And I think the opposite about McCoy, considering the success that he managed to have with Tebow.
I go back and forth trying to decide whether I should cut McCoy some slack, but only because he was the OC and Fox was the coach. Was McCoy running/calling what he wanted ? Or was he running/calling what Fox wanted ?
As for the success he had with Tebow, I give him mad props for the Pittsburg game. Great game plan and good play calling. Well, at least in the 2nd quarter and 1 play in overtime. Would have to watch the game again, but it looked like they got conservative in the 2nd half once they had a nice lead.
I keep hearing about how McCoy totally reinvented the offense to play to Tebow's strengths / abilities during the bye week, but I think that bit is over played. They didn't rewrite or reinvent the playbook. They added a handful of option plays to the playbook they already had. Contrary to popular belief, Tebow spent an awful lot of time under center operating a "conventional" NFL offense for the most part. They did run some option, and in some games, much heavier than others. But it's not like they pulled out Tebow's old playbook at Florida and ran that a majority of the time.
Then you have the issue of Denver's offense being schizophrenic. One can question how much of a part Tebow had to play in this, but here's my take. If you look at the offense and playcalling through the first 3 quarters of most games, it pretty much looks the same. Very conservative with a heavy emphasis on running the ball. When they did pass, it was from tight formations.
Then, when they found themselves behind in the 4th quarter, everything changed. They went to spread formations, 3, 4 or 5 WRs, with Tebow in the gun. Suddenly, the offense got productive. Someone might chime in here and claim that it was because teams switched to soft, prevent defenses. That isn't the case. In the Chicago game, they were in Tampa2 in the 4th quarter, which has been Lovey's base defense for some time. They may have played back a bit at first, but they tightened it up and Tebow still drove through them.
In the Jet's game, Rex and Pettine weren't playing prevent on that final drive. Denver had 4 or 5 receivers lined up on most plays, and the Jets were forced to choose whether to go with a "heavy" package of LBs to stop the run, or to opt for faster nickel/dime package to defend the pass.
At some point, it begs the following question: IF your QB and offense flounders for 3 quarters under the "normal" game plan and play calling, and IF week after week after week, the QB and offense is much more productive when you switch to a Spread offense out of the Shotgun, then, why not start games out like that and go all 4 quarters that way ?
Ironically enough, even after they brought in PFM, it looks like the same kind of trend went on for the first handful of games. That is, at least according to Chris Brown over at SmartFootball and Grantland.
How a return to the simplicity of Peyton Manning's Indy offense has ignited the Denver Broncos - Grantland
When Peyton Manning chose the Broncos, part of the decision came from him actually wanting to learn their schemes. Denver offensive coordinator Mike McCoy has a well-deserved reputation for flexibility, a necessary trait given that in the last three years his quarterbacks have been Kyle Orton, Tim Tebow, and Peyton Manning. Early this season, however, the team's offense was undergoing something of an identity crisis, much of it understandable. Manning was still recovering from a neck injury that sidelined him for an entire season, and his supporting cast was both all new and largely unproven. The question was whether McCoy would adopt more of Manning's old playbook. There were already discernible pieces, but like an undergraduate's attempt to "update" Macbeth, something had been lost in translation.
Most notably, the offense teemed with new formations — often with two running backs in the backfield, something Manning rarely did in Indianapolis — and new plays, without much of a hint of the up-tempo no-huddle approach Manning had used to such great effect with the Colts.
It was during the second half of those early season games, with the Broncos often trailing and with the pressure on, that Manning and the offense seemed to come alive. In their first five games of the season, during which they went 2-3, the Broncos scored just under 70 percent of their points in the second half. It was during these stretches of urgency that, by necessity, Denver shed what was non-essential and went with what worked — a combination of what its players could do effectively and what Peyton Manning was comfortable with. Following their third loss of the season, the Broncos offense became what it likely should have been from day 1: as close to the Manning-Moore offense as possible.1
So we have McCoy designing his offense (incorporating some things that Peyton is used to) and McCoy calling "his" game plan, then throwing it away in the 2nd half of games and going with Manning's playbook. Eventually, basically tossing McCoy's carefully crafted offense out and running Tom Moore's (and Peyton's) Colt's offense.
I kind of see a pattern there.
