Article claiming Panthers should NOT decrease read option usage next season

[Gabeking]

http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/content/nfl-myth-busting-dont-blame-read-option-for-carolina-panthers-7-9-record/23378/

Just a disclaimer this guy is a huge Cam hater, as evidenced by his previous articles regarding him..(Im not gonna post that garbage..) What do you all think? IMO it's just more of the same from him: more stats without context.

[teeray]

The read option was not the issue last season.

[teeray]

Also feel like I have to point out for the bazzillionth time that 4QC and GWD are both very deeply flawed stats that can be manipulated completely by things out of a QBs control. Both for the QBs benefit or his detriment.

[fieryprophet]

Scott Cocksmear

[MadHatter]

Looking back, The Read Option wasn't the issue. It was Chud and his ego.

When we ran it and the amount we ran it absolutely was a problem early last year.

[Razeyfingers]

Its fine now. Whats done is done. Let the league know that Cam can do that if he has to. Let them all account for that.

[natty]

I don't care what the average stats say.  Just watch a game from last year and you can see how ineffective it was.  

 

The guy who wrote this seriously downplayed the negative plays we had as a result.  Those negative plays kill drives and leave points off the board.  I would say you'd need 50 yards of offense to negate one -5 yard play.  That's how impactful those plays are.  

[panthers55]

First of all it might have been a small percentage of all plays but it was almost 40% of all running plays which is way too many for one set.  It was also a good portion of our negative running plays which kills drives when you end up in 2nd and long or 3rd and long.

 

The point that wasn't discussed at all was that in the first half of the year we not only used the read option but we had made the various reads very complicated sometimes keying off the DE, sometimes the DT, sometimes the linebackers which slowed Newton down and was one of  the reasons he was so ineffective.  I also remember a discussion where the blocking scheme on the read option was very different from how we blocked other running plays or pass blocking essentially telegraphing when we were going to use the read option.  All defenders had to do was see how the OT blocked and they could tell what play we were going to run  and to what side which is why it got blown up so often.

 

So the whole premise that the read option wasn't the problem based on quantity and yards per play is rather simplistic and doesn't account at all for the problems we had with the read option and why we improved so much. Clearly the author had an agenda when he started out and fit his whole discussion to support what he already believed to be true. Not unlike many arguments by posters on this site.

[Mr. Scot]

I don't care what the average stats say. Just watch a game from last year and you can see how ineffective it was.

The guy who wrote this seriously downplayed the negative plays we had as a result. Those negative plays kill drives and leave points off the board. I would say you'd need 50 yards of offense to negate one -5 yard play. That's how impactful those plays are.

Pretty much.

It's a lot of mental gymnastics to say "it's not the system, it's Newton". To make that point, you have to significantly downplay that Newton and the offense improved greatly as the Read Option was minimized.

[Frizzy350]

a -5 yard run play is pretty equivalent to getting sacked.  getting sacked murders drives.

 

in all seriousness the read-option wasnt the single reason we didnt start out hot.  we had some bad runs, missed passes, inopportune interceptions, defensive breakdowns and some down right bad luck.  the issue we had with the read option was simply how much we telegraphed it to defenses (DEs would often not make a decision and hung back waiting for the option, this actually gave Newton tons of time on play action passes that developed as a read option would), and not having a strong enough oline where one missed responsibility or loss of control completely ruins the play.

 

frankly I think it came down to Chud, he just didn't have good game sense when it comes to play calling.  Yes he is creative and many of his play calls have the potential to rip off fat chunks of yardage, but many of those plays require absolute perfect blocking and fake responsibilities and unfortunately defensive players are payed to shed blockers.  running the read option on 2nd and 10 (which happened often) is just a huge gamble, because if things go wrong you are looking at 3 and 12 or longer.  he also loved to do things like call screen passes down near our own endzone (super risky, in week 17 a TD was brought back on us because of this).  Chud called plays like his offense was composed of 11 robots rather than humans.

 

There is a lot of like about Chud, but I don't think long term he'd have been good for this franchise.  Going into year 3 for Cam, its time he starts to develop a sense of what is comfortable for him personally.  Look at Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers, arguably 2 of the best in the game, but they run wildly different offenses due to comfort.  Rodgers has one of the best deep balls I've ever seen and is fast enough to take off for first downs, so he generally has his receivers running deep posts and streaks.  Drew Brees has happy feet, a super quick release, great accuracy and a so-so deep ball (its still pretty good though) so he runs an offense designed to get the ball out quickly on slants, screens and hooks.  You can't just swap the two guys between the teams and keep the same offense, they'd both be less effective playing in the others' system.  Cam needs to learn his identity:  What kind of receivers does he like?  Tall?  Fast?  Good route running?  Its tough to afford the elite that cover all those categories.  How often should running backs be given the ball in a Cam Newton offense?  How quickly does he want to get rid of the ball? How often does Cam want to run?  If the line is going to allow pressure through to Cam, where is Cam most comfortable avoiding that pressure (blindside? right up the middle?) Peyton Manning is the perfect example of a guy who has perfected running an offense catered to his own abilities.  Sometimes you get lucky with your OC or HC (see Brees + Sean Payton) and you have a perfect match, but could you imagine Chud trying to be Peyton's OC?  It'd be a complete mess.

 

Cam needs to learn all of this at some point and having a very... controlling OC like Chud hampers that development.  Cam may face even more lumps this year, but he does need to develop a symbiotic relationship between what is comfortable for Cam and what is being done in the system.

 

In other news, my favorite Chud play is a tie between the Annexation of Peurto Rico vs houston or the fake hand-off to fake screen (to stu) to end around to Lafell vs the saints.  Everytime I watch that second play my eyes still cant follow the ball.

[pantherj]

The read option was not executed properly by the players, Cam and the o-line botched it a lot. Had they ran it properly it would have been amazing imo. Chud must have been in shock watching them foul it up, yet even so he was able to move on to a HC position.

 

Adding more talent on the o-line this past draft would have been a big help, but we simply had too many holes elsewhere.

[Udogg]

the 1st 7 games of the season ...

 

 I tivo'd every game.  I watch them often trying to make something different happens.....

 

1. Silatolu was a grocery store door on pass plays. Think remember the Titans when the QB said just let him go, yep that bad.  Gross gave away the outside edge on a vast majority of the plays and I'm not sure if that was by design or because Siatolu was doing the same thing. I am not an expert but I don't think that's a good thing.  Cams agility covers up a lot of the O line mistakes.

2. The right side of the line was pretty good on passing downs, but on runs, they were horribad.  I mean we tried to run to the right side but it just wasn't there. Center played bad no matter who did it, that included Kalil.

3. Cam either missed or had no checkdowns. Plus he got super duper tunnel vision on any of Steve Smith out routes or square ins.  Tivo of course doesn't tell the story, but he was waiting on plays to develop too long.

4. Combination of 1 and 2, the run game was pretty much non existent.  After the first 4 games Deangelo didn't even think the whole was going to be there. On the read options teams were playing the running backs 85% of the time and Safeties were keying on Cam. (kind of hard to describe unless I had video, but it's really prevalent in the Giants, Bucs and Seahawks games)

 

Last 9 games.

1. Silatolu a back door with no lock bad in passing plays.  Still pretty bad just not as bad, but I'm not an expert on anything just my observations.  Once again Cam's agility makes him look better than he played. Gross played better but Bell was by far the best Oline player for the entire year..... I know right, cooky.

2. Right side of the line played really good.  Still can't run block(fire off the ball) but they could seal like mofo's so you could bounce it outside. They became super on pass plays.  I mean stifling. Center position solidified.

3.  Cam became Mister 1 read, 2 read, checkdown (Jimmy Clausen was checkdown, 1 read , 2nd read in comparison).  Not sure if it was by design or coaching but he got rid of the ball way faster.  Plus a was a lot more underneath stuff drags, comebacks, wheels, you name it.  When I say a lot more, it was like the difference between Rosie O'donnell and Halle Berry.

4. We figured out we could run to the left side all the time.  Thus Deangelo actually saw some holes.  Plus we started giving Tolbert a lot more carries and he just made holes.

 

 

 

 

[dos poptarts]

Not really related, but is there a website that scouted/tracked all the plays from last season? Never got around to purchasing the NFL GameRewind last year, new baby and all, to play with the all-22 video.

 

No prob if it's a pay site, just need to sift thru data.

[teeray]

Not really related, but is there a website that scouted/tracked all the plays from last season? Never got around to purchasing the NFL GameRewind last year, new baby and all, to play with the all-22 video.

 

No prob if it's a pay site, just need to sift thru data.

http://www.derp/2013/7/9/4508740/the-truth-about-the-carolina-panthers-read-option#172590575

 

 

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoYlQP-ovPSpdGUxdVRsUDhvOXhPR21xcVk1MVFmZ0E#gid=0

 

 

Some interesting tidbit from this breakdown.  There were only 8 0 or negative plays out of the read option last season and most were from misreads.

 

The read option was not the issue last season and we would be foolish to get too far away from it.