Greg Roman, is he really good?

Chris Ault for 2014!

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
Agree completely. I appreciate that sometimes they are unorthodox and do things to surprise bad teams. Things like Dixon's return last week or the pass plays to Miller. The problem is that they are only this creative against bad teams and it is few and far between.

The problem is that it is very clear that they do not practice passing to the RB. With Rathman on the coaching staff I can't believe that he would not be able to help with that! He was one of the biggest successes out of the backfield for the Niners.

With someone so in tune with the WCO on your coaching staff, it blows my mind that we see no resemblance of that style of passing attack.

Once it has been implemented then practice the hell out of it! They clearly learned the read option by practicing it last year, why not do the same with plays that have worked for over thirty years?

Because Kap came from a college that ran the pistol offense. It is his natural element at this stage in his career. Those plays that were run 30 years ago were with different players (two of which were GOATs), different coaching staff, different era. Sorry for stating the obvious, but please don't think for one second that implementing a WCO is as simple as saying, "Let's go to a WCO. The RB coach ran it as a player, surely he can teach it". There are timing routes being run and I hope to illustrate this using the CAR game film once it's available. I see a number of times where Kap completes his dropback only to double clutch then the play breaks down and it's scramble mode.

I agree with you that passes to the RBs need to be thrown more often, especially on 1st down pass plays where a 4-5 yard gain is sufficient.

I hope to get a more accurate read on whether it is poor play calling/design that dooms Kap, such as long developing patterns while knowing CAR was getting good QB pressure. This has been mentioned a few times by other posters and I see it happening. Is it indecision on Kap's part, little separation on the WR part, or bad pre-snap reads that force Kap to make too many post snap reads? This will be an interesting game to dissect and I encourage others with coaches film to do the same so that we can come back with different takes.

Isn't Eric Mangini working for them as an offensive assistant? Give him the playcalling duties LOL

Originally posted by jonesadrian:

Originally posted by 808niner4lyphe:

OKAY FELLAHS! Since alot of people in the zone wants GRo to be fired. Any coaching candidates out there that you feel comfortable replacing this guy??

Imma go ahead and say I don't mind having Hue Jackson as an OC. He did a good job with Oakland as an OC not HC despite the lack of talent he had in Chokeland. I like his vertical attack and the way he utilized the RBs in the passing game with a lot of screens.

Anybody else good out there?

it has to be in house.
i honestly don't think anything is horribly wrong with the playbook
liken it to someone with ferrari and an owners manual and when they get in the car they do everything wrong.
the instructions are right there laid out they just can't translate it to operation

Well if thats the case, they should give Geep Chryst the play calling duties. Didn't Harbaugh credited him on a good play call last year in the playoffs? I don't remember exactly what game it was but I thought I heard Harbaugh and some players credited him for a game winning TD play call. We should give him the opportunity.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:

Agree completely. I appreciate that sometimes they are unorthodox and do things to surprise bad teams. Things like Dixon's return last week or the pass plays to Miller. The problem is that they are only this creative against bad teams and it is few and far between.

The problem is that it is very clear that they do not practice passing to the RB. With Rathman on the coaching staff I can't believe that he would not be able to help with that! He was one of the biggest successes out of the backfield for the Niners.

With someone so in tune with the WCO on your coaching staff, it blows my mind that we see no resemblance of that style of passing attack.

Once it has been implemented then practice the hell out of it! They clearly learned the read option by practicing it last year, why not do the same with plays that have worked for over thirty years?

Because Kap came from a college that ran the pistol offense. It is his natural element at this stage in his career. Those plays that were run 30 years ago were with different players (two of which were GOATs), different coaching staff, different era. Sorry for stating the obvious, but please don't think for one second that implementing a WCO is as simple as saying, "Let's go to a WCO. The RB coach ran it as a player, surely he can teach it". There are timing routes being run and I hope to illustrate this using the CAR game film once it's available. I see a number of times where Kap completes his dropback only to double clutch then the play breaks down and it's scramble mode.

I agree with you that passes to the RBs need to be thrown more often, especially on 1st down pass plays where a 4-5 yard gain is sufficient.

I hope to get a more accurate read on whether it is poor play calling/design that dooms Kap, such as long developing patterns while knowing CAR was getting good QB pressure. This has been mentioned a few times by other posters and I see it happening. Is it indecision on Kap's part, little separation on the WR part, or bad pre-snap reads that force Kap to make too many post snap reads? This will be an interesting game to dissect and I encourage others with coaches film to do the same so that we can come back with different takes.

I don't think they will go pure west coast offense, and I don't think they should try. This is a ball control offense and works best that way. I'm just saying they need to start using some of the west coast philosophy in the passing game.

They obviously have screens and slants in their playbook. We have all seen them. The problem is that they are almost never used in the situations that call for them most.

Every loss in the Harbaugh era over the last two years, the defense has stacked the box and blitzed the pants off the OL. My criticism is that there are never any plays called to slow that rush down. There could and should always be those plays in the plan to audible to or turn to mid-game.

They can adjust really well to make the run game work but they almost never adjust to make the pass offense work.

Originally posted by biggiep:
Isn't Eric Mangini working for them as an offensive assistant? Give him the playcalling duties LOL

Maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe Mangini is giving him the wrong info in the box.

not a lot roman and harbaugh can do when kap can't make multiple reads

Originally posted by DonnieDarko:

not a lot roman and harbaugh can do when kap can't make multiple reads

IMO that's a cop out to remove blame from the coaching staff. There are several accounts of Kap going through read progressions in the past. He has obviously played pretty bad at times but this staff is doing nothing to make it easier on him or the OL when the defense is bringing the heat.

Originally posted by rudedog:

Originally posted by biggiep:
Isn't Eric Mangini working for them as an offensive assistant? Give him the playcalling duties LOL

Maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe Mangini is giving him the wrong info in the box.

What does Mangini bring to the table now anyways?? He was supposed to assist the offense by giving his insight on how teams would defend the Pistol read-option after an off-season to prepare for it.

Well that failed miserably and we went back to power football following the Colts loss. We continue to sprinkle in the Pistol, but the zone-read runs are consistently getting stuffed. The free defender (who comes in unblocked by design) now knows how to blow the play up in the backfield. These plays are killing us when we call them on 2nd & short, 3rd & short.

Every now and then we spring one loose, but we're better off lining up in power formations, and mixing in standard draw plays if we want to get cute. I want our 2011 run game back. We threw a dizzying array of power formations at teams and they couldn't handle it. That is a real NFL scheme that can't be figured out. It's just solid fundamental football

this is still a question being asked. lol

Originally posted by DonnieDarko:
not a lot roman and harbaugh can do when kap can't make multiple reads

b******t.

He was making multiple reads just fine last season throughout the playoffs, people just want to harp on the buzzword of the day.



He had no problem going through his progressions and getting the ball out to whomever was open at the time. You can go back to the Atlanta game and see multiple examples of him doing that very well, looking off the safety and making throws into the openings in coverage. He routinely got complimented for his ability to go through his progressions and make the right throw, its not something that he just forgot all of a sudden, I consider it a combination of poor coaching trying to mold him into something he isn't, poor playcalling and him simply not trusting anyone else other than VD and Boldin to come up with the ball.

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
IMO that's a cop out to remove blame from the coaching staff. There are several accounts of Kap going through read progressions in the past. He has obviously played pretty bad at times but this staff is doing nothing to make it easier on him or the OL when the defense is bringing the heat.

This, even this season if you go through the various games you can see him go all the way across the field to find somebody open, the issue is that people will watch a clip, see a wide receiver open after Kaepernick had looked his way previously and go "herp derp, he didn't throw it to him, hurr durr." It isn't just about getting open, it's about getting open when the QB is looking your way, not 5 seconds after he moved to another read.


He certainly doesn't seem to be playing with the confidence he had last season, but why would he, with VD in and out of the lineup, no Crabtree and Boldin as the only real consistent dependable target, he hasn't had all that much to work with. Last season when he could throw to Crabtree, VD, Delanie, Manningham, he had no problem finding the open guy, people have short memories I swear, either that or a bunch of people on here are bi-polar plus.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:

IMO that's a cop out to remove blame from the coaching staff. There are several accounts of Kap going through read progressions in the past. He has obviously played pretty bad at times but this staff is doing nothing to make it easier on him or the OL when the defense is bringing the heat.

This, even this season if you go through the various games you can see him go all the way across the field to find somebody open, the issue is that people will watch a clip, see a wide receiver open after Kaepernick had looked his way previously and go "herp derp, he didn't throw it to him, hurr durr." It isn't just about getting open, it's about getting open when the QB is looking your way, not 5 seconds after he moved to another read.


He certainly doesn't seem to be playing with the confidence he had last season, but why would he, with VD in and out of the lineup, no Crabtree and Boldin as the only real consistent dependable target, he hasn't had all that much to work with. Last season when he could throw to Crabtree, VD, Delanie, Manningham, he had no problem finding the open guy, people have short memories I swear, either that or a bunch of people on here are bi-polar plus.

Agreed. I am of the belief that if a player plays well in the right situation, that he can play well again if put back in the right position.

I've seen Kap play incredible football. I have no doubt that he can again. People thought Kurt Warner was done after his stint with the Rams. Arizona put him back in the right situation and he lit defenses up.

This is why I always try to look at the big picture. Yes, Kap has been bad but let's not completely ignore that in the three losses he has had very little time to make reads let alone throw cleanly.

Cam Newton was standing in the pocket untouched several times yesterday and he still struggled. If Kap had the time Cam did I think he would have had a huge game.

People like to place blame on the QB and I was here defending Alex Smith for the same reasons. I don't find it surprising that now there have been two QBs that have struggled to consistently pass well in this offense.

The common denominator is the OL and the scheme.

I thought posted this, but looks like i didnt?

Anyways, Roman is garbage, but harbaugh deserves some of the blame here as well for letting it get this bad. He is offensive minded coach, so he gets no slack for this disaster that has been in the making for two seasons.

Also im not sure Roman deserves credit for the run game either. Most f that credit goes to Gore and Rathman imo. Gore has a great relationship with rathman and you can tell he really leans on him for advice during the game since the first person he talks to every time he comes to the sideline is Rathman.

Should have hired Norv Turner like some of us suggested in the off season.

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
Agreed. I am of the belief that if a player plays well in the right situation, that he can play well again if put back in the right position.

I've seen Kap play incredible football. I have no doubt that he can again. People thought Kurt Warner was done after his stint with the Rams. Arizona put him back in the right situation and he lit defenses up.

This is why I always try to look at the big picture. Yes, Kap has been bad but let's not completely ignore that in the three losses he has had very little time to make reads let alone throw cleanly.

Cam Newton was standing in the pocket untouched several times yesterday and he still struggled. If Kap had the time Cam did I think he would have had a huge game.

People like to place blame on the QB and I was here defending Alex Smith for the same reasons. I don't find it surprising that now there have been two QBs that have struggled to consistently pass well in this offense.

The common denominator is the OL and the scheme.

People still won't acknowledge it, the Alex fan-boys see it as an opportunity to "get theirs" and other people just want a simple solution, getting rid of one player and replacing him with another, if the system is the problem, then it becomes far too complicated and messy to bother with..............so it comes down to "Kaepernick sucks"....."one read QB"......."he wore a f**king Dolphins hat...."