Adrian Peterson -- The elephant in the room

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mondry
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Re: Adrian Peterson -- The elephant in the room

Post by mondry »

Mothman wrote: You mentioned play action on first down and I'll have an eye on that too but play action or not, I suspect we can agree that what they do on first down will matter a great deal. Unless they can truly impose their will with the running game on a pretty consistent basis, mixing up the play calling more on first down is going to be crucial to improving their overall effectiveness on offense. They were just too predictable last year.
Yeah, one of the reasons I mentioned play action specifically is I'm curious if Norv just didn't want to run it that much or if there is a reason behind it such as the extra time needed and the poor blocking not "allowing it".

The stats show we were -extremely- effective off of play action on first down but (going off memory here) we only did it like 2.2 times a game.
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Re: Adrian Peterson -- The elephant in the room

Post by fiestavike »

mondry wrote: Yeah, one of the reasons I mentioned play action specifically is I'm curious if Norv just didn't want to run it that much or if there is a reason behind it such as the extra time needed and the poor blocking not "allowing it".

The stats show we were -extremely- effective off of play action on first down but (going off memory here) we only did it like 2.2 times a game.
A couple thoughts on this.

First, Zimmer frequently mentioned in post game pressers, the number of offensive plays the team ran as relating to winning the game. They also came in near the top of the league in time of possession. I think the decision to run on 1st down was related to this 'complimentary' approach.

Second, Zimmer mentioned in the recent hour long interview that he wasn't interested in starting out with a defense that was trying to trick and confuse everybody, because that's not a good foundation. You need to do the basic fundamentals right, and then add the slight of hand on top of it. I suspect they had a similar philosophy on offense. They might be able to get some extra production with trickery, but its not a good foundation. Once you are able to impose your will and pick up 3 yards or 10 yards on 1st downs, you are putting yourself in position to really maximize what you are doing offensively. Maybe they wanted that line to develop the personality they were after, and they just never did it. :confused: Ya, they could probably have increased production to be a more highly rated offense, but I think they are more interested in developing a great offense.
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mondry
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Re: Adrian Peterson -- The elephant in the room

Post by mondry »

fiestavike wrote: A couple thoughts on this.

First, Zimmer frequently mentioned in post game pressers, the number of offensive plays the team ran as relating to winning the game. They also came in near the top of the league in time of possession. I think the decision to run on 1st down was related to this 'complimentary' approach.

Second, Zimmer mentioned in the recent hour long interview that he wasn't interested in starting out with a defense that was trying to trick and confuse everybody, because that's not a good foundation. You need to do the basic fundamentals right, and then add the slight of hand on top of it. I suspect they had a similar philosophy on offense. They might be able to get some extra production with trickery, but its not a good foundation. Once you are able to impose your will and pick up 3 yards or 10 yards on 1st downs, you are putting yourself in position to really maximize what you are doing offensively. Maybe they wanted that line to develop the personality they were after, and they just never did it. :confused: Ya, they could probably have increased production to be a more highly rated offense, but I think they are more interested in developing a great offense.
I know that's kind of your thing, respecting the "process" and all that and I get it when it comes to patterson but to me this is just simple X's and O's and like common sense. If the other team is selling out to stop the one thing you're trying to do, attack in a different way. I don't think they shouldn't use something so simple / basic as play action passing when you have Adrian Peterson and 9+ guys selling out to stop him and instead just figure out how to "impose their will" instead, that seems kind of ridiculous! :P

Of course you could be right, I would just think pretty poorly of that strategy or mentality, whatever you want to call it -in this case- (like I said i get it for Patterson and that kind of situation) which is why I'm curious to see if it changes at all.

everything plays off everything else, the data says we're really successful with play action passes. Maybe that goes down if we do it more or maybe the other team starts to respect it more but guess what, now that opens up things in the run game and suddenly you CAN impose your will on them because they have one less safety or line backer just gunning into the running lanes / gaps. It's more of a numbers game than a will power type thing, the math just says 9 guys in the box and the QB can't block means you're going to be a man short no matter how much will you try to impose lol.
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Re: Adrian Peterson -- The elephant in the room

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mondry wrote:
I know that's kind of your thing, respecting the "process" and all that and I get it when it comes to patterson but to me this is just simple X's and O's and like common sense. If the other team is selling out to stop the one thing you're trying to do, attack in a different way. I don't think they shouldn't use something so simple / basic as play action passing when you have Adrian Peterson and 9+ guys selling out to stop him and instead just figure out how to "impose their will" instead, that seems kind of ridiculous! :P

Of course you could be right, I would just think pretty poorly of that strategy or mentality, whatever you want to call it -in this case- (like I said i get it for Patterson and that kind of situation) which is why I'm curious to see if it changes at all.

everything plays off everything else, the data says we're really successful with play action passes. Maybe that goes down if we do it more or maybe the other team starts to respect it more but guess what, now that opens up things in the run game and suddenly you CAN impose your will on them because they have one less safety or line backer just gunning into the running lanes / gaps. It's more of a numbers game than a will power type thing, the math just says 9 guys in the box and the QB can't block means you're going to be a man short no matter how much will you try to impose lol.
I agree with you, everything plays off everything else, and ideally they should do more play action. I think they will, I'm just trying to speculate why they continually ran on 1st down, and the combination of the two points I mentioned is the best I can come up with.

I guess a third point would be that bad things seemed be likely to occur when they dropped back to pass with the line being what it was and they just decided on an extremely risk averse approach.
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mondry
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Re: Adrian Peterson -- The elephant in the room

Post by mondry »

fiestavike wrote: I agree with you, everything plays off everything else, and ideally they should do more play action. I think they will, I'm just trying to speculate why they continually ran on 1st down, and the combination of the two points I mentioned is the best I can come up with.

I guess a third point would be that bad things seemed be likely to occur when they dropped back to pass with the line being what it was and they just decided on an extremely risk averse approach.
Yeah that's pretty much where I'm coming from and why I'm paying attention to it, the theory being that it takes longer to turn your back to the defense and play action fake so Norv did it less to avoid risk. So what I'm saying is if the line improves, we should see more play action. If not that would more likely mean you're on the money with the "impose their will" stuff.
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Re: Adrian Peterson -- The elephant in the room

Post by fiestavike »

mondry wrote: Yeah that's pretty much where I'm coming from and why I'm paying attention to it, the theory being that it takes longer to turn your back to the defense and play action fake so Norv did it less to avoid risk. So what I'm saying is if the line improves, we should see more play action. If not that would more likely mean you're on the money with the "impose their will" stuff.
If the line improves, I think there will be more playaction. I guess the paradox is that the more they are able to impose their will and run the ball, the more I think we can expect to see them opt to pass in those situations, and to do so with greater effect. I think we agree? I just hope the line improves.
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