, then they got a stud RB and suddenly they were a power running team the next season. Same with 2006 vs 2007 when Moss and Stallworth arrived - suddenly they had a deep passing game again.

The complexity of the O is not the issue. You can't call for deep posts when your top receiving threat can't get separation from a safety.

 

[Avenger]

I think what made the offense in 07 good was that it had both complex and simple options. Moss didn't run a lot of routes, and while we don't need another Moss somebody fitting that role and doing a dew simple routes a few times a game can throw in a new element to the game as a whole.

 

[Kontradiction]

The systems complexity is what helps make the Pats one of the most intelligent teams in the league year in and year out. Why in the world would you want to change that to bring in dumbasses like Santonio Holmes?

 

[old 55]

I worry about McDaniel's tendency when he was here before to call for a deep ball too often that disrupted the flow of the offense when it didn't connect. Maybe he did that to placate Moss. i don't know, but I think both O'Brien & McDaniel had a tendency to get arrogant and try to force a bad option. For example, O'Brien running the ball into a solid Dline, McDaniel going for long pass plays against teams like the Giants who had fast pass rushers.
The thing that made the Pats O successful before we added talent was that we would take advantage of whatever the other team's D didn't do well.
We should be poised to do that with our passing game and if we had a breakaway type RB, we'd be impossible to defend.
Bottom line..I don't think it's a problem of a complex offense. We need intelligent players willing to learn and love to play. Our offense is high powered and multifaceted. Let's not make it simpler to defend.

 

[Patspsycho]

How does that prove the point? Because Price had 100 plus yards being covered by a guy who waited on me at Subway yesterday in a meaningless preseason game where both sides of the ball run vanilla plays? It just proved that Price was good enough to excel against another team's back up players.

The fact of the matter is that Price came from an option offense. Option WRs run very basic routes and many times see a lot of single teams and soft coverages because teams are so concerned with the running game (hence why I want no part of Stephen Hill who will probably be a bust at the NFL level for that reason). I wonder if he could excel in a simplified offense.

The only point I have to make is that the superbowl was won by a team with a much simpler offense.

 

[Triumph]

Reduce the number of Chads. Cinco and Jackson.

Does Lombardi realize that NE was a healthy Gronk or an actual productive # 3 WR away from winning championship # 4? Dont fix what isnt broken because a dumbaxx like Cinco cant get his act together.