When you have an elite defense.......

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:

It's generally accepted that when you have a dominant defense the best complement is a conservative ball control offense.

The best compliment? No. It's "accepted" because teams with dominant defenses usually have crappy offenses and vice-versa. It's rare for a team to be dominant on both sides of the ball (though our Super Bowl teams were). Teams that have had top offenses AND defenses didn't run conservative, ball control offenses.

Originally posted by lssanjose:

Originally posted by 305Niner:
Agreed somewhat. We really don't know what we have at WR til we get a QB. When have a defense like ours, you definitely should try to be aggressive(smart) provided you have a the players on O. Early 49ers had a good defense and the Offensive was explosive. I remember plenty of games that were over in the third quarter. That's where the 49ers need to get back to doing.

Early 49ers teams were more balanced in approach, some say, too balanced. It irritated Ronnie Lott when the offense just ran the ball, to run the clock out.

Meh. Sorry the 49er teams I remember in the late 80's and early 90's were murdering teams.

It is wise to play the way the coach tells you to play...that way you get to stay on the field and, if he is a good coach, win. Harbaugh teaches ball security as his number one factor on offense because he has analyzed the game and determined that the number one way to lose a game is through turnovers.

That said, with more time in his system I think this offense will begin to play more like Stanford's and they will be dominating lesser teams and beating some very good teams most of the time. Stanford scored more points than SF's offense but they were not as successful in Harbaugh's first year. So I look forward to a team where everyone knows their assignments and can get their timing down like clockwork.

And to answer the original question--the best teams dominate both defensively and offensively as the niners did in the 80's.

Originally posted by dtg_9er:
It is wise to play the way the coach tells you to play...that way you get to stay on the field and, if he is a good coach, win. Harbaugh teaches ball security as his number one factor on offense because he has analyzed the game and determined that the number one way to lose a game is through turnovers.

That said, with more time in his system I think this offense will begin to play more like Stanford's and they will be dominating lesser teams and beating some very good teams most of the time. Stanford scored more points than SF's offense but they were not as successful in Harbaugh's first year. So I look forward to a team where everyone knows their assignments and can get their timing down like clockwork.

And to answer the original question--the best teams dominate both defensively and offensively as the niners did in the 80's.

Pre-Cap era.....

In some ways I feel like teams with a solid (not big name) QB are at an advatage if they know how to spot talent, since they dont take up all their cap space in one spot and become unbalanced. Smith or Kaep may be the perfect answer for a team with a great defense (Good not great QBs).

If we had a better offense we would be in the superbowl because we would be able to convert 3rd downs and not be in last place in that category. We are very short on skilled players and hopefully the PC changes this year as well

Originally posted by 305Niner:

Originally posted by lssanjose:

Originally posted by 305Niner:
Agreed somewhat. We really don't know what we have at WR til we get a QB. When have a defense like ours, you definitely should try to be aggressive(smart) provided you have a the players on O. Early 49ers had a good defense and the Offensive was explosive. I remember plenty of games that were over in the third quarter. That's where the 49ers need to get back to doing.

Early 49ers teams were more balanced in approach, some say, too balanced. It irritated Ronnie Lott when the offense just ran the ball, to run the clock out.

Meh. Sorry the 49er teams I remember in the late 80's and early 90's were murdering teams.

And even when we werent murdering teams, we were still ahead and running the ball to run out the clock. We didnt have an abysmal offense for the large majority of the game, and rely on our defense to win the games for us. Its funny that we can say abysmal offense when we were 8th in the NFL in rushing. So really, its just an abysmal passing offense.

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:
It's generally accepted that when you have a dominant defense the best complement is a conservative ball control offense. However, if you really think about it, wouldn't it make more sense to take a few more chances (especially on the other side of the opponents 50) knowing that you have the D to make up fo it? How much more dangerous would our defense be if we forced offenses to score?

This thread was partly in response to all the accolades Smith was getting for his low turnovers ratio....i.e......unwillingness to take chances. I'm not saying he should or shouldn't have taken more chances, but I'm curious if you think our defense gives our O a pass to be more aggressive. Or should we continue with our conservative style of offense?

Interesting question! Typing out loud here > one of the reasons our defense was successful was b/c we had tremendous ST, pinned teams deep and our offense had little problem moving between the 20's and sustaining long, clock-eating drives. Then more focus came on the RZ for the offense where we clearly improved late in the season and in the post season. So clearly, our formula was simple...long WCO-style drives with the offense, score in the RZ, play field position and dominate with the front 7 and generate TO's. Simple formula...if you can do it.

My issue, probably like yours, is that we did not game-plan to be aggressive...at all; rarely if ever. So yes, with our defense, we should have been more aggressive, take some more calculated risks, etc. esp. towards the end of the season and post-season when the OL gelled more. Opened it up...add the new wrinkles we all thought we were saving for the post season.

THE game that this was most apparent in was the Giants game where you could see their CB's playing VERY tight and physical up at the LOS on 1st down and took away, easily, Crabtree/Williams on the wet grass. The LBer's and S's would continue to creep up to the LOS, closer and closer and we'd run right into a wall or Alex would have instant, heavy pressure with zero outlets. Alex had three chances all game to exploit this aggressive nature by the Giants...two went for TD's to VD and Alex just missed Williams on the 3rd for a TD. We never went back to it again despite its effectiveness. Without Ginn, NY did not need to respect our speed and well, we also saw the effects on ST it had too.

So to me, Roman has gotten a fairly clean pass here but I wasn't too thrilled with him this year, personally. I felt his play-calling was pretty predictable most of the time, felt he failed miserably on 1st downs, did OK at half time, saw many times where we just ran into a wall and we didn't audible out of it, didn't use VD enough, certainly didn't stay with what worked or didn't come back to it, didn't keep teams off-balanced, felt like he didn't run/pass enough when we were having success (game flow), didn't attack weaknesses enough, didn't use Hunter like Sproles, etc. For instance...as soon as Brown went out, Eli went right to a simple post route for a TD on Brock. That's smart...exploiting s weakness; this and attacking the middle of the field ALL day long and staying away from the sidelines. This is great game-planning.

Originally posted by lssanjose:
Walsh's offense was a ball control passing attack, using short, and medium passes; with timely runs, to set up the deep ball.

Yup yup... Remember guys we are in our first year (again) with the W.C.O. Wait until next year to see what unravels... and who knows we might get some huge free agent pick up's this off season that will ignite our offense.
For the west coast offense to work the QB must be perfect in every snap from leg work, timing and reading the Defense... That is what B. Walsh wanted, Perfection. He practiced so much on the fundamentals so there wasnt any fla in his QB drop back, footwork, reading and delivering the ball. The W.R. must also be perfect in B. Walsh passing tree and the timing between the QB is the most critical point. This is why WR routes must be perfect and cant be stressed on how important the timing is. Sure handed WR's is no less important in the WCO because you can have speed and str. but if you cant be consistent in route/ timing/catching then it wont work. (review S.F. history of W.R. and TE catches). J. Rice wasnt the fastest or strongest WR on the Field but we all know why he was one of the greatest (or is). His game was perfect, His route's where perfect, his catching consistently, his mind was so in tuned with his QB is was magic. Also one thing that also set J. Rice apart was his off season, he kept himself maintained so that his mind and body was sharp for the fallowing season.
Now if Jim is teaching these fundamentals and is stressing this to our offense then sit back and watch the puzzle be put together.

Red and Gold