Questionable rb use

[EastStreet]

8 minutes ago, Superman said:

 

Now we're getting into legend status for Gug, when he can come in and instantly whip a bad OL into shape. I don't know about all that. Admittedly, I haven't paid much attention to the play of the Giants OL, but if he's making that much difference in a month, he's much better than I've ever given him credit for, and we shouldn't have let him go. More likely -- from a distant observer -- they've doubled down on the run, the defense has had a couple of good games against struggling teams (esp the Bengals), and Gallman had a couple nice series against Seattle. We'll see...

 

There are some differences in the run blocking, but it's not major IMO. I think the biggest thing is they're not running off left tackle as much as they did last year, and they're running out of shotgun more. And I think both of those changes are more about Rivers than they are about the OL. 

Hard to diminish the play vs Seattle, who is top 10 in sacks, run D, and blitz%. Gallman had 135 yards, most from any RB this year vs Seattle who have been incredibly good vs the run, yet have two top 10 rushing teams in their division. They've only given up 100 yards to two RBs this year.

 

Not saying Gug is a legend. But it's pretty well accepted around the league he's a great OL coach. The dig on him is his personality. 

[NewColtsFan]

Don’t think Gug is a great OL coach.   Even though he’s been successful many stops, he’s also been fired or politely shown the door most everywhere he’s been.   That typically doesn’t happen with a great OL coach.  
 

An organization will put up with a lot of crap for a great coach.  But he’s certainly good enough to keep landing on his feet.  He gets hired all around the league.  Just not lasting very long.  

[EastStreet]

40 minutes ago, Superman said:

 

Directionality without down and distance doesn't help. There are far more inside runs in neutral situations than there are in short yardage. I don't really understand why you're tying the discussion to the direction of the run play, when we're talking about success in short yardage. The situation is far more relevant. 

 

If the question is about who is a better inside runner, show me the direction of the rushing attempt. We're talking about success in short yardage situations. The most relevant factor is the situation. There are other relevant variables, but direction of the attempt without situational context provides almost no insight on the topic.

 

(Since Hines only had three short yardage runs on third and fourth down, it wasn't hard for me to find and watch them. They were inside runs. The same is true of his three 2nd and 1 carries in the first Titans game.)

 

To the bolded, no I'm not. It's very simple, and I've said it several times in this thread: Hines running -- even inside -- in short yardage situations is not our best option, but that doesn't mean it's a foolish option. In fact, Hines has been successful on inside runs in short yardage this season. That's not fence sitting. It's just an instance of two things being true at the same time, which is how real life works.

 

To the last bolded, if Hines were awful in short yardage situations, I'd agree. He's has not been awful in short yardage this year. That's my point. It's a red herring to pin the failure of that play on the back being used. The play didn't fail because Hines can't convert in short yardage (in fact, he can convert in short yardage). The play got blown up due to poor blocking.

 

It's not what I would have done in that situation. I believe I would have kicked the FG. But even if we're gonna go for it, I don't think the situation was handled well, and I don't think they called a high percentage play.

 

If I had a more fundamental grasp on the numbers in the moment, and the analytics guys are saying 'this is a clear go,' then I think I would have used a different personnel package entirely. I think a JB package is the best option there: we've done four different things successfully with JB in short yardage, in the run game alone, in just the last three weeks. Sneak, jet sweep, read option, inside handoff. And that's what it looked like JB and Rivers expected. 

 

My second choice would be a pass play, with Hines option route being the #1 read.

 

And if you have to use a timeout in a high leverage situation like that to get it right, that's okay.

I think we're talking past each other. I have agreed that context is king. I also think while you can't add full context without film, there are some things you can glean. And like I said, I posted a full game of context (from film and pbp). In that game, it was pretty clear that JT was given more difficult runs, in difficult situations (which impacted his success rate), while Hines was given less predictable, and less difficult carries on average. I bring this up to suggest that even the stats when looking at D&D, and directionality, field position, and situation, may be a bit misleading. Anyway, hard to explain in a post back and forth conversation. I'll try to find the thread and post tomorrow. And on the topic of directionality (gap), I think it's extremely important in the context of situation.

[Superman]

1 hour ago, EastStreet said:

Hard to diminish the play vs Seattle, who is top 10 in sacks, run D, and blitz%. Gallman had 135 yards, most from any RB this year vs Seattle who have been incredibly good vs the run, yet have two top 10 rushing teams in their division. They've only given up 100 yards to two RBs this year.

 

Not saying Gug is a legend. But it's pretty well accepted around the league he's a great OL coach. The dig on him is his personality. 

 

I don't mean to diminish their success vs Seattle, just saying Gallman's success was mostly three or four plays, not total domination by the OL. And they have purposely gone run heavy lately. Good for them they've done well on the ground.

 

And yeah, Gug knows his stuff. Just don't know if he's making that kind of drastic difference in such a short period of time. 

[Superman]

1 hour ago, EastStreet said:

I think we're talking past each other. I have agreed that context is king. I also think while you can't add full context without film, there are some things you can glean. And like I said, I posted a full game of context (from film and pbp). In that game, it was pretty clear that JT was given more difficult runs, in difficult situations (which impacted his success rate), while Hines was given less predictable, and less difficult carries on average. I bring this up to suggest that even the stats when looking at D&D, and directionality, field position, and situation, may be a bit misleading. Anyway, hard to explain in a post back and forth conversation. I'll try to find the thread and post tomorrow. And on the topic of directionality (gap), I think it's extremely important in the context of situation.

 

All that's fair, but I haven't really gotten into a comparison between Taylor and Hines. I've really only been talking about whether Hines can perform in short yardage. 

 

But to the point about predictability, I would argue that it's a factor in why Hines probably should get short yardage plays, as a runner and a receiver. It doesn't help your offense if every short yardage snap with Hines is a pass play.

 

And perhaps the earlier predictability with Taylor was a factor on the big 4th down play to Taylor in the first half.

 

Edit: Just want to add, I agree and I think it's obvious that Taylor is better in short yardage than Hines. That's not really a question in my mind.