Question for the analysts

A lot, yes. Most of the big plays I can remember from this year have been slants that broke long after the catch. Moreover, under Henning we regularly ranked in the top 5 for 20+ yard passing plays.

 

and now we're 7th. We do throw deep a little less, and we throw a little less overall I'd imagine.

Luckily some of that smoke route nonsense has eased up. The last time I remember us calling it consistently was KC, and if those were Jake's options, he was forcing it. The corners weren't even laying off much.

 

Thinking about it now... it seems like Jake audibled to the run on that play

 

But as you acknowledged, we're not 7th because of deep passes. We're 7th because of short passes that broke for big gains. We're not going deep as often as we used to.

 

It seems we've missed on the lond passes more times than we've made em. Also, it seems that we've gone long early, and missed. Then we don't go long much the rest of the game.

 

Several inaccurate passes on deep balls, and a drop or two = missed chances.

 

I had an edit on my desk for over an hour to expand, but some of it's deep passes nonetheless. I liked that Henning could pick the right time for a deep pass, but we also stalled a lot of drives chucking it deep on 1st or 2nd and not recovering. Certainly, shorter routes played a big part as well, but we're still getting big plays.

 

I remember the 2nd half of the '03 regular season Eagles loss where we'd had a really nice drive and scored, and the next possession we started chucking it, 3 and out. Drove me nuts, since I believed we went away from what was working and ended up losing.

 

it's a delicate balance. I never had that much of a problem with that part of the playcalling, and we do that now too, but I'm a firm proponent of keeping drives going. You hate to be too predictable, and certainly that's been a criticism of both coordinators, but to be able to keep drives going with shorter passes and the run, you have to have a threat to keep safeties back, and you can't do that without throwing deeper. It's a delicate balance. It's tough to fault any of them in the heat of the game, they generally have a feeling for when they want to go deep, and when if at all they might want to use a trick play.

The part I did criticise of that philosophy was that we'd do it a lot out of two back formations, keep everyone in but the receivers, and watch as a deep ball had no chance v/s 2 or even occasionally 3 men deep. We were brilliant when we used 3 WR under Henning in 03 and just didn't do it that much. I think we're still very good there. You have a double read. It gives you less protection, sure, but sometimes you like to have another option.