Originally posted by TheRickestRick:Originally posted by SofaKing:ESPN gave us a D- in 2011 too. That ended up being a damn near flawless off-season. Baalke won executive of the year. Just sayin'....
Drops the mic...
If health stays on our side (knock on wood), this team will surprise people. Still so early but all the news has been pretty positive about OTAs.
Honestly I'm glad people are expecting us to suck. Let teams underprepare for us, let them not expect what is coming. No one is expecting us to be good, but I don't mind that at all. I see the team surprising a lot of people this year. Looking at the thread about ESPN's off-season grade for us, aside from the fact that off-season grades are meaningless and so often have zero success predicting anywhere near an accurate forecast of the upcoming season, the thought came to mind about what type of coaching styles Harbaugh and Tomsula employ.
Exhibit A: The Tomsula Brand of Football
If you read up on the style he likes to employ for his teams, is a blend of NASTY, SAVAGE, domination at the LOS on both sides of the ball, mixed with smart, logical game management. He believes his job is to recognize the opponents attack strategy, and counter. Tomsula's idea is simple: come up with a game plan, keep doing what is working on the field, and then shift when the opponent does. Keep doing what we're doing well, and adjust to compensate for the things we're not.
Exhibit B: The Harbaugh Brand of Football
For the most part, wanted us to simply "better execute" the plan already in place. That was my absolute biggest criticism. Too often running into brick walls when there was an obvious adjustment available that even us fans could see that would've helped us. Even when we won, I felt like the team played so far below its potential, it was very, very frustrating. On offense, I felt like we either got too conservative, or too cute. It seemed to so often be one extreme or the other. On defense, when we couldn't get pressure, we continued to only rush four and hope we could hang on. That "bend but don't break" tactic works some of the time, but it wore our team out late in the year. Our defense needed to put in more positions to make plays.
What are some specific -- I mean like play-call style, formation, strategic, etc. -- types of differences you expect in year one?
[ Edited by OnTheClock on May 23, 2015 at 8:08 AM ]