Originally posted by NCommand:
Originally posted by dj43:
My hunch is that the last paragraph says more about the problems than anything else. I have questioned play design and play sequencing all season long. It was no different with Hill or Smith. There seemed to be no goal in probing defenses and then using certain plays to set up others. Every running play was "stick-a-foot-in-the-ground-and-cut-it-up-the-field." The OL seemed like it was being called on to make the same, or very similar blocks on every play. There was no real attempt at misdirection I could go on but I'm sure you get the point.
The other point I noticed was that certain fundamentals flaws seemed to recur with the same guys time after time. I just do not believe that players at this level are not capable of better progress than we have seen from this group of OL. That is a coaching issue, IMO.
That having been said, I couldn't help my envy watching Ferguson, Mangold, Faneca and company dominate people with the Jets the last half of the season. I believe, for that reason, the Jets may be more of a threat in the playoffs than a lot of folks realize.
Yeah, it sort of comes down to the chicken or the egg theory. Is Raye's so conservative and predictable b/c he is still unfamiliar with the team and/or they are very limited in their skill-set or is Raye hanging his hat on a couple individual successes but lacking the overall vision and adjustments needed of today's successful offenses and/or being handcuffed by Singletary (even with his new vision of "balance")?
I do believe it starts with Singletary but then Raye who is ultimately responsible, followed by poor position coaching and players drafted/acquired who appear to be one-dimensional.
I do believe though that there are OC's out there who could get much much more out of these players, are more prepared to start games, who could exploit defensive weaknesses, who know how and when to attack, who know when to predominatly use Gore or Crabtree or Davis or Smith, who know how to keep defenses on their heels and always guessing, who can out-coach an opponent on a regular basis and who have a better feel for the talent on this team. I think if we had a bonefide OC, Singletary would have no problem adjusting to whatever is most successful for our team no matter WHAT that system ends up being. Saying he wants "balance" is what every coach in the league says in PC terms. But being balanced is not what wins you games. Sometimes you need to pass much more (Rams game) and sometimes you should run much more (Seattle game)...we did just the opposite.
The Jets will probably be dangerous...teams go as their lines go and allow the play-makers to make plays. Period. It also free's up an OC to take more chances esp. if they have a defense who will give it right back to them.
I'm certainly no expert but I have watched a couple hundred pro games in my life, many of them in person. I have no clear idea of which is the chicken and which is the egg, ie., is it the lack of OC vision or is it OL position coaching.
My OPINION is that the answer is "D," all of the above:
The 49ers were a mess when Nolan arrived (not news) and few people even wanted to come here. It is all history but Nolan was hired so late by Papa Bungler that all the quality position coaches were already committed to other teams. Nolan was forced to fill his staff with 2nd and 3rd tier personnel and that slowed the development of all the young players, as we could all see. The franchise was such a mess that even when the opportunity did arise to replace someone, there were no quality guys available - enter Hostler and Raye as second or third choice guys.
George Warhop was one of those third tier holdovers that they either couldn't get rid of and replace him with anyone better or didn't realize how bad he was. When they finally did make a mid-season move, it was to Foerster, and we can now clearly see why he was available in the middle of the season.
My hope is that Singletary truly has have the strength of character and appeal that will convince quality coaches to come here to replace Foerster and Sullivan and Hoehner (VD's development has been much to slow to indicate Pete is good enough to keep). As to whether Raye is capable of putting a varied and creative game plan together, I have no idea. He did show the willingness to change the offense completely in mid-season, which is not an easy thing to do. However, the offense he changed to was so vanilla a high school coach could have done it. Now the reasoning that has been put forth for that is that you can't just drop new, creative things into an offense in mid-season. I get that. It takes training camp to implement those things.
So I've now spun back around to the starting point: I don't know if Raye can be the guy or not. I do not believe Foerster, Sullivan and Hoehner have shown they can develop players well enough, or quickly enough to make this team competitive in the playoffs before Frank Gore retires. In any case, I believe Singletary MUST make at least the move to replace Foerster if he wants to maintain any cred around town. Sullivan and Hoehner could stay unless someone good become available. There will be a lot of shakeups in the next couple of weeks. Washington and Buffalo are just the beginning. I would like to see Singletary make a move by Super Bowl week that will show he has both the vision and the will to make an improvement in a critical area of the team, the offensive line play.
That is sort of a ramble but it expresses my dilemma about how much change is necessary to make this team the playoff contender it could be if McCloughan can hit a home run in FA and another pair in the draft.