Stuckey

[Steve]

I understand the concern about too fast. I coached at very low levels, so I don't have the sort of experience to go off of running a fast paced huddle. At low levels, there is no question the do it right trumps the conditioning concerns. At the NFL level, I don't think it is so bad. Plus, as you mention, OTA's and Minicamps are really where the teaching the fine detail work takes place. I obviously can't go to practice, so I guess it just depends on how they will address skill development. A lot of NFL teams don't do skill development during the year. They practice to prepare for the games, and guys do learn skills and drills, but the focus is just to get ready for game day. That is a very common approach in the NFL and has been for the last 20 years of so. So, is F21 right, are they pulling guys off to the side to give them individual attention? it is worth keeping an eye on. Especially for a guy like King Dunlap, who is struggling to stay low, does he get some work on the side?

The JUCO team my brother is coaching on is working on running more up tempo practice this year, and part of what they are shooting for is to cut down on the conditioning at the end. They are afraid that so many so-so guys quit anyway, that cutting down on dedicated conditioning might work better, the players don't realize they are doing it so much. They still do some conditioning at the end, but a lot less then in years before. Some run and shoot teams did no conditioning at all, and even forced coaches to coach while running next to each group while the play was executed.

When I was growing up, and Cinci under Sam Wysch and Buffalo under Marv Levy both ran a lot of no huddle. Cinci ran some half huddle, as well as just lined up and called the play at the line, but not hurry up pace, all in a way of attacking the D, and making sure they didn't sub. Buffalo run straight 3 WR look and did a ton of no huddle, but I felt like they hurt their D more then helped their O. Teams caught on and practiced for the up tempo, and if they are ready, then you run the risk of keeping your own D on the field.

I don't think it hurts trying it. I think we have to fix some of the flaws with what Norv did. I don't think Norv did anything major wrong, there were sound principles behind it, but it didn't work. I like McCoy's emphasis on mental toughness, since that seems to be the crux of the problems. But I do think that it needs to be monitored and done correctly. I don't think it fixes things by itself, but if we package it right, it might help out some.

[Beerman]

Steve, good points, as usual. But after reading about the pace of McCoy's practice from Acee, I wonder if he is going too fast? When you get tired, you get sloppy and forget your fundamentals if they are not drilled into you. Not sure some of these players are there yet. Acee says it is drill, drill, drill with no rest to get more plays run, more film down, more used to fast break offenses. Shouldn't McCoy ramp it up? Or do you think he did enough with OTAs to where these guys have it down now? What good is lots of tape of exhausted players screwing up?

TG

You guy have to realize there's 90 guys in camp. While the practice is up tempo, McCoy has three personnel groups he's rotating in and out.

[SDFan]

I understand the concern about too fast. I coached at very low levels, so I don't have the sort of experience to go off of running a fast paced huddle. At low levels, there is no question the do it right trumps the conditioning concerns. At the NFL level, I don't think it is so bad. Plus, as you mention, OTA's and Minicamps are really where the teaching the fine detail work takes place. I obviously can't go to practice, so I guess it just depends on how they will address skill development. A lot of NFL teams don't do skill development during the year. They practice to prepare for the games, and guys do learn skills and drills, but the focus is just to get ready for game day. That is a very common approach in the NFL and has been for the last 20 years of so. So, is F21 right, are they pulling guys off to the side to give them individual attention? it is worth keeping an eye on. Especially for a guy like King Dunlap, who is struggling to stay low, does he get some work on the side?

The JUCO team my brother is coaching on is working on running more up tempo practice this year, and part of what they are shooting for is to cut down on the conditioning at the end. They are afraid that so many so-so guys quit anyway, that cutting down on dedicated conditioning might work better, the players don't realize they are doing it so much. They still do some conditioning at the end, but a lot less then in years before. Some run and shoot teams did no conditioning at all, and even forced coaches to coach while running next to each group while the play was executed.

When I was growing up, and Cinci under Sam Wysch and Buffalo under Marv Levy both ran a lot of no huddle. Cinci ran some half huddle, as well as just lined up and called the play at the line, but not hurry up pace, all in a way of attacking the D, and making sure they didn't sub. Buffalo run straight 3 WR look and did a ton of no huddle, but I felt like they hurt their D more then helped their O. Teams caught on and practiced for the up tempo, and if they are ready, then you run the risk of keeping your own D on the field.

I don't think it hurts trying it. I think we have to fix some of the flaws with what Norv did. I don't think Norv did anything major wrong, there were sound principles behind it, but it didn't work. I like McCoy's emphasis on mental toughness, since that seems to be the crux of the problems. But I do think that it needs to be monitored and done correctly. I don't think it fixes things by itself, but if we package it right, it might help out some.

I thought that was the era of K-Gun with Kelly where he had a wristband with all the plays on it and he would act as the OC on the field and call plays at the line or multiple plays if they did huddle?

[Beerman]

That K gun offense was sure fun to watch.

[Steve]

Yeah, but they went from having a pretty good D, prior to the K-gun (they were a defensive team then) to a D always ranked pretty low, which is strange when you consider how many pro bowl players they had. But they gave up a ton of yards and a lot more points, and a lot of that could probably have been avoided by doing a better job controlling eh tempo. Once you get a comfortable lead, you can slow the pace of the game. It is the team that is leading at the end that wins, so if you have the lead, get to the end and deny the other team the chance to score. Buffalo would keep moving the ball, but at times really hurt themselves by driving down the field, take no time off the clock, and then turn give the other team the ball back.

The K-gun was great for Buffalo because at a time when there were not a lot of teams with depth on D, they had 3 quality starting WR (Reed, Lofton and Bebbie), a pass catching TE (McKeller) and a RB (Thurman Thomas), who you could not cover with a LB . Teams kept trying to play their base D, and you couldn't cover their skill players. If we had a few, high end guys like Buffalo did, I think a quick pace no huddle group would be great. But we don't have the top end personnel like Buffalo did.

[Formula 21]

Personally, I hate slowing the pace. Try to put up 50 on every team you play.

[Boltdog]

yeah what will we do without all that experience? we were so good with it last year.

Guess we'll find out when the youngsters get schooled against elite passing teams like DEN. It wasn't all on our DBs last few seasons, not with the weak pass rush we had that exposed our DBs...

[Steve]

Historically, the chargers have had some of the greatest offensive teams of all time. Sid Gillman, Don Coryell (with Zampese, Joe Gibbs), Norv Turner. So how has that strategy of just plain outscoring people been working?

Of all those groups, the only one that really was a SB caliber team is one that play like units that play complete games. Norv's 1st year, before the offense was really as complete as it got, and Bobby Ross, who was never an offensive powerhouse.

The team that has the lead at the end of the game wins, but if you can't outplay the other team for 60 minutes, you might want to try and shorten the game. This team is not going to be so physically gifted that they can defeat every other team, so maybe we need to use the shortening of the game. Besides, with an secondary with some history of injurys, keeping them off the field a little bit on every game means that they might have something left at the end of the year.

One of the worst opening day defeats we had under Coryell was a game the Chargers lost to the Jets. We scored quite a few points, and every time we did, the Jets answered with a long, clock eating drive, where they just pounded the ball on our D. At one point we answered a long drive where they scored a TD with an 3 play, 80-ish yard TD drive that took 18 seconds. The Jets calmly took the ball and had another 8 minute drive and took the lead again. Eventually we lost the game because our D just couldn't stop them, even though I know we would have been able to score some more. And it was in large part because our D played an extra 10-15 minutes worth of time that game.

[Beerman]

I definitely feel we need to have an effective rushing attack this season, but it doesn't need to come at the expense of pace. The Patriots last season are a clear example of how to exploit a defense running the ball at an increased pace. I think we'll see some of those concepts as well as the increased pace that Denver played at last season.

[Steve]

I'm not saying you should always default to one or the other. It is a weapon like any other. But a lot fo times, it hurts the team that is doing it as much as it helps, like with Buffalo and even Cinci to a degree.

Varying the pace down can help too. You have to pick and choose your spots. Ramp the tempo up to get a D out of rhythm and get them reacting, then crank it down later to kill the clock. But to just run up tempo, or just down tempo, you only hurt yourself, because every NFL that is any good will adjust, and you don't need to fool around to beat the weak teams.

[SDFan]

Historically, the chargers have had some of the greatest offensive teams of all time. Sid Gillman, Don Coryell (with Zampese, Joe Gibbs), Norv Turner. So how has that strategy of just plain outscoring people been working?

Of all those groups, the only one that really was a SB caliber team is one that play like units that play complete games. Norv's 1st year, before the offense was really as complete as it got, and Bobby Ross, who was never an offensive powerhouse. The team that has the lead at the end of the game wins, but if you can't outplay the other team for 60 minutes, you might want to try and shorten the game. This team is not going to be so physically gifted that they can defeat every other team, so maybe we need to use the shortening of the game. Besides, with an secondary with some history of injurys, keeping them off the field a little bit on every game means that they might have something left at the end of the year.

One of the worst opening day defeats we had under Coryell was a game the Chargers lost to the Jets. We scored quite a few points, and every time we did, the Jets answered with a long, clock eating drive, where they just pounded the ball on our D. At one point we answered a long drive where they scored a TD with an 3 play, 80-ish yard TD drive that took 18 seconds. The Jets calmly took the ball and had another 8 minute drive and took the lead again. Eventually we lost the game because our D just couldn't stop them, even though I know we would have been able to score some more. And it was in large part because our D played an extra 10-15 minutes worth of time that game.

I would argue the Chargers offense was more complete BEFORE NOrv started trying to develop Rivers into an elite passing QB at the expense of the running game- while claiming it was about balance. IIRC, in 2006 we had the top running attack in the NFL and LT got MVP. Again in 2007 LT led the NFL in rushing (or close to it). Then the emphasis changed to the passing game and the run game fell off the cliff and the team was never as successful closing out games. Ross staffed up with mostly college coaches like himself and employed a rudimentary offense because of it- but still had the strong running game with Means to lean on and Humphries and Martin for occasional big passing plays when needed to keep defenses honest.

[thelightningwill]

[QUOTE=Steve;8560]Historically, the chargers have had some of the greatest offensive teams of all time. Sid Gillman, Don Coryell (with Zampese, Joe Gibbs), Norv Turner. So how has that strategy of just plain outscoring people been working?

Of all those groups, the only one that really was a SB caliber team is one that play like units that play complete games. Norv's 1st year, before the offense was really as complete as it got, and Bobby Ross, who was never an offensive powerhouse.

The team that has the lead at the end of the game wins, but if you can't outplay the other team for 60 minutes, you might want to try and shorten the game. This team is not going to be so physically gifted that they can defeat every other team, so maybe we need to use the shortening of the game. Besides, with an secondary with some history of injurys, keeping them off the field a little bit on every game means that they might have something left at the end of the year.

One of the worst opening day defeats we had under Coryell was a game the Chargers lost to the Jets. We scored quite a few points, and every time we did, the Jets answered with a long, clock eating drive, where they just pounded the ball on our D. At one point we answered a long drive where they scored a TD with an 3 play, 80-ish yard TD drive that took 18 seconds. The Jets calmly took the ball and had another 8 minute drive and took the lead again. Eventually we lost the game because our D just couldn't stop them, even though I know we would have been able to score some more. And it was in large part because our D played an extra 10-15 minutes worth of time that game.[/Q

I prefer to think of the game in which Air Coryell outscored Joe Montana's 49ers in one of the greatest regular season games ever. I think, by that time, the 49ers had already bought our defense with their owner's dirty money. I also think that was the year we lost the AFC championship in the coldest game ever. If it weren't for the weather gods, our O probably would have beat the 9ers in the Super Bowl.