The Dowdle Mirage - Play Calling Problems

[TN05]

1 minute ago, RJK said:

this is exhibit A of how analytics and fantasy sport stat dorks have ruined sports. That was a unimpressive 200 yard rushing game is a wild take 

Obviously the fact every carry wasn't for 52 yards means he's bad

[Doyle]

Dumbest thread of the year nominee.  

[tukafan21]

2 minutes ago, CRA said:

Rico had 6 runs of 10+ yards.  Thats a rate of every 3-4th touch went for 10+.  That was a top 5 Panthers history performance 

AND he did that with a D only playing 20 yards and no threat of a pass.  Sure Adrian Peterson had a lot of nothing runs in his good days too

Don't count the final drive of the game where we just needed a first and then kneel downs, and we had 10 drives today.

Of those 10, we had drives of 4, 29, 13, 26, and 4 yards.

Half of our drives today went for under 30 yards.

That's because if Dowdle wasn't making an explosive big play, we were just running the ball into the back of our OL and doing nothing, while at the same time having Bryce dink and dunk the ball to our TE's and RB's for minimal gains.

That's my issue here, our game planning and play calling is terrible and if we're not busting loose for a big play, we're doing absolutely nothing.

[tukafan21]

3 minutes ago, RJK said:

this is exhibit A of how analytics and fantasy sport stat dorks have ruined sports. That was a unimpressive 200 yard rushing game is a wild take 

I didn't say it was an unimpressive 200 yard game.

I'm saying it was a poorly called game

Those are two very different things and can exist at the same time.

[csx]

This is 100% about the OPs favorite player not being the hero today. You don't need to read any deeper.

Asking Bryce to pass more and go deep more is a recipe for losing. 

[CRA]

3 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

Don't count the final drive of the game where we just needed a first and then kneel downs, and we had 10 drives today.

Of those 10, we had drives of 4, 29, 13, 26, and 4 yards.

Half of our drives today went for under 30 yards.

That's because if Dowdle wasn't making an explosive big play, we were just running the ball into the back of our OL and doing nothing, while at the same time having Bryce dink and dunk the ball to our TE's and RB's for minimal gains.

That's my issue here, our game planning and play calling is terrible and if we're not busting loose for a big play, we're doing absolutely nothing.

Again, our QB is BY. 

we got lucky today.  Big plays aren’t what we do NOR are they what we are trying to do.  Again, BY is the QB.   The pass game you want requires a new QB. 

[tukafan21]

4 minutes ago, CRA said:

BY can’t and won’t make the plays you want. Playcalling isn’t going to matter 

Honestly, then let him go out there and fail miserably, I'd respect Canales more than I do right now.

If you call those plays and he just proves that he can't make those plays, then that's on Bryce and gives Canales the ability to bench him again.

But instead, he calls a terrible game to try and hide Bryce's deficiencies.  Which yes, I can understand why he would do that, because ehe knows Bryce sucks, but that's also how you end up in the situation of Bryce tricking people into thinking he deserves another year, just like he did last year.

Call the game like a real NFL coach, if then the QB sucks and it causes you to get blown out, so be it. 

We're watching a high school football team out there.  Your QB can't throw the ball, so you just run 3 yards and a cloud of dust offense and hope you get lucky with the RB breaking loose a few times a game, and if not, you get blown out.

Are you people really enjoying watching that kind of football?

[frankw]

I don't know what's going on with this thread. Dowdle is a baller and had a hell of a game.

But it is valid to suggest it would be nice to capitalize on the talent of the guy we drafted EIGHTH overall.

Both things can be true.

[tukafan21]

3 minutes ago, csx said:

This is 100% about the OPs favorite player not being the hero today. You don't need to read any deeper.

Asking Bryce to pass more and go deep more is a recipe for losing. 

Am I frustrated at T-Mac not getting more looks?

Of course, but I'm not upset at him not being the hero.

I'm frustrated at Canales being a fuging pussy with his game plans and play calling, Bryce deficiencies aside.

Call the game like an NFL coach, when the QB fails, put in the backup who at least has an NFL level arm at 85 years old.

5 games in and Bryce has 1 game over 200 yards this year.  While this was also our first game with someone who has rushed for over 73 yards, so it's not like we're running it great on the whole either.

[Basbear]

20 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

I know full well this post is about to get poo'd into oblivion, but I think it's important to not look at final box scores when judging how a game went, especially in regards to play calling and game plans.

A friend of mine was giving me poo for how I can complain that we didn't throw to T-Mac more when "you won because you were just riding the hot hand with Dowdle."

So I just went and looked at the play by play and he had 162 of his 206 yards on just 6 of his 23 carries, which means he had 44 yard on his other 17 carries, or just 2.6 yards per carry.

That's not riding the hot hand over the course of a game, that's a player having a handful of big plays, partially due to some poor tackling, and thus having a final box score that jumps off the page.

This is why T-Mac's lack of targets in the 2nd half bothers me so much, because what the hell were we actually doing out there?  It means the overhwelming majority of our play calls ended up in a minimal gain or dink and dunks to our lesser pass catchers who combined for 125 yards on 22 targets, or a measly 5.7 yards per pass attempt.

So yes, full credit to Dowdle for having a career game, but his end box score doesn't tell the story about the entire game and the issues with out play calling.

 

As vice co-pilot on the Tmac spaceship, tuk you need to calm down my friend... Your "relationship" with Tmac is unhealthy. Please realize this is a Carolina Panther forum. 

Brother, take ALLL, I mean ALLLLLL your merchandise out of your bedroom as a first step. Enjoy the win and your #1 guy help just like he has each week. 

[tukafan21]

Just now, frankw said:

I don't know what's going on with this thread. Dowdle is a baller and had a hell of a game.

But it is valid to suggest it would be nice to capitalize on the talent of the guy we drafted EIGHTH overall.

Both things can be true.

100%

But again, I know I keep going back to T-Mac needing more targets, because he does...

My frustration is more about the overall play calling than my guy not getting more looks.  If we were throwing downfield more to XL, Brycen, Horn, the TE's, whatever, I'd be more accepting of T-Mac's lack of targets.

But when his lack of targets are then creating more 1 and 2 yard rushes, or 5 yard passes that hit the ground before even reaching the target, then it's an entirely different issue for me.

[tukafan21]

4 minutes ago, Basbear said:

 

As vice co-pilot on the Tmac spaceship, tuk you need to calm down my friend... Your "relationship" with Tmac is unhealthy. Please realize this is a Carolina Panther forum. 

Brother, take ALLL, I mean ALLLLLL your merchandise out of your bedroom as a first step. Enjoy the win and your #1 guy help just like he has each week. 

I get it, but again, while I know it all comes back to T-Mac because he's who I'm saying needs more targets, I'd be saying the EXACT same thing if we had the exact same player as T-Mac, but he didn't go to Arizona and I wasn't such a huge fan.

If we had a weapon like him, and then had the same game plans and play calling as we've had so far, I'd be saying the same stuff, 100% of it, not one difference.

My frustrations come out as anger about T-Mac's usage, but it's really just frustration over Canales and his crap play calling.

Yes, we won, but we also did it where our best player got a single target in the entire 2nd half when we were losing for most of it

How does that make any sense?  

Winning doesn't absolve the coaching staff of terrible decisions for me, sorry.

Edited October 5, 2025 by tukafan21

[CRA]

7 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

Honestly, then let him go out there and fail miserably, I'd respect Canales more than I do right now.

If you call those plays and he just proves that he can't make those plays, then that's on Bryce and gives Canales the ability to bench him again.

But instead, he calls a terrible game to try and hide Bryce's deficiencies.  Which yes, I can understand why he would do that, because ehe knows Bryce sucks, but that's also how you end up in the situation of Bryce tricking people into thinking he deserves another year, just like he did last year.

Call the game like a real NFL coach, if then the QB sucks and it causes you to get blown out, so be it. 

We're watching a high school football team out there.  Your QB can't throw the ball, so you just run 3 yards and a cloud of dust offense and hope you get lucky with the RB breaking loose a few times a game, and if not, you get blown out.

Are you people really enjoying watching that kind of football?

Some of that is just BY and not Dave.  You can go back to the preseason.  BY just ain’t pulling the trigger on a lot of vertical and big plays even if it’s in the call with the coverage.  His arm is weak and his balls are often bad when he does it.

and no, I don’t enjoy it.  I don’t want a chunk pass offense featuring a middle schooler at QB that stinks at it.  Solution is to replace the QB.  Not have way more bad plays. 
 

[OldhamA]

34 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

I know full well this post is about to get poo'd into oblivion, but I think it's important to not look at final box scores when judging how a game went, especially in regards to play calling and game plans.

A friend of mine was giving me poo for how I can complain that we didn't throw to T-Mac more when "you won because you were just riding the hot hand with Dowdle."

So I just went and looked at the play by play and he had 162 of his 206 yards on just 6 of his 23 carries, which means he had 44 yard on his other 17 carries, or just 2.6 yards per carry.

That's not riding the hot hand over the course of a game, that's a player having a handful of big plays, partially due to some poor tackling, and thus having a final box score that jumps off the page.

This is why T-Mac's lack of targets in the 2nd half bothers me so much, because what the hell were we actually doing out there?  It means the overhwelming majority of our play calls ended up in a minimal gain or dink and dunks to our lesser pass catchers who combined for 125 yards on 22 targets, or a measly 5.7 yards per pass attempt.

So yes, full credit to Dowdle for having a career game, but his end box score doesn't tell the story about the entire game and the issues with out play calling.

I'm happy whenever we take the ball out of Young's hands.