Bye Week Priorities....

[mmmbeans]

i think i'm going fishing.

[Guest]

Kick punts all day every day to AE for the rest of the bye, and see if he can catch the ball without bobbling it. See if he can try to make something happen instead of just trying not to make a mistake.

[Khaki Lackey]

The penalties are all about discipline. I would think RR would be pretty intimidating being a former linebacker with a lazy eye and all, but I guess he needs to up the intensity. He should shank Naanee in the locker room in front of the team.

[rayzor]

1. Run blocking. We are no where near as productive as we should be, especially given teams are no longer loading up the box against Cam.

2. Punt returns. Would be nice to see AE get just a little bit of space to run every now and then.

3. Coaching. Growing tired of the mental breakdowns and penalties. Falls in the discipline category, which falls on Rivera.

agreed and i would add to that playcaling late in the game and with a lead. they are trying to play it safe when they just need to be more aggressive and trying to increase the score. you can't count on the defense being able to blow a lead and you can't count on special teams to do their job very well on FGs or coverage on punts. it's left up to the offense to make it tougher for the other team to catch up by putting more points on the board.

[Marguide]

We keep saying we're young, on offense, there are two 'young' piece parts.

Most of the holding is coming from Gross, Wharton, Steve Smith and our personal favorite Nanee....then the pushoffs with Shockey.

There is nothing young in that group.

Yes, I know the rookie OT had a couple that's expected. The others should know better.

I only remember 1 or 2 each all year by Gross and Wharton. The wide-outs and TE's have really hurt us in this category, along with Bell.

[rayzor]

Kick punts all day every day to AE for the rest of the bye, and see if he can catch the ball without bobbling it. See if he can try to make something happen instead of just trying not to make a mistake.

this isn't the issue.

he's catching the ball.

he's not being given holes to go through. he can't make anything happen when there is no room to move. we can't block or open holes on returns of any kind.

[Guest]

this isn't the issue.

he's catching the ball.

he's not being given holes to go through. he can't make anything happen when there is no room to move. we can't block or open holes on returns of any kind.

Its not the only issue but its part of it. I've seen him bobble the ball several times and it takes that extra second to make sure he has it before he starts moving upfield. And yes I realize we have no blocking at all. Better than fumbling I guess.

[NCstoner420]

With the team having to take four consecutive days off this week I don't see anything being fixed over the bye week.

[j2sgam]

Gross has always been a holding penalty machine... Averages 5.1 per year, including the present...

edit:average is for penalties, not necessarily holding

[lightsout]

Let's just get healthy and have time for Cam to clear his mind of these disappointments. Hopefully the penalty issue gets addressed tomorrow in practice. We need to get the OL to go out as a unit and go bowling or to a titty-bar or something. Gotta get that chemistry there quicker.

[AviationMX]

Not a good idea given the youth on our team. Best thing right now is to keep it as simple as possible. Confusing the young guys would not be so smart.

That's a good point, but I had the feeling that Offenses were reading us pretty easily..especially in the viking's game. We would stack the box and ponder would audible for a hot route for a first down. I'm sure Rivera can plug in simple shifts to make it a bit harder to read our D.

Actually, we did pretty good in the first half of the vikings game..they sure as poo had us figured in the second half...which our D was gassed and getting thin, but I still feel like we didn't even attempt to confuse a rookie QB with movement.

[panthers55]

Actually I think that there is quite a bit we can do with the defense over the bye. I think we could go with more of a 4-6 formation. It is really not 4 linemen and 6 linebackers but more of a 4-4 look using 4-3 personnel where you bring the strong safety in the box. My variation would be to bring in two strong safeties instead of an OLB and strong safety, use the unbalanced line and be aggressive with misdirection. The advantage of the 4-6 is that is stops the run while the advantage of the strong safety instead of OLB would be to help in zone or man coverage where we are getting killed in the short zones or in man over the middle. Here is what it looks like in general.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46_defense

Vary that with shifts to a more tradition 4-3, safeties in coverage on some passing downs, corner or safety blitzes. etc. If we ran it we would need to pick up another strong safety or use Senn who was a SS in college in coverage. He ran a 4.5 forty in 2008 coming out of the draft.

You might have noticed we have run this a few times in the last several games.

I also think we give Hogan reps if he is healthy and see what he can do. I would like us to use more four corner, 1 free safety looks in our passing nickel on third and long where we know they are going to pass.

[The_Mango55]

Bye week priorities

1. Rock and roll all night

2. Party every day

[Jackofalltrades]

1. Defense

2. Special teams

3. Defense

4. Special teams

5. Defense

6. Special teams

Etc, etc.