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rampage666
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dzrams
I agree that we need more explosive plays for the offense to return as a top 5 unit. But the decline last year was less about the WR position than it was a bad OL and a subpar Gurley IMO.
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I disagree. My opinion is that game situation dictated alot of the performance we saw from the offensive line. Teams were forcing us to pass and we failed. So what in 2018 was a 2nd and 5 became a 2nd and 10. Then the defense tees off on the pass rush and Havenstein looks 50% worse than he did in 2018. Cue up 3rd and 9 and a bad situation gets worse. Then we fall behind in games and are forced to pass, etc.
Now if you look at our rushing yards on 1+2 downs
2019 3.8
2018 4.9
We lost over a yard per carry on runs on 1+2 down.
Run plays w 8+ in the box
2019 131
2018 107
Teams devoted more resources to stopping the run. Yes, our offensive line was worse. But more the yard per carry worse? No way. The key is that the defense did not want to give up 5 yards per carry on 1+2 downs. So, how do you beat that? You pass. We couldnt.
Let's look at the productivity of the passing game on 1+2 downs
2019 Yards Per Attempt 7.0
2018 Yards Per Attempt 8.6
Obviously, I don't know for sure and enjoy the dialogue. For me though, the problem is more explosive passing plays on 1+2 downs than the ability to run the ball. And I think this is a current flaw of McVay's system with this personnel. Remember at the beginning of last year he went 5 wide and tried to air it out. We couldn't do it. The line gets blamed for it but I think the WRs were struggling to get open and Goff was struggling to get through all his reads. I would love to see this team draft some juice and explosion. The benefit of hitting on the next deebo, hardman, or kamara seems much greater to me than hitting on a bradbury or elgton jenkins.
I like the numbers that you're providing and also appreciate the dialogue.
The issues are definitely interrelated but we have to look at what comes first. To my eye, the OL started off the year horribly.
That IMO explains about 70% of the subpar run game. Gurley also wasn't the same back. And per your numbers it does look like teams devoted quite a bit of resource to stop the run first.
Maybe the answer is to pass and we couldn't but the question is why couldn't we? Again, I wouldn't start with WR group. I can tell you off the top of my head (because I posted about this a lot in the 1st half), that the OL in the 1st half of the season was the worst, the WORST, in the league at QB pressures allowed. I remember around week 3 I posted on here that the numbers showed that Goff was under pressure at an alarming rate. That's why we couldn't pass!
And Goff's weakness is performing under pressure. Combine his subpar play under pressure with an OL that's not giving him much time to throw at all, and certainly not much time to throw deep, and we've just explained the 1.6 yards per attempt difference.
Again I agree we need more explosive plays on 1st and 2nd downs but it doesn't make much sense to me how we had plenty of explosive plays in 2018 with our elite WR unit and all of a sudden in 2019 that same near league-best unit struggles to get open. What could explain that? Something has to! You'd have to provide an explanation for why our WRs suddenly could not get open when the prior season they excelled at that.
No here's what I think happened....
1) OL was out of sync after missing Saffold and Sullivan. They didn't run block well and the pass protection was horrible.
2) #1 combined with opponents playing more 8 in the box per your numbers, while Gurley lost some explosion led a to subpar running game.
3) #1 and #2 led to Goff being under heavy pressure often in unfavorable down and distance situations. He already struggles somewhat going through his reads; being under heavy and constant pressure meant there was no chance.
4) Cooks got injured early, there was no suitable deep threat replacement, and when Cooks came back he never got on the same page with Goff.
IMO, that's the order of what went wrong with the offense.
If you just want another toy that's fine. I think they can use an explosive playmaker of some type but I gotta warn you, if the OL isn't fixed, at the very least stabilized, a fancy new toy won't help one iota.
