Grade Mike Johnson's play calling last night:

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by dj43:
While I would give him a passing grade last night, the bigger question to me is; is he improving.

The answer to me is 'yes.' The first game he had almost no time to prepare anything different than the Raye offense. Last night he put in a lot more variety and had more players involved.

There were two problems last night as I saw it.

1. Johnson did not make any adjustments after the first drive. This was the same thing as the Atlanta game. I put a great deal of that on inexperience and lack of support in the rest of the staff to look for the ways to adjust. Eventually he did make some adjustments that worked well. (I wonder how many of the plays in those last two TD drives were his calls and how many were Smith's. In a number of cases it looked like Alex was calling his own plays. He certainly audibled on what appeared to be about 1/3 of the plays.)

2. It takes players time to adjust to the change in play design and their own responsibilities and assignments. Johnson's biggest hurdle right now is trying to "change horses in the middle of the stream." Players spent all of OTAs and TC learning to think and play one way and now Johnson is trying to get them to change that mindset and those playing patterns to a very different way of playing and thinking. That is going to take time.

#1 is completely false. We were moving the ball. We had nearly a 100 yard receiver in the 1st half. This caused the defense to adjust in the second half and Ginn and Vernon ended up being open deep on multiple plays. This means the defense focused on Crabtree's routes more.

Johnson called a very good game.

You only read the first sentence. I said he did adjust eventually but Philly took away some stuff after the first drive for which Johnson did not have an immediate counter. As I said, part of that is experience and part of it is how much the staff helps.

One of the great contributions to the Walsh/Seifert success was the high level of communication and understanding between the OL and receiver coaches and the OC. When Philly adjusted last night the staff did not have an good response. That is not all on Johnson.

Overall, I would likely give him a C for last night but a higher grade for the progress he has made under very difficult circumstances of taking over a row boat in the middle of the lake and trying to turn it into a blown fuel hydro.

Solid enough for us to win without fumbles and bonehead plays.

Originally posted by rapid4:
C -, however this is an improvement. But - ignored Vernon Davis the entire first half, kept calling Gore up the middle when everyone in the stands much less the Eagles knew it was coming, still needs to call a broader variety of plays. After the first drive, no more TD until the end of the 4th quarter. We are not going to win many games with 7 or 10 points (plus garbage-time scores), particularly since we don't have a shut-down defense. It's all about scoring more points than the opponent, and MJ has to get us up from 7-10 to the 20-30 point range.

Agreed. Our biggest problems are ball security and our defense.


But our defense has pretty much the same personnel it had last year. With the replacement of Lewis for Mays and the same coordinator. My question is, why isn't the defense playing as good as it did last year?

C- - and only that high because of the first drive and end of the game.

Originally posted by defenderDX:

Originally posted by rapid4:
C -, however this is an improvement. But - ignored Vernon Davis the entire first half, kept calling Gore up the middle when everyone in the stands much less the Eagles knew it was coming, still needs to call a broader variety of plays. After the first drive, no more TD until the end of the 4th quarter. We are not going to win many games with 7 or 10 points (plus garbage-time scores), particularly since we don't have a shut-down defense. It's all about scoring more points than the opponent, and MJ has to get us up from 7-10 to the 20-30 point range.

Agreed. Our biggest problems are ball security and our defense.


But our defense has pretty much the same personnel it had last year. With the replacement of Lewis for Mays and the same coordinator. My question is, why isn't the defense playing as good as it did last year?

One answer is that offenses have learned how to deal with #52. Need to use Spikes and Bowman in a more open scheme that allows them to roam more instead of playing like a defensive fullback.

Also, teams have learned that Aubrayo Franklin is a one-gap NT and have taken advantage of the fact he usually takes a slant instead of a head-on approach. Last night Philly, and previously KC and Atlanta, just used his momentum to push him out of the play and allow the runner to pick which side was open. Need a true two-gap NT or switch to a 4-3.

You guys really don't know how to grade playcalling.

Playcalling didn't turn the ball over five times. Every time we have a decent drive going Smith throws a pick or somebody fumbles. It happens all the time in between our 45 and the opponents 30 yardline. Bill Walsh could call the plays but if we're gonna turn the ball over it doesn't matter.

I don't have a problem with the play calls. I have a problem with the fact that our team always gives the ball up once we've picked up 2-3 first downs.

Originally posted by Antix:
You guys really don't know how to grade playcalling.

Playcalling didn't turn the ball over five times. Every time we have a decent drive going Smith throws a pick or somebody fumbles. It happens all the time in between our 45 and the opponents 30 yardline. Bill Walsh could call the plays but if we're gonna turn the ball over it doesn't matter.

I don't have a problem with the play calls. I have a problem with the fact that our team always gives the ball up once we've picked up 2-3 first downs.

This. I gave MJ an A-

We were 5 turnovers deep and still had a chance at winning the game

He will not get anything higher than a C from me until I see more variations of Dixon and Westbrook it's that simple!

Originally posted by FourNine49:

Originally posted by Antix:
You guys really don't know how to grade playcalling.

Playcalling didn't turn the ball over five times. Every time we have a decent drive going Smith throws a pick or somebody fumbles. It happens all the time in between our 45 and the opponents 30 yardline. Bill Walsh could call the plays but if we're gonna turn the ball over it doesn't matter.

I don't have a problem with the play calls. I have a problem with the fact that our team always gives the ball up once we've picked up 2-3 first downs.

This. I gave MJ an A-

We were 5 turnovers deep and still had a chance at winning the game

disregard the turnovers and just look at Gore's YPC

tell me how that isn't on MJ when we ran it something like 8 straight times on 1st down right up the gut for like 1 yard every time

Originally posted by cwilson830:
C- - and only that high because of the first drive and end of the game.

Honestly look at both his first drives, nicely done long scoring drives. Then a steady diet of what coach Sing wants a running game to eat the clock up! Great thinking Sing, "we got 7 points let's run the clock out"!

MJ can only call plays from the play book, you know Jimmy and Singletary's play book.

It took all offseason to create and install that playbook, it will take more than a few weeks to add any new plays, and then they will be plays approved by Singletary!

So given that MJ was using Jimmy Raye's play book f**k give the man an A++++++

Too many Gore runs on first down, especially in the first half. At least a few of them were outside the tackles!

You can tell what they're going to do by what package they put in. Especially when Norris is in, they are very predictable.

To his credit, they made more attempts to spread the field both long AND wide!

Radio was commenting on something I couldn't see on TV, but late in the 3rd quarter, on a 3rd and 6, Smith ran and got barely tackled. The crowd groaned, but they commented that it was a poorly designed play because all routes were the same length to a deeper area of the field, so all the receivers were covered since the defense had to defend a smaller area, but there was no one in the 7 yard area in position to catch a 1st down pass. Therefore Smith's best option - not a good one - was to run.

These kinds of design flaws kill you against good coaching!

Originally posted by dj43:

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by dj43:
While I would give him a passing grade last night, the bigger question to me is; is he improving.

The answer to me is 'yes.' The first game he had almost no time to prepare anything different than the Raye offense. Last night he put in a lot more variety and had more players involved.

There were two problems last night as I saw it.

1. Johnson did not make any adjustments after the first drive. This was the same thing as the Atlanta game. I put a great deal of that on inexperience and lack of support in the rest of the staff to look for the ways to adjust. Eventually he did make some adjustments that worked well. (I wonder how many of the plays in those last two TD drives were his calls and how many were Smith's. In a number of cases it looked like Alex was calling his own plays. He certainly audibled on what appeared to be about 1/3 of the plays.)

2. It takes players time to adjust to the change in play design and their own responsibilities and assignments. Johnson's biggest hurdle right now is trying to "change horses in the middle of the stream." Players spent all of OTAs and TC learning to think and play one way and now Johnson is trying to get them to change that mindset and those playing patterns to a very different way of playing and thinking. That is going to take time.

#1 is completely false. We were moving the ball. We had nearly a 100 yard receiver in the 1st half. This caused the defense to adjust in the second half and Ginn and Vernon ended up being open deep on multiple plays. This means the defense focused on Crabtree's routes more.

Johnson called a very good game.

You only read the first sentence. I said he did adjust eventually but Philly took away some stuff after the first drive for which Johnson did not have an immediate counter. As I said, part of that is experience and part of it is how much the staff helps.

One of the great contributions to the Walsh/Seifert success was the high level of communication and understanding between the OL and receiver coaches and the OC. When Philly adjusted last night the staff did not have an good response. That is not all on Johnson.

Overall, I would likely give him a C for last night but a higher grade for the progress he has made under very difficult circumstances of taking over a row boat in the middle of the lake and trying to turn it into a blown fuel hydro.

I did read the entire thing and Johnson did counter. Smith was not finding the open receivers unless it was Crabtree cutting in front of him. We turned the ball over on 2 drives. Johnson called a good game and made the necessary adjustments.

Not once have you held the QB responsible for not throwing to open receivers. It has been mentioned over and over that he missed open looks...even by Mike Johnson last week yet you still seem determined to ignore this.

You also stated numerous times that we need a deep threat. We got one, Ginn and Davis were not thrown to on deep open looks. In fact, Smith vastly underthrew Ginn on that INT where Ginn was in prime position to begin creating separation.

Now it's the playcalling?

Here's another example from the numerous examples I posted last week. The Raiders. They removed their inept QB and now are making less mistakes on offense and have less talent than we do.

D+

- Still too predictable

- Too many runs up the middle

- Called a pass to Norris

[ Edited by blunt_probe on Oct 11, 2010 at 11:04:13 ]

Best play calling of the game was when Alex was calling them himself in the hurry up offense at the end.

Originally posted by blunt_probe:
D+

- Still too predictable

- Too many runs up the middle

- Called a pass to Norris

Norris on the field alone is bad enough, but calling a pass to him is just inexplicable

he also called a bubble screen to Ziegler, arguably our worst YAC receiver