Questions I hope will be answered soon

1) We have a lot of drops, but why? Does Cassel throw a ball that's hard to catch, is Cassel rushed and end ups throwing a hard to catch ball, or are our WR's actually not that good.

2) Our QB gets sacked a lot, why? Does Cassel hold onto the ball too long because he's indecisive, are our WR's just not getting open which makes Cassel hold on to long, or does our line just suck.

3) We look predicatable often running on first and second and having to throw on third, why? Is our offensive coordinator crap, is Haley crap, is Cassel crap.

4) Sometimes we look really good like the Raiders game then we get blown out by Miami why? Are our players inconsistent, is this a coaching issue, are other teams just figuring us out.

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Originally Posted by figcrostic

1) We have a lot of drops, but why? Does Cassel throw a ball that's hard to catch, is Cassel rushed and end ups throwing a hard to catch ball, or are our WR's actually not that good.

2) Our QB gets sacked a lot, why? Does Cassel hold onto the ball too long because he's indecisive, are our WR's just not getting open which makes Cassel hold on to long, or does our line just suck.

3) We look predicatable often running on first and second and having to throw on third, why? Is our offensive coordinator crap, is Haley crap, is Cassel crap.

4) Sometimes we look really good like the Raiders game then we get blown out by Miami why? Are our players inconsistent, is this a coaching issue, are other teams just figuring us out.

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1) I'll give Baldwin a pass with the broken thumb and being his first year. I said this in another thread but being at the game this last Sunday really helped me see that Cassel would throw a bullet at a receiver when he could have floated it and the reverse. Not all his fault as the picture of Bowe is floating here where he's looking somewhere else and the ball is about to hit his hands.

Overall I'm going to say that more drops than not have been when we need a certain amount of yards and on 3 & 8 instead of running 9 yards and then coming back a yard to the ball they run 5 yard curls and then have to get YAC to make the 1st down. That isn't so much the receiver but the play that's called. Just a few thoughts though.

2) Cassel does hold on to the ball an absurd amount of time but the line seems to be feast or famine when it comes to a pocket. The receivers are running their patterns and I haven't heard a single word about the receivers having the right to modify their patterns (to a degree) to get in a better spot. Overall being sacked is on Cassel because if it isn't there then throw the ball away. He was better about this last year and seems to have regressed....at least to me he has.

3) Cassel checking down to a run on 1st & 2nd down seems unlikely. I think the reason for that is simply we want to be a run first team and so they scramble and say what's our identity? Oh, we're suppose to run first so lets run. Then on 3rd and long we're forced to pass and you get the result we've seen to much.

When we get into a two minute offense our offense seems to click better and I think it's just that the play calling isn't over thought. I also think in that type of offense it forces Cassel to stop trying to think about who he needs to pass it to and he just goes out and slings the rock around. Unfortunately lately even a two minute offense hasn't mattered. So right now I say it's a combo of all three. Which leads me to...

4) The Raiders game to me was an anomaly because the Raiders seem to want to run the ball more and couldn't really do that when they got down 14 - 0 early. We moved the ball but looking back we still only put together two scoring drives the whole game. I think that game was mainly a backup QB and a rusty QB playing from behind and forcing the ball. So it's more that the D was playing lights out.

Miami...well someone else here said it best so I can't claim it. Miami has been built to compete against the Patriots and wanting to emulate them caused the results we all saw. I also think it was Haley practicing them all week and the D was already tired from the Monday night game. The offense continued to do what it had done since the San Diego game which is being inept.

I went back and counted and since the San Diego game we've had 35 drives. We've scored on 8 drives (3 TD's, 5 FG's) and turned the ball over, turned over on downs or punted 27/35 times, that's 77%!

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Originally Posted by figcrostic

1) We have a lot of drops, but why? Does Cassel throw a ball that's hard to catch, is Cassel rushed and end ups throwing a hard to catch ball, or are our WR's actually not that good.

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I wondered about that for a while the past two seasons. But, in the end, unless the recievers are getting hammered as they try to make the catch, which has very rarely been the case, then there really is no such thing as a hard pass to catch, if it hits you in the hands.

Even if the ball is coming end-over-end, good hands make the catch.

And, watching the passes, they have not been wild passes, they have been good-looking throws.

Even if there is something about the spin he puts on it, or something, I just can't see putting those on the QB.

But, should we, suddenly, not have that problem arise again for the rest of the year, while Cassel is out, then it will be used as evidence, despite that that same problem dissolved last year, after a horrible start.

I am not going to buy anything that suggests some hidden "hard-to-catch" aspect of Cassel passes, over plain, simple, poor hands.

As with any statistic, clusters skew the look of the statistic.

Looking at the overall drops situation for this season, should the WR crew manage to do well in that category for the rest of the year, then their averages will look ok.

So it would hide the bad spikes within the average.

ANd we are getting exactly that kind of spike performance, all of the place.

Our pass-protection put together a few pretty good games. But, they have been horrible for the others. When you average that out, while not looking like they are good, they don't look as horrible as what they have been in certain games.

A runningback who breaks an 80 yard TD run, but ends with 107 yards, on 22 carries had a good day, statistically, (4.8 YPC) but, averaged just above a yard per carry, aside from the one big play.

The big play is nice, and you can't take that out of consideration. But 1.2 YPC is going to really hurt your offense.

Basically, he had a bad game, with one redeeming play.

And we are getting spikes like that, only they are spikes of terrible.

Our defense is allowing 134 rushing yards per game.

But, if you take away the spike of the Broncos game, 120.25 RYPG.

Not that that is great. But that single spike is the difference between being ranked 18th, and 26th, in The NFL.

18th would be slightly below average, and 26th is pretty close to the bottom.

Our team has just been full of those spikes, both good, and bad, all year.

As a result, we have a team that beats the top two teams in our division, yet gets blown out by struggling teams.

right now we have NE worried. they wanna know which Chiefs team will show up monday night. good. keep em guessing:lol:

Here are my thoughts on this and it is

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Originally Posted by figcrostic

1) We have a lot of drops, but why? Does Cassel throw a ball that's hard to catch, is Cassel rushed and end ups throwing a hard to catch ball, or are our WR's actually not that good.

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A lot of things go into drops, but when a well placed ball hits a receiver right in the breadbasket and he drops the pass, then those are directly on the receiver. That is a fundemental piece of being a receiver. Now, why does it happen? Youthful exuberance is probably the biggest culprit. If you played baseball, at an early age you are taught to watch the ball all the way into your glove. The same is true for being a receiver. I think this is the problem with our younger receivers, Bowe being one of the biggest culprits.

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Originally Posted by figcrostic

2) Our QB gets sacked a lot, why? Does Cassel hold onto the ball too long because he's indecisive, are our WR's just not getting open which makes Cassel hold on to long, or does our line just suck.

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Our line sucks. We have the lightest line in the league and we just cannot protect the quarterback. It is worse because we are in so many obvious passing downs that the defense knows that if they get to the QB, the play is over. The line sucks, period, and has for almost ten years now.

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Originally Posted by figcrostic

3) We look predicatable often running on first and second and having to throw on third, why? Is our offensive coordinator crap, is Haley crap, is Cassel crap. .

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All of the above. We teally do not have the quarterback to be a passing first offense, so we are going with a running first. However, our line is not getting a push off the line to allow a run first offense to get the runs that we need. We are then pushed into obvious passing situations where the line is still not up to speed.

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Originally Posted by figcrostic

4) Sometimes we look really good like the Raiders game then we get blown out by Miami why? Are our players inconsistent, is this a coaching issue, are other teams just figuring us out.

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I think this falls squarely on a coaching issue and preperation for the game. We have had an issue for a long time of playing to the level of the team we think we are going to see. In the Dolphins game, I think the team thought this was going to be a rather easy game and got blown out, they were not prepared to play. With the Raiders they were prepared, but the Raiders failed. Ultimately, the thing we all need to remember here is that the games we have won for the most part have been won by superior play on defense. We really have not seen anything from the offense that looks like they are capable of winning games for us.

If the receivers aren't getting open, of course Cassel is going to hold on to the ball longer than normal to try to make something happen. But, with our weak OL, that is a mistake on his part. I think he is an aggressive QB in that he wants to get the ball downfield and sometimes that translates into sacks. He has very low interceptions and fumbles because of this aggressiveness, but also his completion percentage has suffered. Even with the weak line, with Cassel and the receivers we have, it has to be the play calling.

another reason he was taken out of the donks game was he was just flat beaten up.