Have Alex call his own plays? Why not?

gnnhan, altho this is a "qb should try playcalling" thread, you bring up a real sore point with me. And it is a question for you: Rachal was dynamite at USC, the 3rd best OT they had, but coaches had him penned in as OT the next 2 yrs. Basically, Rachal could have started at SC as an OT, but was put at OG, giving them essentially 3 OTs on the field together. Hell, no wonder their OL was so good.

Okay, chilo comes here and as a rook, later in season gets some starts and shows off his patented "pancake" blocks. Actually starts looking like a great starter. Season ends, 2009 arrives, and after half a season, rachal has "back slid". No pancake blocks, missed blocks, poor run blocks, missed pass blocks, the whole 8 day old enchilada, which really stinks. WHY? HOw could one guy have basically become a worse player than he was when he got here? HOW? I've watched tape, and he comes off like slo-mo, or like he doesn't know where to be or who to block. Either he suddenly forgot his playbook, which i doubt or he has gotten some exceptionally bad coaching, which i am afraid is probably the answer. ACtually, the entire OL has fallen in el crapper, and it almost has to be a coaching thing...as in really awful line coaching , that results in guys talent levels falling off the charts.

Yes, we need two starters on OL from draft, and yes we need to FA another starting OLineman. That's 3. But if the OL coach is the problem then it won't matter who we acquire or draft if the OL coaching is so incredibly bad. And that's where i am with our OL. How could everybody be playing like skunks , everybody playing worse than last yr, if it isn't due to awful OL coaching? Anybody agree or disagree with this strongly, and why?

Maybe becuase he is not Peyton Manning.

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:
gnnhan, altho this is a "qb should try playcalling" thread, you bring up a real sore point with me. And it is a question for you: Rachal was dynamite at USC, the 3rd best OT they had, but coaches had him penned in as OT the next 2 yrs. Basically, Rachal could have started at SC as an OT, but was put at OG, giving them essentially 3 OTs on the field together. Hell, no wonder their OL was so good.

Okay, chilo comes here and as a rook, later in season gets some starts and shows off his patented "pancake" blocks. Actually starts looking like a great starter. Season ends, 2009 arrives, and after half a season, rachal has "back slid". No pancake blocks, missed blocks, poor run blocks, missed pass blocks, the whole 8 day old enchilada, which really stinks. WHY? HOw could one guy have basically become a worse player than he was when he got here? HOW? I've watched tape, and he comes off like slo-mo, or like he doesn't know where to be or who to block. Either he suddenly forgot his playbook, which i doubt or he has gotten some exceptionally bad coaching, which i am afraid is probably the answer. ACtually, the entire OL has fallen in el crapper, and it almost has to be a coaching thing...as in really awful line coaching , that results in guys talent levels falling off the charts.

Yes, we need two starters on OL from draft, and yes we need to FA another starting OLineman. That's 3. But if the OL coach is the problem then it won't matter who we acquire or draft if the OL coaching is so incredibly bad. And that's where i am with our OL. How could everybody be playing like skunks , everybody playing worse than last yr, if it isn't due to awful OL coaching? Anybody agree or disagree with this strongly, and why?

Not sure what happened to Rachal, my guess is they tried to teach him pass blocking to further his ability but got him thinking too much and affected his overall ability in the run and pass. Ideally if that happens you would sit him until he calms down enough to absorbed what's being taught, sort of like A. Smith situation. But we don't have anybody else to take his place to do that. Sad

I like the idea. We don't have much to lose at this point.

Originally posted by susweel:
Maybe becuase he is not Peyton Manning.

Not many are...

Originally posted by BuZzB28:

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:
Alright, how many of you think jimmy rae has done a fabulous job? How about bigMIkes game plan of "run the ball first"? Has jimmy rae called the kind of games you think we should have played. Has bigmike? Has the GM stepped in and said," hey guys, our O stinks. Our OL is crappy.?" Nah. Could alex call a game worse than jimmy rae(JR)? Anybody think he could call a game worse? Man i don't. So what in the heck is there to lose with alex calling his own plays?

History: recent helmet failures caused alex to have to call his own plays, and it was a 2 min drill besides. How'd it go? It went well, as long as alex was making the calls.
More History: It took alex half the time to finish college that it took me. He actually finished in 2 yrs (economics i think), and stayed a third yr to play, basically. So the kid is smart. Is he smarter about the O than bigmike or JR? I don't know, but right now, i would sure like to find out. Our O is bad, but our playcalling is worse. Last game we start off setting up the run with passes. Works great , then JR doesn't do it again for most of rest of game, and that sucks...it's stupid too.

So let JR, bigmike , hell, scot if he wants, do the game plan during the week, but include alex, get his input, so everybody knows what the plan is for the weekend. But come gametime, let alex call his plays. If HC wants first 15-25 plays scripted, that's fine, but alex should know them in advance, which means they get in on time, and if the D set is wrong, allow him to check off.

Here's several things that WOULDN'T happen if alex calls his own plays:
1) no more delay of game penalties, because plays didn't get in on time. This would save us 2-3 penalties/game.
2) No more 2 timeouts/ game, sometimes per half, waiting for the plays to get called in. Let's face it. JR may not call a good game, but by gum he sure is slow about it.
3) By not having to wait for plays, (which gives the OL no confidence in what is going to happen) if alex steps up to the line, he can check down. What's even better, he can do so because he has time, in that the OL was setup 10 with 10 seconds to go on the 24 sec clock. JUst use Peyton as an example.
4)Run, run, 3rd and long, pass, incomplete, punt.

Alex is smart enough, like every other player on the team to know that frank is our meat and gravy. But he can't run when the HC says we are gonna run and run.. and then run somemore. Frank averages about 2.1 yds in those conditions. But if alex passes, passes, then he can pass or run on third if we don't have a 1st down already. But this incredibly lame idea of bigmikes and JRs of run, run , pass, punt...how could alex POSSIBLY call a worse game than that ? Well, he couldn't.

i say, let the kid call his own game, and give him a voice during the game planning during the week. Have we tried it yet? Heck no. Well, no time like the present.

Oh, you don't like that? Well, heck, let's just stick with bigmike and JR, since they have the O working so well...at what, 30th or 31st in the league?

Big mike isn't fearful of change. Here's his chance to really improve an otherwise horrible O. Does he have the cojones to do it?

Alex call his own plays? hmm!! very good ur idea! i said sure! I think, Steve Young was call his own plays right?! i think that! then Alex can do it his own call plays! let's go alex mofo!

Originally posted by Afrikan:

Originally posted by hcniner64:
Was it ever confirmed that in fact smith called his own plays during that two minuet drill or was it just speculated because he tapped his helmet?

I believe MM blogged that Alex only called 2 plays on that drive...because the headsets weren't working...... some have just blown it out of proportion.

Actually it said Smith called all but 2 plays in the 2 min drill....

he can't possibly do any worse than Raye has this season

Originally posted by backontop:
he can't possibly do any worse than Raye has this season

True

Maybe let him audible a few plays and see if he can find any holes in the defense, but if he screws it up then that will be the end of his playcalling days

Originally posted by NeeJ49er:

Originally posted by backontop:
he can't possibly do any worse than Raye has this season

True

Maybe let him audible a few plays and see if he can find any holes in the defense, but if he screws it up then that will be the end of his playcalling days

He called the 2 minute drill when the communication system went out and did a pretty good job.

Originally posted by backontop:

Originally posted by NeeJ49er:

Originally posted by backontop:
he can't possibly do any worse than Raye has this season

True

Maybe let him audible a few plays and see if he can find any holes in the defense, but if he screws it up then that will be the end of his playcalling days

He called the 2 minute drill when the communication system went out and did a pretty good job.

Alex knows the play book better than Raye

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:

Originally posted by backontop:

Originally posted by NeeJ49er:

Originally posted by backontop:
he can't possibly do any worse than Raye has this season

True

Maybe let him audible a few plays and see if he can find any holes in the defense, but if he screws it up then that will be the end of his playcalling days

He called the 2 minute drill when the communication system went out and did a pretty good job.

Alex knows the play book better than Raye

Can't be hard. Raye's playbook is on an In N Out napkin

He looks his best in that two minute drill....maybe we should run it the whole game.

Originally posted by susweel:
Maybe becuase he is not Peyton Manning.

He's not? What am I going to do with all of these Peyton Smith jerseys I bought?

Originally posted by Snider8706:
He looks his best in that two minute drill....maybe we should run it the whole game.

It's kinda already been established that his success in the two minute drill is a result of opposing defenses playing off and with less aggression.

When he has time and the middle of the field available, he's more than capable of putting up yards (as most NFL Quarterbacks are).