What is the value... Or The advantage of the ball hog offense.

[RTPbolt]

I think the 4th quarter gassing is a nice bye product.

I give a lot of credit to Reich and Rivers. Rivers is the guy that makes it all hum along...his recognition and precision passing short and long ball is special. He is the perfect guy for the offensive design.

[Steve]

That's nice.

Time of possession creates all of the positive effects for us that have been described in this thread and yet nobody seems to get that it just might be a good strategy for opponents not to let us have that advantage. How do they do that? (Rhetorical question.)

:facepalm:

I know, I know, no team would choose not to run when it looks like they could do it successfully. NFL head coaches are geniuses, et cetera. How could I question them? After all, I have no NFL coaching experience. How dare I question a person with expertise in an area, any area, about anything, ever? Blah, blah, blah.

Of course, the foregoing bullshit notions from the preceding paragraph have been shown to be wrong (again) this week in the thread in which Reid admits to being wrong by not running the ball in certain situations and not running the ball enough versus SF in general. But hey, the article must be wrong because no team's play caller could possibly just call a bad game. After all, some of you guys have said that, so it must be true.

Really, we have a great run defense and teams can't run against us and control the clock because we "dictate" what other teams do with run defensive greatness (at which only 24 NFL teams are better). Nah, that approach would never work against us.

:banghead:

It's time of possession and scoring that does it, not just TOP.

No one is suggesting that other teams won't try. They will, but the part you IGNORE, is that most teams can't play it as well as we can. If some team wants to run the ball, throwing on the occasional 3rd down, let them. They have to execute at a very high level to accomplish that strategy. And if they are going to be able to execute at a very high level consistently, then they are going to be hard if not impossible to beat anyway. ANd there is very, very little margin of error for another team to do that. A play here or a play there, and they are dead in the water.

Again, there is a reason NFL teams tend to not use that strategy. It is something that worked well, and anyone could accomplish you would have 32 teams doing it. But most teams are running a lot more spread to create more offense and trying to run more plays, not fewer. They are doing that to create more offense to offset the lack of consistency.

[Yubaking]

It's time of possession and scoring that does it, not just TOP.

No one is suggesting that other teams won't try. They will, but the part you IGNORE, is that most teams can't play it as well as we can. If some team wants to run the ball, throwing on the occasional 3rd down, let them. They have to execute at a very high level to accomplish that strategy. And if they are going to be able to execute at a very high level consistently, then they are going to be hard if not impossible to beat anyway. ANd there is very, very little margin of error for another team to do that. A play here or a play there, and they are dead in the water.

Again, there is a reason NFL teams tend to not use that strategy. It is something that worked well, and anyone could accomplish you would have 32 teams doing it. But most teams are running a lot more spread to create more offense and trying to run more plays, not fewer. They are doing that to create more offense to offset the lack of consistency.

I agree with what you are saying. You are right--we can't just hold the ball, we also have to score.

Regarding what other teams might try, I also agree with you. I agree that not every team can do it. For example, the Jets run the ball pretty well, but Geno, oof, that guy is not going to be able to pass for first downs with a good degree of efficiency.

I think only certain teams on our schedule have/had a realistic chance of using ball control against us--SEA, KC, SF, and possibly BAL. I think that DEN and NE have a chance to set up short passing a substitute for a ground attack to get TOP. I think our other opponents (MIA, OAK, and STL) are much less likely to be able to get TOP because they are weaker at QB and/or RB.

But again, even if they get TOP to some degree, that in no way guarantees that they beat us. They may do all they can they can do and discover that we are just a better team that they can't beat.

[Steve]

You keep pointing and saying some team is going to do this to us, so we better watchout. That is bullshit, other teams tried to do that to us and FAILED. You can point to our rushing YPC and say it isn't very good, but the fact is our D has played well vs everyone but Oakland, and even then played pretty well except the downfield blitz coverage.

[Beerman]

I don't think you really understand our offense Yuba. The reason it works is because of the short passing game. It's the high % throws that convert third downs consistently that is the key to making us move. It's not the running game that sets up the pass. The run game just gets us in manageable 3rd down plays, but without our high % passing, it falls apart regardless of how well we run.

Seattle, KC, SF, and Bal aren't really built to run our offense. First off it starts with the receivers - THE KEY to the offense (aside from Rivers obviously). You have to have guys that can get open/separation in 2 seconds. If you don't have these guys, you are worthless (see Vincent Brown). Then you really need to be able to attack at every level to force the S back and open up room underneath for the crossing patterns of the intermediate routes. We don't need to go deep every route, there just needs to be a threat. Then there's the TE - as everyone has noticed, Gates has bread and butter routes that he runs and are virtually automatic. Most of those routes are 5-7 yards and are layups for him and Rivers. There are very few TE's in the league that run them as perfectly as Gates and he's another big reason we have such a great 1st down conversion %. We simply have so many weapons right now that really fit our scheme. It's very difficult to defend them all, let alone double team any of them.

All that opens it up for the running game, which really only serves to keep us in manageable 3rd down situations. It's why the 2 yard runs don't kill us. Even if we only gain 2 and 2, that's still a 3rd and 6, which pretty much every pass catcher on our team can get on a short route. It's also a big reason why we run on 1st down so much. If we don't, we eliminate the option all by ourselves and setup long third downs.

If a team isn't consistently converting all those short 3rd downs, it doesn't matter how good of a running game they have. You can pretty much eliminate any offense that isn't in the top 5 of converting 3rd downs from being able to run our offense. Not to mention there are very few QB's that can read defenses as well as Rivers and exploit those match ups to convert all those 3rd downs.

That we have been able to run so well of late is just the cherry on top.

[Steve]

One of the things that is scary this season is that Rivers is good even when we do the things that usually stop people. We lead the league in negative running plays (or I assume we still do, we did last week by a fair margin). Normally, if a D force a lot of 3rd and longs, they have you. But Rivers is completing 83% of his passes on 3rd and long, and for 15.5 yards per attempt. We aren't just trying to get 1st downs. 3rd downs Rivers is a machine to keep going downfield. Most defenses play the markers, and that helps them figure the route combinations and routes. Most QB go to the routes on those plays that will pick up the 3rd down, and River certainly has his share of those. But if the D is going to squat on the 10 yard routes, he is not afraid at all to go downfield and attack, and that is KILLING defenses. They have to defend the whole field on 3rd and long or Rivers and his guys are going to take whatever you give them.

[Beerman]

Seattle - Really only has Percy Harvin and he's a slot guy. Their outside guys and TE suck balls.
SF - None of their receivers are particularly quick. They definitely can present a mismatch size wize, but they rarely have quick hitting routes.
KC - Alex Smith can't throw farther than 5 yards so this kinda eliminates them. Kelce is a stud though.
Baltimore - Lacking weapons at every level. They are basically a big play offense with Torrey Smith and Steve Smith. Pitta was ideal for the offense till he landed on IR.
Denver - The one team that does have the weapons to run it, but they seem to be happy running their current hurry up offense. Not sure they could run it consistently considering they have a fumbling machine at tailback right now. Ball was pretty bad anyways to start the year.
NE - They have Gronk and Edelman. Just lost Ridley. No need to beat to death the fact that Belicheat has done a poor job of giving Brady weapons.

[Beerman]

One of the things that is scary this season is that Rivers is good even when we do the things that usually stop people. We lead the league in negative running plays (or I assume we still do, we did last week by a fair margin). Normally, if a D force a lot of 3rd and longs, they have you. But Rivers is completing 83% of his passes on 3rd and long, and for 15.5 yards per attempt. We aren't just trying to get 1st downs. 3rd downs Rivers is a machine to keep going downfield. Most defenses play the markers, and that helps them figure the route combinations and routes. Most QB go to the routes on those plays that will pick up the 3rd down, and River certainly has his share of those. But if the D is going to squat on the 10 yard routes, he is not afraid at all to go downfield and attack, and that is KILLING defenses. They have to defend the whole field on 3rd and long or Rivers and his guys are going to take whatever you give them.

It's been a third down clinic this season. It's been very impressive. Didn't think he could be better than he was last year, but adding Floyd has taken the offense to a whole new level (granted the vast majority of posters recognized just how much we needed a WR opposite Allen this offseason). Now...if only they can patch up the interior line to give him a more consistent pocket.

[Steve]

I think they have been getting the interior OL patched together, it's just that the setbacks are piling up faster then the progress. But now that Ohrnberger is back for a 2nd week in a row, I think we can see some genuine progress.

I did like the TD play vs Oakland, we just knocked them back enough to get BO into the endzone on the last drive. Troutman's block to drive whichever raider back several yards to get us on the goalline was great, but it would have meant nothing unless everyone else had stopped the penetration on those plays.

[Panama]

I am not the one that raised the issue. Some of you guys seem to conveniently ignore that fact--over and over and over again. In this case, Panama made multiple references to my position. If he refers to it, then I may choose to discuss it in this context.

Yuba, I specifically said that my post was not an invitation to debate the subject here. We have debated it ad nauseum, and I'm not going to discuss it further in this thread. I "brought it up" only in so far as asking Stinky if this thread was an elaborate set up. Our respective positions on the subject are well known, so there's no need to take over another thread with this blather.

[RTPbolt]

Honestly Panama if yall didnt want to continue beating the dead horse with your buddy Yuba why would you put his name in your post? If that isnt passive agressive than call me a Raider fan. If you are bothered by the guy then dont bait him....use the ignore feature.

[Panama]

I realise now in retrospect that Yuba wouldn't have the willpower to let it go without a response, but honestly, whether you think it's passive aggressive or not, I wanted to inquire of Stinky if this was some elaborate setup of his to bait Yuba; it wasn't my intention to bait him myself or to carry the debate over here. And fwiw, I am refusing the be drawn into that debate in this thread. Simply citing someone's position in a debate is not an invitation to further debate.

Anyway, I apologize to the board for opening that can of worms. Wasn't my intention, but I am the guilty party, so mea maxima culpa.