Cohn:Harbaugh searching for answers

Originally posted by SnakePlissken:
You know, when I was a teenager in driving school, my instructor/ driver's manual always told me to "look ahead", and practice 'defensive driving'; looking ahead 10-12 seconds, encase of a collision (for better command of a vehicle, specially when driving a lemon, with non-anti-lock-breaks). -If you possess a great amount of natural instincts, or an attention to focus in reading 'defensive' situations ahead of you, you're more capable of adjusting yourself before chance of a disaster, no matter how bad your line... I mean car is.

So, how many walls jumped out and ran into your lemon in 1.5 seconds? The average QB...er, driver can't react quickly enough to avoid said D...er, wall in that amount of time. Of course, if the wall was moving at 20 mph and the QB...er, lemon was moving backwards at 5 mph, how long would it take the D...er, wall to get to the setup point of the Q...lemon?

Currently the OLine seems intent on making lemonaide.

Originally posted by Paul:
The Answer

can he play on the offensive line,if so...he's the answer

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
You guys aren't seriously blaming Alex Smith for this preseason are you?... He gets hit on step 2 1/2 of a 3 step drop before he is able to plant his back foot... Even the comentators were talking about it. You could put Peyton Manning or Tom Brady back there and they would go 0 - 16.

uhm yes they are

Didn't watch! LOL!

Did glance here and there at times and from not really focusing on the game and I didn't see an offensive line at all.

Originally posted by dmax:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
You guys aren't seriously blaming Alex Smith for this preseason are you?... He gets hit on step 2 1/2 of a 3 step drop before he is able to plant his back foot... Even the comentators were talking about it. You could put Peyton Manning or Tom Brady back there and they would go 0 - 16.

uhm yes they are

Good example of that was how the Lions dominated Brady with the pass rush this weekend. Brady was toast.

The O-Line was HORRIBLE ..It looks as they took a step back from the Raiders game, but I'm glad they are taking their lumps NOW rather than the regular season.

But I'm sure the offense will be a LOT better than last year.

But Staley and Rachal especially have to get their acts together, Davis and Iupati will be fine IMO

Luckily they play in the WAC, even with how bad theyve looked, 8-10 games still look winnable based on the schedule. Realistically more around 8.

Originally posted by NeeJ49er:
The O-Line was HORRIBLE ..It looks as they took a step back from the Raiders game, but I'm glad they are taking their lumps NOW rather than the regular season.

But I'm sure the offense will be a LOT better than last year.

But Staley and Rachal especially have to get their acts together, Davis and Iupati will be fine IMO

Actually Rachal has played quite well, much better than he has in the past. The biggest, most noticeable breakdowns have come on the left side where Staley has been beaten man-on-man and the communication between him and Iupati has been so bad as to be almost laughable.

Davis continues to struggle. For now, it looks like the best thing that could happen would be for Boone to step up and win the job.

I only watched the first couple of series, and didn't do any real analysis - also haven't read all of the threads and comments on how bad the O-line looked, BUT.......

I know in the first game, it was lagely man-to-man blocking scheme, and they failed miserably.
Second game was zone, and the line dominated (admitedly, it was the Raiders, but supposedly a decent D-line that was motivated to win the game).

What was the plan against the Texans? Did JH and Solari revert to simple man-to-man to:
1) get a better idea of how individual blocking skills were progreesing (both starters and backups against 1st stringers)
2) Not give anything away for the season opener
3) Drive home the point to the Line that old method ain't gonna work????

Is there a message being sent by the coaching staff to the starters (maybe one or two in particular) that the old way is gone/doesn't work?




This is, of course, pure speculation. (hopeful speculation at that, because let's face it, the O-line was a disaster, and not having a pro bowl quaterback did not make any difference )

Could this also have something to do with the fact that we didn't gameplan for the Texans? I'm sure Harbaugh would rather prepare these guys for SEA than any team in preseason. I can easily see how the OL can confuse assignments of plays that they may have learned a week or two ago.

Let's hope Harbaugh is having the players prepare for the regular season teams and is calling random plays in the preseason that weren't installed last week. During the season, the only plays that will be practiced will be the plays installed that week and these will be the plays called during the game so that it is fresh in the players' heads.

Originally posted by Joecool:
Could this also have something to do with the fact that we didn't gameplan for the Texans? I'm sure Harbaugh would rather prepare these guys for SEA than any team in preseason. I can easily see how the OL can confuse assignments of plays that they may have learned a week or two ago.

Let's hope Harbaugh is having the players prepare for the regular season teams and is calling random plays in the preseason that weren't installed last week. During the season, the only plays that will be practiced will be the plays installed that week and these will be the plays called during the game so that it is fresh in the players' heads.

I thought Harbaugh made it pretty clear his main purpose was to evaluate 2nd and 3rd string guys against the opponents starters and 2nd string. Unfortunately, too much of the game looked like we had our 4th string in most of the time.

Originally posted by dj43:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Could this also have something to do with the fact that we didn't gameplan for the Texans? I'm sure Harbaugh would rather prepare these guys for SEA than any team in preseason. I can easily see how the OL can confuse assignments of plays that they may have learned a week or two ago.

Let's hope Harbaugh is having the players prepare for the regular season teams and is calling random plays in the preseason that weren't installed last week. During the season, the only plays that will be practiced will be the plays installed that week and these will be the plays called during the game so that it is fresh in the players' heads.

I thought Harbaugh made it pretty clear his main purpose was to evaluate 2nd and 3rd string guys against the opponents starters and 2nd string. Unfortunately, too much of the game looked like we had our 4th string in most of the time.

I don't hold any stock in preseason games if our HC is obviously preparing ahead and all the focus on teaching the playbook could have overtaken player evaluations. It still doesn't excuse a guy like Staley looking like a college player but that does occur when a player is focused on his assignment over "just playing". The play where he got bullrushed was poor fundamentals and appeared that he did something wrong because he dropped too far back in his protection before the DE even made contact.

Originally posted by krizay:

Originally posted by SnakePlissken:

You know, when I was a teenager in driving school, my instructor/ driver's manual always told me to "look ahead", and practice 'defensive driving'; looking ahead 10-12 seconds, encase of a collision (for better command of a vehicle, specially when driving a lemon, with non-anti-lock-breaks). -If you possess a great amount of natural instincts, or an attention to focus in reading 'defensive' situations ahead of you, you're more capable of adjusting yourself before chance of a disaster, no matter how bad your line... I mean car is.

I'm going to give you a for originality.



and a cause it cracked me up.

Great! Now we have two Asian drivers driving a lemon.

fml!

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by dj43:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Could this also have something to do with the fact that we didn't gameplan for the Texans? I'm sure Harbaugh would rather prepare these guys for SEA than any team in preseason. I can easily see how the OL can confuse assignments of plays that they may have learned a week or two ago.

Let's hope Harbaugh is having the players prepare for the regular season teams and is calling random plays in the preseason that weren't installed last week. During the season, the only plays that will be practiced will be the plays installed that week and these will be the plays called during the game so that it is fresh in the players' heads.

I thought Harbaugh made it pretty clear his main purpose was to evaluate 2nd and 3rd string guys against the opponents starters and 2nd string. Unfortunately, too much of the game looked like we had our 4th string in most of the time.

I don't hold any stock in preseason games if our HC is obviously preparing ahead and all the focus on teaching the playbook could have overtaken player evaluations. It still doesn't excuse a guy like Staley looking like a college player but that does occur when a player is focused on his assignment over "just playing". The play where he got bullrushed was poor fundamentals and appeared that he did something wrong because he dropped too far back in his protection before the DE even made contact.

We agree. I will give a short pass to communication issues, but only for the PS. By regular season those should be ironed out.

The thing that concerns me more than anything else is when a guy gets beat for having poor technique. Staley has been around long enough not to make that mistake. Even Rachal, who has been skewered on this board more than any other OL, looked good technically so far this PS. However, Snyder, Iupati, Goodwin and Davis have all shown a lack of solid fundamentals. That is very concerning.

As you say, they may be concentrating on the play and are not as focused as they should be on fundamentals. Let's hope that is the answer.

Lowell already calling for Baalke's termination after 1 draft as GM and 4-5 weeks of the new coaching staff being with their players after a lockout. Hilarious.

http://cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/14249/trent-baalke-on-hot-seat/