Nobody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 12:20 pm
Only in Buc-land can you...
* Regress catastrophically while...
* Reversing (or ignoring) clearly, successful trends in play-calling models (1st down passing %, play-action passing %, you don't need to establish the run to successfully PA-pass, 3rd and short conversions via running game wrinkles and tendency-breakers) to 1990 standards. Then when asked about those things scoff proudly.
* Have your Redzone Tight and abundance of 2nd & long (you're in "& long" because your prolific number of reduced formation, no horizontal set-dressing, run plays on 1st down failed...yet again) sniffed out or actually called out, and then sniffed out, by ILBs and Safeties.
* Have THE LOWEST Play-Action pass % in the league despite the greatest PA QB of all time; 41 out of 41 of QBs with 200 Drop Backs.
* Have the highest % of perfectly covered pass plays in the NFL (and way more than the median) which is correlated to our cataclysmic drop in 3rd and long conversion rate.
* Have a staggering number of Screen Targets yet have your primary receivers of them sit at bottom tier in Yards/Route Run on those Screens. Godwin # 1 Screen Targets NFL and a terrible 2.58 Y/RR (# 36 NFL). Fournette # 11 Screen Target and a terrible 2.89 YRR (# 27 NFL...massively inflated by one play or it would be near the bottom). White # 35 Screen Target and a terrible 1.02 YRR (# 80 NFL). Gage # 77 Screen Target and a terrible 0.66 YRR (# 97 NFL)
* Have the 30th least efficient running game (DVOA), one of the worst at converting, and be the worst in nearly every gross Rushing stat.
* Have a converted, small school RT playing LG (over a much better player) for nearly the first half of the season and not perpetually game plan around that offense-murdering deficiency.
* Get your ass handed to you on offense twice in a row by two teams that have either waved the white flag or are more injury-riddled on defense than should actually be possible.
Only in Buc-land can this happen and somehow you have a contingent of fans and media personalities blame others for your failures. Byron Leftwich is this year's Jameis Winston. He just needs more time.
You're forcing this situation into an unnecessary binary where there doesn't need to be one. Absolutely no one is arguing the offense didn't regress. No one. But you are insincerely trying to merge accepting that with accepting your narrative.
We know exactly what this offense is, what it can do, and what it can't do. When we have an OL that can hold up long enough for in-sync QB-WR biscuits it's an offense that has finished at or near the top of the league repeatedly. But it needs those big shots.
The interior of the OL was absolute trash this year. Brady and his WRs seemed estranged and each suffered from their own yips. Point blank too many points of failures.
Now some OC's do run offenses that lend themselves to be more easily moldable. This is not one of those offenses. It's a very rigid offense. You can decry that as some sort of cardinal sin, but I couldn't care less. I get that there are always new designer offenses out there and the grass is always greener, but in my time I've learned there are many ways to win in this league. I'll take the high risk of a low floor with the high reward of 30ppg when we're clicking. Doubly so when we have the perfect complimentary defense. But that wasn't the case this season.
So they were left with two options
1) Fix the points of failures
2) Revamp the entire offense
It seems Bowles (and
@Nobody ) was pushing for the latter but with his job on the line, Lefty went with the former and it cost him. Maybe he felt he was too limited by his personnel, his immobile QB, his OL depth, his own creativity, or a combination of all of it. Either way, the fantasy that you can just draw your way out of a bad situation is severely overblown. See Sean McVay. So instead, Lefty went the other way.
Byron was betting he could coach up or find the right combination of OL up front (he couldn't/didn't). He was betting, like in 2020, the QBs and WRs would eventually lock in together (they didn't). He was betting Tom Brady would be accurate Tom who wouldn't float INTs into the endzone (he was wrong).
So yes... OTHER REASONS are what put us in a bad situation... Leftwich's handling of a bad situation is what lead to his firing.
And yes, people can absolutely debate the merits of all this. Personally, I think Bowles fired Lefty for making his unsuccessful (and seemingly insubordinate?) decision to repair rather than revamp. And I get him wanting to hitch his wagon to any of many other tantalizing options that are on the market right now.
I get that we are hurt. I get that we are disappointed. But the idea that Byron took some great offense and ruined it because he is some worthless piece of shit who owes his entire career to Arians who, for some unexplained reason, decided to prop him up with years of lies is the kind of shit I hear from my teenage nephew.