Gary D'Amato: Questions about McCarthy

Disagree.  The Panthers are in the SB this year, because they have the MVP, and the DPoY, and the probably the runner-up to DPoY.  

So you wanted MM, to start to move Cobb around more early in the season, when he couldn't even lift his arm above his head for the first month.  What other adjustments could have been made, that would make sure were in the SB? 

For the first 6 games, the Packers were 6-0, and it looked like the Offense, albeit, not as good as with JN, but was in decent shape.    

Since Cam and CMIII are the same size, maybe the adjustment was to start CMIII at QB, and have him run over DB's and LB's.  

oldschool posted:

oldschool posted:

His awesome skills aren't needed because he doesn't have a PHD in receiver tree studies..

Hungry5 posted:

Speed is not a skill.

Arguably it is...and specifically how it is applied on the football field to maximize your opportunities against an opponent.

Whether it's to put you in a position to high point a Hail Mary like Janis did...or whether it's used to get the opposition to over-commit out of respect for consistent speed.

Raw speed doesn't do that...but speed honed as a receiver skill takes advantage of an opponent.

As you noted in your earlier post, he didn't have the knowledge to take advantage of his skills. One day his speed will be a skill he can maximize, just ain't yet.

Hungry5 posted:

oldschool posted:

oldschool posted:

His awesome skills aren't needed because he doesn't have a PHD in receiver tree studies..

Hungry5 posted:

Speed is not a skill.

Arguably it is...and specifically how it is applied on the football field to maximize your opportunities against an opponent.

Whether it's to put you in a position to high point a Hail Mary like Janis did...or whether it's used to get the opposition to over-commit out of respect for consistent speed.

Raw speed doesn't do that...but speed honed as a receiver skill takes advantage of an opponent.

As you noted in your earlier post, he didn't have the knowledge to take advantage of his skills. One day his speed will be a skill he can maximize, just ain't yet.

It was a "perception" that he didn't have the skills. I never saw him put in a situation to succeed until the playoff game vs Cards...then it was pure desperation mode.

One game does not a career make, but he did perform extremely well against stellar competition when called upon and turned loose so to speak.

This might be a situation where Janis just doesn't fit into MM's nice little box.

It follows a growing meme...MM and TT could loosen things up just a little bit and take a few more calculated risks when appropriate.

PackerRuss posted:

Disagree.  The Panthers are in the SB this year, because they have the MVP, and the DPoY, and the probably the runner-up to DPoY.  

So you wanted MM, to start to move Cobb around more early in the season, when he couldn't even lift his arm above his head for the first month.  What other adjustments could have been made, that would make sure were in the SB? 

For the first 6 games, the Packers were 6-0, and it looked like the Offense, albeit, not as good as with JN, but was in decent shape.    

Since Cam and CMIII are the same size, maybe the adjustment was to start CMIII at QB, and have him run over DB's and LB's.  

The MM Excuse-o-meter Deluxe.  The offense was wobbly the first six games, and instead of getting better and adapting, it got worse.

Look at the teams in the Super Bowl. Denver's offensive line suffered season-ending injuries, especially to a LT a heck of a lot better than Bakhtiari.  (Clady is tremendous, when healthy) . DeMarious Thomas, their best offensive weapon, has had a rather down year. Their supposedly emerged Running Back was benched and only started playing well late.    Their HoF QB missed a number of games and doesn't have an arm left. Yet there they are. 

If the Packers are supposedly the deepest and most talented team in the league with such great coaching, didn't suffer as many big injuries as the teams that are there, why are they sitting at home? 

cuz they suck.  better?

you cannot account for all the variables in the course of a season by trying to pin it one or two things.  but wtf do I know?

True, but the best teams adjust successfully.  

So, by not adjusting we were one of the top 8 teams.  If only we would have adjusted we'd be a top 2 team.  Adjusting would have gotten us 2 more wins.  Now I get it.  Now, if you can only tell me what adjustments should've been made? 

It's become more and more apparent that the Packers offensive coaching staff was completely dysfunctional this year. MM overreacted to the Seattle game by removing himself as the play caller and ceding more authority for offensive planning to Clements, etc.  He thought he'd be more successful helping out more with other areas of the team.  He was wrong, and by the time he took back over it was too late to get one of the top 2 seeds in the playoffs. Having that bye would have been huge this year with the way the OL was banged up.

In some respects you could argue that the Seattle meltdown cost them Super Bowl chances in two seasons.

Herschel posted:

PackerRuss posted:

Disagree.  The Panthers are in the SB this year, because they have the MVP, and the DPoY, and the probably the runner-up to DPoY.  

So you wanted MM, to start to move Cobb around more early in the season, when he couldn't even lift his arm above his head for the first month.  What other adjustments could have been made, that would make sure were in the SB? 

For the first 6 games, the Packers were 6-0, and it looked like the Offense, albeit, not as good as with JN, but was in decent shape.    

Since Cam and CMIII are the same size, maybe the adjustment was to start CMIII at QB, and have him run over DB's and LB's.  

The MM Excuse-o-meter Deluxe.  The offense was wobbly the first six games, and instead of getting better and adapting, it got worse.

Look at the teams in the Super Bowl. Denver's offensive line suffered season-ending injuries, especially to a LT a heck of a lot better than Bakhtiari.  (Clady is tremendous, when healthy) . DeMarious Thomas, their best offensive weapon, has had a rather down year. Their supposedly emerged Running Back was benched and only started playing well late.    Their HoF QB missed a number of games and doesn't have an arm left. Yet there they are. 

If the Packers are supposedly the deepest and most talented team in the league with such great coaching, didn't suffer as many big injuries as the teams that are there, why are they sitting at home? 

Maybe, I'm not a big enough Packer fan to realize that we should win the SB every year.  The one thing you forgetting in your analysis is that Den has the best D (statically in the league).  

Most everyone agrees that the Packers are a deep team.  The reason they are home, is that they had one position decimated by injuries.  You can have a deep team, but if 4 out of 6 of your WR's are out for the year, it doesn't matter what you do. 

Heres a hypothetical.  Let's say next year the team is completely healthy, except for one position group, QB.  All 3 Qbs are hurt, expect to win the Super Bowl? All they have to do is adjust, and they should win? 

If only Herschel worked for the Packers. Other teams would just wilt and the Packers would be a dynasty.

I think what Herschel really means is that if MM had kept Brent Farve way back when he would still be playing for the Packers and the Packers would be in the Superb Owl.  He still wouldn't have anyone to throw to but to the Ol Gunslinger that wouldn't matter. He'd just throw it right to linebackers and DBs instead of running over them. 

So glad my entire previous post was quoted, or we might not have known what the response below it was in reference to.

pure desperation mode

Exactly. School yard works that way.

Carolina and Denver are playing this Sunday. They do things better than everyone else. 

If this Carolina team wins 3 more playoff games they will top the 5 wins Jon Fox won a decade ago. But this current team does everything right. 

New England absolutely **** the bed down the 2015 regular season stretch and gifted Denver home field advantage. Then Denver got a Steeler team with no Antonio Brown and Big Ben with a bad wing. And even then a RB named Toussaint had to fumble in the 4th at Denvers 30 to give Denver a shot. New England was a 2 point conversion away from taking Denver to OT with a flawed team. But Denver is playing so they do everything right. 

MM did a whole ration of things wrong in 2015. But don't circle Carolina and Denver as the posters kids of how to be good Herschel. It's shortsighted bull****. 

Its hard to win a SB. One of you're poster kids is about to go from right to fail. Great teams can overcome a couple missteps in the playoffs. Good teams make 1 or 2 mistakes at the wrong time and it's game over. 

Herschel commented that GBs offense was "wobbly" the first 6 weeks of 2015. 

GB averaged 27.3 per game the first 6 weeks and won by an AVERAGE of 10.5 points per game. That ain't wobbly my freind. That's domination. Then Ty went down. 

I know not a lot of people don't agree with me. But that guy has something. He reminds me of a young Anquan Boldin. He's strong as he's going to find a way to break down a secondary. 

Spot on Chili

I put this as much on the players this year as I do the coaches.  There were  scheme issues but there was also  

The reports of young guys not putting the necessary work in 
Lacy not able to step up
RBs putting the ball on the ground
Drops everywhere on offense and defense 
Even Rodgers missed a lot of throws that are routine for him.

I will say the way they fought at the end of the year is a good start for 2016.  If they would have faded it would have bothered me more.  I think they were all a bit overconfident coming into 2015.  It's going to be real interesting to see which guys step up over the offseason and come to camp ready to get after it.  They have a gang of guys that played short of their potential this year.  

PackerRuss posted:  

Heres a hypothetical.  Let's say next year the team is completely healthy, except for one position group, QB.  All 3 Qbs are hurt, expect to win the Super Bowl? All they have to do is adjust, and they should win? 

This happened to a certain team just a couple or so years back.
Can't say the team (as a whole) was healthy, but QB was surely decimated.
And we all know how that team turned out....

Packers 2016, The Reckoning.

Herschel posted:

 

Look at the teams in the Super Bowl. Denver's offensive line suffered season-ending injuries, especially to a LT a heck of a lot better than Bakhtiari.  (Clady is tremendous, when healthy) . DeMarious Thomas, their best offensive weapon, has had a rather down year. Their supposedly emerged Running Back was benched and only started playing well late.    Their HoF QB missed a number of games and doesn't have an arm left. Yet there they are. 

The examples you give are all related to Denvers offensive setbacks. Not sure they performed amazing adjustments as the offense struggled often during the season.  Denver is in the Super Bowl because of having the leagues best defense. 

If you want to give credit, the offensive adjustments would be low on the totem pole. Credit Elway for taking a very good defense and adding key FA like DeMarcus Ware,  Aqib Talib and T.J. Ward. Or give Wade Philips credit for orchestrating such a fierce defense. If you watch Denver, their offense was put in very favorable situations by a shut down defense. 

ChilliJon posted:

 

MM did a whole ration of things wrong in 2015. But don't circle Carolina and Denver as the posters kids of how to be good Herschel. It's shortsighted bull****. 

Its hard to win a SB. One of you're poster kids is about to go from right to fail. Great teams can overcome a couple missteps in the playoffs. Good teams make 1 or 2 mistakes at the wrong time and it's game over. 

Herschel commented that GBs offense was "wobbly" the first 6 weeks of 2015. 

GB averaged 27.3 per game the first 6 weeks and won by an AVERAGE of 10.5 points per game. That ain't wobbly my freind. That's domination. Then Ty went down. 

I know not a lot of people don't agree with me. But that guy has something. He reminds me of a young Anquan Boldin. He's strong as he's going to find a way to break down a secondary. 

 

Green Bay also had a Detroit screw up on defense to give them a Hail Mary completion to keep from crapping the bed out of the playoffs. The point being Denver (with a mangled O-line and best receiver really struggling, as well as hurt QB) and Carolina (with a garbage O-line and losing their best/only good receiver) adjusted better than Green Bay did, and they're in the Super Bowl. 

Carolina covered having Michael Oher at LT all season while Green Bay trotted Don Barclay out there for a game with little help, then moved Sitton, before finally putting the athletic guy out there.  Carolina worked ways to get Greg Olsen open while Cobb was still running 1-of-3 routes from the slot. 

The Packers faced the Bears, Niners, Chargers and the still-haphazzard Chiefs in four of their first six games. Those were four pretty terrible defenses. 

I do agree Montgomery will be a player. I don't think his loss was that huge this year if the coaching staff adjusts better. Letting DaVante Adams "play through" his terrible season, even focusing the game plan on him, when you have a guy who can get open and another who is very athletic was dumb. They also had guys who can be decent kick returners. If they had someone besides the slow-footed James Jones opposite him, it may have made more sense, but instead Jones was the old version of what Adams should have been.  

We saw in the playoffs when they finally started adjusting that the offense could be better than it had been. Losing every division game at home is inexcusable.  

Fire MM and Compers and get Herschel in there, he knows whats up.  

Carolina "covered" their LT position, because they have a QB that takes at least 2 LBs to bring down.  He took 33 sacks this year, about 2/game.  It appears that they didn't have to worry too much about their abysmal LT position.  

I still don't know WTF "adjustments" means in this context? Bring in a better a backup LT, get that receiver open, blah blah blah. That's the lamest kind of hindsight, just general observations that are mostly NO DUH. McCarthy didn't adjust in the playoffs, the players just rose to the occasion like they hadn't done during the season. Arizona saw two receivers that had zero film and GB exploited that, does that count as an "adjustment"? Carolina didn't adjust, they just got more out of their talent, Riverboat Ron got less out of mostly the same squad in 2014. All depends on how talented your whole roster of talent decides to play. 

So Cobb coming out of the backfield more and doing some different things wasn't an adjustment? Finally putting Tretter at LT until Bakhtiari came back wasn't an adjustment? Getting Abbrederis and Janis more snaps wasn't an adjustment? Running more formations and using Kuhn more wasn't an adjustment? They did a lot of things late to help diversify the offense. 

Abby and Janis getting more snaps wasn't an adjustment. It was because they were the last remaining healthy WR's on the roster. 

I still don't know what adjustments means, please define it in this context. Cobb has been coming out of the backfield for a few seasons now, the amount he does it depends on the opponent. Same with Kuhn. Tretter has played Tackle in the past, albeit RT, and after the way Barclay and Sitton played it was kind of a "last man up" type situation. Tretter was also in the midst of filling in for Linsley on and off due to his injury. Inserting Tretter at LT wasn't some brilliant strategic move, it was out of necessity...much like playing Abby and Janis. 

When I think of "adjustments", it is "tweaking" the scheme to the talent available. I know that in some seasons, late in the year we have sprinkled in some trap & wham block plays into our zone running scheme with success. I was waiting to see us do something similar with our passing game when it became evident that our receivers were having great difficulty getting open running "tree routes' independent of each other. I liken it to basketball. If you have 3-4 guys who can take their man off the dribble & create their own shot you can run "dribble drive" offense. However, if no can do it, you must run an offense with picks, screens, dribble hand offs, cross cuts, etc. to help players get open. 

The lynch mob crying Abbs and Janis should have played more earlier on seem to forget that as players develop, they develop more as time goes by.  They may have simply not been ready earlier in the year, or at least further from it.  16 weeks of games transpired from training camp to the playoffs.

FL what you're describing sounds like routine gameplanning. They tweak the scheme weekly based on the opponent. 

It sounds like Herschel is saying that Carolina made some major scheme adjustment when Benjamin went down that catapulted them to the SB...and GB got stubborn and refused to change. In reality I guarantee the only thing that changed for Carolina, scheme wise, was fewer jump balls to receivers (which was Benjamin's specialty). Carolina has just had a good year on offense fueled by strong downfield passing by their QB. Would GB still have struggled to move the ball downfield if Nelson was in? Tough to say, but probably. Teams caught on that all receivers behind Jordy really struggled with physical press coverage and Rodgers struggles with 2 deep Safeties...he always has. Lacy would have still be out of shape and slumping, which impacted the running game greatly. 

All in all I'm not sure what McCarthy could have tweaked to account for the loss of Nelson. That's a top 5 WR, Kelvin Benjamin is not in Nelson's class. You don't change a scheme right before the first game when you have spent months prepping that scheme. Rodgers likes to move the ball downfield, that's what he does best, why would you hamstring him with a more vanilla scheme?

Winner winner, chicken dinner!

So the Panthers receivers, sans Benjamin, are a heck of a lot better than the Packers receivers, sans Nelson? You'd take Ginn over Cobb?

And their O-line? I'll give you Kalil, and Turner is pretty good, but those tackles are abysmal.

Or is Cam just that much better than Rodgers? 

At some things, yes. Like QB draws for one. 

AR - 2014 stats, 4,400 yd, 38 TD, 2 Rushing TD, 250 rushing yards

CN - 2015 stars, 3,800 yd, 35 TD, 10 Rushing TD, 650 Rushing yards

i think those stats right there show what CN is better at.  Moreover, it's not like this is new information and that Riverboat Ron adjusted the O.  CN had a better year than AR's MVP season last year.   FYI, I rounded the numbers. 

Grave Digger posted:

I still don't know what adjustments means, please define it in this context...

From a personal viewpoint, "adjustments" would have been trying formations with pre-snap motion (regardless of personnel), or power running formations (2 TE/2 FB/1RB, as an example), NOT having RichRod lining up at WR, perhaps a reverse utilizing Janis or Abby; basically anything different from the (mostly) same, predictable scripted plays we were seeing game after game with the same results game after game.

Of course, none of this means anything, and there's no way to even guess if they would have had any success. But it's fun to discuss. 

Herschel posted:

So the Panthers receivers, sans Benjamin, are a heck of a lot better than the Packers receivers, sans Nelson? You'd take Ginn over Cobb?

And their O-line? I'll give you Kalil, and Turner is pretty good, but those tackles are abysmal.

Or is Cam just that much better than Rodgers? 

I don't think they're better, but there's no doubt they all played better than GB's groups in 2015. Cam's downfield passing has been on the money this year and he's had time in the pocket to do whatever he wants. I hate Cam Newton with a passion, but he's had a better season than Rodgers. Carolina made "adjustments" in the offseason, Cam got better as a passer. In reality that's the big difference between 2014 Cam and 2015 Cam. 

Henry posted:

OMG!  I lov this thread.  Too funny.  Thanks for the laughs folks.  Please continue.  And no, I am not smokin' 

ChilliJon posted:

Abby and Janis getting more snaps wasn't an adjustment. It was because they were the last remaining healthy WR's on the roster. 

So true.   And is my biggest question I had with the coaching last year. Why did it take that situation to play these guys?