Randy Moss does more harm then good?

First let me get it out of the way "Yay overreaction to horrific loss" threads being made. I will try and not base this solely off of 1 game but anyway.......

I genuinely believe that signing Moss has and will backfire on us. Teams "respect" him too much that they have deep safeties on every play he is on the field. We rarely target him which through 6 games now definitely tells defenses that we are going to run it on you or throw it short whenever Moss is in the game. Teams will put 1 deep safety over Moss and but otherwise have the other 9 guys expecting another short play.

Having Moss and VD on the field at the same time isn't a matchup nightmare at all. Teams just play deep safety and zone coverage (see Giants game today). Last year the majority of Davis' big plays came on short or intermediate crossing routes that he simply out ran his man on. Those plays aren't available with moss on the field because of the deep defenders.

Yes once a blue moon we hit him deep like we did in todays game but I cant help but also whine that Alex honestly under threw him on that ball. Had Alex led him at all I'm confident that would've been a TD. By the way I am one of the biggest Alex Smith supporters on this board. But for the majority of the plays he is on the field he is there only as a decoy and it hurts our offense more then it helps us. Yes it opens up underneath routes for Crabtree and others but it feels like we are backing ourselves into a corner when we put Moss on the field.

His signing has paid immediate dividends in terms of mentoring the receivers and motivating them but I came to point last week that without Moss we are a more explosive offense and more free to the kinds of plays we called last year. After todays complete neutralization of Vernon I think we need to put some this supposed "speed and explosion" that is wasting away on our bench in the game. Moss' reputation doesn't allow us to go deep because teams go out of there way to cover him. This may be irrational but I feel like putting more unknowns like AJ Jenkins who is reportedly just as fast as Moss ou there and getting him involved. At least then there will be more lenient coverage to all of our defenders allowing Jenkins to take advantage of slower CBs and EARN the over the top safety after collecting big plays and allow Vernon to take advantage of LBs having to cover him without safeties constantly being above him.

Anybody agree or am I just nitpicking?

He gets open down field...thats a fact. Not his fault we didn't do s**t today.

About Moss... nitpicking. He doesn't hurt.

Originally posted by NickSh49:
About Moss... nitpicking. He doesn't hurt.

he was open made big catchs, only problem i see is he doesn't get enough snaps and throws his way. And Jacobs needs to play 3 and one we hand it off and he falls foward, first down easy! Bench Dixon the Special Teams sucks anyways!

No. We just don't throw it to him. When we do he makes big plays.

Our coaches not using him is the problem

Moss caught a deep one done the field ( his part ) then the rest of the team failed to even get us in FG range ! Hes helping . 3 INTS thats the game !

So if I'm following you correctly. Essentially your saying its bad for any team to have a known deep threat on the field because teams game plan to stop it?

My bad for not acknowledging it completely but thats my point. Moss is getting open but whether through bad luck of not seeing him open or intentionally using him as decoy it feels like those 20+ snaps he sees the field we only target him a handful of times and the other teams know we rarely go after him and key in on our other other personel.

I really want to see him more involved, I just hope we aren't using him as decoy more then a real receiver.

Natrone I'm saying its bad that we dont target him enough because through 6 games we haven't utilized him enough that teams dont care too much to see him on the field. That our coaches aren't taking advantage of this fact with more creative calls is another point, if he is on the field I feel like we should always go after the soft spot in coverage and seems like we dont do that.

He should be targeted 5 or 6 times a game.

Originally posted by btthepunk:
He should be targeted 5 or 6 times a game.

this is what i am saying. if we aren't using him as a real threat I feel like its pointless to have him on the field because teams dont have to worry about him nearly as much as we think they do.

He is certainly not the problem. I would say the biggest problem is that the coaches abandon the run WAY too early and play right into the defense's hands. In both losses, we played teams with premier pass rushers that are known to get to the QB, but also have a tendency to give up rush yards. What do the niners do? Come out passing instead of slamming the ball down their throats. Just stupid.

Originally posted by jones49:
He gets open down field...thats a fact. Not his fault we didn't do s**t today.

seriously, nuff said. Asking if Moss is doing more harm than good right now is an indictment to one's football knowledge.

Boy looked GOOD on that deep ball, his speed is still there. I want more of those.

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
He is certainly not the problem. I would say the biggest problem is that the coaches abandon the run WAY too early and play right into the defense's hands. In both losses, we played teams with premier pass rushers that are known to get to the QB, but also have a tendency to give up rush yards. What do the niners do? Come out passing instead of slamming the ball down their throats. Just stupid.

yes that bugs me but I'm talking the whole season. Moss is a non-factor, outside of the GB game he hasn't done anything between then and today besides draw a PI call in the endzone against detroit. We signed him to supposedly provide a deep threat yet through 6 games he has 9 receptions and IIRC today was the first actual deep ball thrown to him outside of Kaep's triple coverage bomb.

Originally posted by sfout:

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
He is certainly not the problem. I would say the biggest problem is that the coaches abandon the run WAY too early and play right into the defense's hands. In both losses, we played teams with premier pass rushers that are known to get to the QB, but also have a tendency to give up rush yards. What do the niners do? Come out passing instead of slamming the ball down their throats. Just stupid.

yes that bugs me but I'm talking the whole season. Moss is a non-factor, outside of the GB game he hasn't done anything between then and today besides draw a PI call in the endzone against detroit. We signed him to supposedly provide a deep threat yet through 6 games he has 9 receptions and IIRC today was the first actual deep ball thrown to him outside of Kaep's triple coverage bomb.

I agree with you that he hasn't been much of a factor on the stat sheet, but at the same time, it's hard to have big numbers when you only see a few snaps a game. I think the big play he made today will change things a bit. Coaches will see that on film and they will worry about it. The Niners just need to use it more effectively. They need to go back to making Gore and Hunter the focus of the offense and take their shots downfield when they can.