From: ogud@himnariki.cs.umd.edu (Olafur Gudmundsson)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro
Subject: Re: Is the run-and-shoot finished?
Date: 4 Jan 93 17:42:51 GMT
Reply-To: ogud@himnariki.cs.umd.edu (Olafur Gudmundsson)


In article <1993Jan4.094641.25953@leland.Stanford.EDU>,
>In article <1i8nl9INNpb0@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU> tseng-neill@yale.edu (Neill Tseng) writes:
>>
>>	I disagree here.  The reason the Oilers lost today was not because of
>>	the run-and-shoot, it was because of bad defense.  The Oilers offense
>>	didn't even get the ball in the second half until there were only about
>>	four minutes left in the third quarter.  
>
>The Bills scored a touchdown to make it 35-10, then recovered the onside
>kick and scored again to make it 35-17.  The Oilers still had an 18
>point lead when their offense got the ball back.  That's more than two
>touchdowns and a field goal.  
>
>>       Furthermore, it still would
>>	have been too early to go to the running game.  Teams that get too
>>	conservative, offensive or defensively, have been shown to pay for it.
>>	No matter what offense you're running, you have to keep up the attack.

No, way. When you have a huge lead (18 points is a huge lead), you need
to be concerned about number of factors, including momentum and time of possesion.  It is MUCH harder to play defense than offense, so when one
team takes controll of the game it not only swings the momentum, it gives
them an oppertunity to wear out the defense. At this point the highest 
priority of a good coach is to keep the other team offense OFF the field
and the clock running. This allows the your defense to rest and adjust. 
When you go in and do a Three and OUT, you are killing your own defense.
Call running game "concervative", but it is effective. See what the Redskins
did to the Vikings. Two years ago Detroit lost a game they where leading
by 20+ points to the Redskins because they did not call a single running play
in the 4'th quater. 
What Houston coaching staff did yesterday was stupid, at least 50% of
their plays should have been running plays, rather than few they ran
here and there.
 
>What offense invented produces points consistently throughout a game?
>An offense's ability to score touchdowns ebbs and flows during a game.
>A much less ambitious, and achievable goal, is to ask it to take some
>time off the clock.
Hear hear!   
>
>And which players should be replaced?  The quarterback, Warren Moon?
>He's definitely the best run-and-shoot quarterback ever.  The receivers?
>Didn't THREE of them make the Pro Bowl (Jeffries, Givens, Duncan),
>with the fourth being Webster Slaughter?  How good does the receiver 
>corps have to be before it is good enough?  Or should Lorenzo White be 
>replaced?  The Oilers have
>assembled an incredible amount of talent for their skilled positions
>on offense.  They can't do much better.  If the Oilers think their
>players are all head-cases, let them see how fast other teams will
>snatch them up! 
They need better play-calling and a power running game, they should have
on their staff 2 people that can play tight-end when needed, a reserve
offensive line man and big running back will do, as all they are asked to 
do is to block. It helps to have a couple of running backs that can alternate and can get 3+ yards on each play. 
In addition Houston realy needs a better trio of long snapper, holder
and kicker. (They lost at least one game this year when the kicker missed
a last second field goal).

>The inconsistency shown by the Oilers is not the fault of talented but
>laggard players.  It is an inherent feature of the run-and-shoot.
In MHO it is more a problem with the coaching staff getting suckered into
overreliance of the pass and forgetting the fundementals of the game.
Moon had one of the greatest halfs any QB has ever has had in the first half
but in the second half Buffalo changed their defense and he stared having
problems. At that point Houston needed to adjust but they did not that is not
the fault of the players but the Coaches!!!
>
>>	In my honest opinion, though, I really don't think the best team won
Arguable, but I think the team with the better non-playing staff won!!

--
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Olafur Gudmundsson  Dept. of Computer Science University of Maryland
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