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Originally posted by UglyTruth
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PFF must have it wrong. Herbert has the most batted passes in the league. And his batted passes have mostly all come on 3rd or 4th down aka the worst possible times.
(click on accuracy and then it shows batted passes)
And short passes have to be a part of an offense. Can’t just throw deep and intermediate all game imo. With Rivers, we had a functional passing offense at all three phases (short, intermediate and deep).
What is not clear to me is why being among the top teams in terms of deflections is such a big deal??????? Again, looking at his 2 seasons, he was in the middle of the pack last year, top of the pack this year?
It is not like the Chargers aren't working on improving Herbrt's game in all areas. The Chargers are like every other NFL team. They film and study EVERYTHING. They study every rep, in every game, of every team they play. They study every rep of our players in practice. Every drill rep. And it is not like this is a new thing, NFL teams have been doing this stuff for YEARS. They will look at everything and see if it is something they can fix, but more importantly if it is something that NEEDS fixing.
Some other notes:
1). Of the top 4 teams on deflections, they all have tall QB in there. So clearly, height has little or nothing to do with it. Furthermore, many of the bottom teams have short QB (Tua in Miami, for instance).
2). The list just has the total number of deflections. That may be accurate, but it is misleading, as the more you throw the more likely you are to have more passes deflected.
3). It is not like you are talking about a large percentage of passes being deflected, on either list. Even the top teams are about 1 pass per game. Considering the overall count, it's not very clear how significant the batted passes are. Going back to 2020, he was in the middle of the pack, despite having a lot of attempts. That suggests it is just luck, if the number varies wildly from year to year, instead of being systematic.
4). No one is suggesting giving up short passes. I am suggesting deeper drops in the setup and mixing more deep routes into the playcalling to keep the D off balance. If they know they have to defend deep passes as part of the play calling, they cannot JUST play short passes, which is part of what was happening earlier this season.
We play a variant of the West Coast offense, which means lots of vertical stretches. That means a receiver short, medium and long routes layered to get open in succession (think 1st, 2nd and 3rd reads in a given play). The short passes will come still be part of it, only you get more out of them. Hit a guy like Ekeler short, underneath, he won't get much if the D is all doing short drops and clogging the passing lanes to defend the quick passing. However, throw to Ekeler short with WR running the S off deep, and a TE running a medium out-route to keep the CB outside, now Ekeler has a lot of space vs the LB, and that is where his big plays come (YAC).
The Chargers are also big on using a lot of short crossing routes, which while they are short routes in terms of distance, are deeper routes in terms of how long they take to develop. If the secondary is dropping deep to defend some receivers, then it opens up the underneath routes.
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