Merged: Post Game Press Conference

[ckparrothead]

:confused:

Do you honestly believe that? That's very faulty logic, but it 's obviously the same logic you are applying to the Sage/Gus situation.

Do you honestly believe it was a bad move when Nick Saban benched Reggie Howard in favor of Eddie Jackson? Or when he tinkered around with the offensive tackles in order to find out which pair he should start consistently? Or how about when he benched David Boston in order to find out whether or not Wes Welker could make a bonafied contribution on offense?

It is a good coaching philosophy. When you have a player performing poorly, and a player behind him that you don't know enough about, it is time to start finding out about the player who is an unknown.

 

[vinivedivichi]

You're not comprehending what I am saying.

What are you saying? You are happy it was an aggressive call, but considering the variables you pointed out it was a bad call? What does that mean?

 

[Finland]

and what are we learning exactly?

Nothing the last couple of weeks, besides RB is good and so is RW. But then again, we already knew that.

 

[vinivedivichi]

Do you honestly believe it was a bad move when Nick Saban benched Reggie Howard in favor of Eddie Jackson? Or when he tinkered around with the offensive tackles in order to find out which pair he should start consistently? Or how about when he benched David Boston in order to find out whether or not Wes Welker could make a bonafied contribution on offense?

It is a good coaching philosophy. When you have a player performing poorly, and a player behind him that you don't know enough about, it is time to start finding out about the player who is an unknown.

Bringing up specific situations doesn't validate your stance. I agree with every one of those moves because Saban felt they needed to be made. He saw enough from the backups that he felt a move was warranted. When he gets to that point with Sage, a move will be warranted.

Bringing in the backup is not about the coach "not knowing enough" about him. It's about trying to give the team its best chance to win with the best players on the field. The backups have a responsibility to show they are worthy of playing time. You are looking at the situation only from the perspective of the starter not performing. You don't just make the move if you are not comfortable with the backup, the backup has to show you something that makes you believe that he could be better than the guy you are benching. Just being unknown is not good enough.

 

[unifiedtheory]

Very long.

He's been doing good things with crap players. One bad call does not a career make.

Please... quit going overboard everybody. :shakeno:

One?

I counted 8 HORRIBLE play calls...

 

[dougfinsfan72]

My exact thoughts on Gus and the season.

Saban just told the media that he too is wondering why we threw the on 3rd & 2,I can assure Linehan is gonna get torched for this.Ferrote needs to be bench,find outwhat sage has for the rest of the season,Draft urself a QB next Draft and sit tight and hold on for the rest of the season....

Give some of the young guys some much needed experience. Give Gus one more start and if he continues to suck then bench him for the rest of the season and see what Sage or Cleo can do. The D-Line is OK, leave Zack and Crowder in as LBs, bench Howard and keep him off the field for the rest of the season and experiment with all the other positions except for running back to see if you got some potential players on this team.

 

[Dolphin North]

How long before the FireScottLinehan.com website starts up?

I think it's being constructed as we speak.

 

[Dolphin North]

Give some of the young guys some much needed experience. Give Gus one more start and if he continues to suck then bench him for the rest of the season and see what Sage or Cleo can do. The D-Line is OK, leave Zack and Crowder in as LBs, bench Howard and keep him off the field for the rest of the season and experiment with all the other positions except for running back to see if you got some potential players on this team.

I agree with the philosophy, but the problem with outwardly giving up so soon is that veterans just want to leave or not get signed to play here at all. Even when you see the season slipping (or has slipped) away, you have to give the team a chance to turn it around or you are sending a bad message around the league as a coach to play for. A few more games at least. But I don't care if they bench Gus. But they better bench Linehan first.

 

[Marino420TD]

It's a great call if the pass is a TD.
It's a good call if the pass is completed.
It's a bad call if the pass is incomplete.
It's a &**xxafks call if it's an INT.

The bottom line is that if it works it's a good call. How many times has someone run a draw on 3rd and 7, gained 12 yds, and you hear "what a great call". Run the same play and get stuffed for a 2 yd gain, and you hear "I don't understand that call", and "what a dumb call".

The OC is PAID to make to CORRECT call in these situations - that means a call that WORKS. I don't care if the punter comes in and runs an end-around for a TD.

Conversely, if he ran it twice into the line for no gain on 3rd and 2 and 4th and 2, we would ask for his head for not throwing it. "They were playing the run..".

Bottom line... the call by Linehan sucked (the play did not work), Gus blew it (worst-case scenario INT) and we lost.

 

[ckparrothead]

What are you saying? You are happy it was an aggressive call, but considering the variables you pointed out it was a bad call? What does that mean?

If you are calling the play based solely on the nature of the defense, it is a decent call. If you are calling the play based solely on the nature of the offense, it is a horrible call. Some heed must be paid to both factors, so it was neither a decent call nor really a horrible one. He took a shot in a running situation on a play-action pass in the redzone. If you want to be a good offense, you have to be able to take those kinds of shots. But, similarly, he passed the ball when the nature of his offense was suggesting that running the ball would have converted a first down. So, in that sense it was a horrible call, if you're taking for granted that we are not a good offense.

 

[themole]

Bringing up specific situations doesn't validate your stance. I agree with every one of those moves because Saban felt they needed to be made. He saw enough from the backups that he felt a move was warranted. When he gets to that point with Sage, a move will be warranted.

Bringing in the backup is not about the coach "not knowing enough" about him. It's about trying to give the team its best chance to win with the best players on the field. The backups have a responsibility to show they are worthy of playing time. You are looking at the situation only from the perspective of the starter not performing. You don't just make the move if you are not comfortable with the backup, the backup has to show you something that makes you believe that he could be better than the guy you are benching. Just being unknown is not good enough.

Which I'm sure is being done in practice. If they aren't close in practice, a game situation certianly isn't the place to test it.

 

[laxcoach]

...As a coach you have to make a decision as to who gives your team its best chance to win at each position. When players are performing poorly, you don't just replace them with unknowns just because they are unknowns. That is generally not a good coaching philosophy.

This is flat out wrong. I've won championships as a H.S. coach (granted not the big leagues like Saban) and I can tell you definitively that staying players who are bad on gameday is a losing proposition. It is no different than Wanny saying that you have to have trust that the veterans will play better.

There are two ways to get better play out of a position. 1 - bench a guy to piss him off so that he plays better... I like guys like that. They are fighters. 2 - bench a guy and find someone better.

You can only "coach a guy up" so much. At some point his talent and instinct makes a player what he is. You will see flashes of potential, but they always regress to what they are.

One final thought. The thing that put me over the top as a coach was understanding that you need a mix of guys who play their assignments perfectly AND guys who are reckless but get away with it.

Sometimes you see guys in practice who drive you nuts because they don't do what you want, but they make these plays that almost piss you off because you want them to learn to be disciplined. We need 1 or 2 guys on defense like that. Further, it looks to me like we need a QB like that. The other guys are just playing their assignments.

 

[ckparrothead]

Thank you, laxcoach. Thank you.

 

[finfan54]

It's a great call if the pass is a TD.
It's a good call if the pass is completed.
It's a bad call if the pass is incomplete.
It's a &**xxafks call if it's an INT.

The bottom line is that if it works it's a good call. How many times has someone run a draw on 3rd and 7, gained 12 yds, and you hear "what a great call". Run the same play and get stuffed for a 2 yd gain, and you hear "I don't understand that call", and "what a dumb call".

The OC is PAID to make to CORRECT call in these situations - that means a call that WORKS. I don't care if the punter comes in and runs an end-around for a TD.

Conversely, if he ran it twice into the line for no gain on 3rd and 2 and 4th and 2, we would ask for his head for not throwing it. "They were playing the run..".

Bottom line... the call by Linehan sucked (the play did not work), Gus blew it (worst-case scenario INT) and we lost.

whenever we moved the ball with authority it was running ronnie/ricky. Do you think you could run two more plays to get 3 yards and play it safe and run the clock down to nothing in the process? Linehan is a dork.

 

[vinivedivichi]

If you are calling the play based solely on the nature of the defense, it is a decent call. If you are calling the play based solely on the nature of the offense, it is a horrible call. Some heed must be paid to both factors, so it was neither a decent call nor really a horrible one. He took a shot in a running situation on a play-action pass in the redzone. If you want to be a good offense, you have to be able to take those kinds of shots. But, similarly, he passed the ball when the nature of his offense was suggesting that running the ball would have converted a first down. So, in that sense it was a horrible call, if you're taking for granted that we are not a good offense.

I think you're basically right, but in a sense you're over-thinking it. Saban has talked a lot about trying to have an identity on offense, and it seems that in terms of production our identity is a power running game. The Falcon D flat out couldn't stop Ronnie or Ricky, especially in the fourth quarter. I am 95% sure that we get a first down if we run the ball twice for 2 yards. Does passing the football "trick" the defense? It probably catches them off guard, but it's playing into our weakness and thier apparent strength against us. If there's ever a time to go with your strengths, it's when the game is on the line in crunch time. We didn't, and in fact we played to our weakness, and we lost because of it. I would say that constitutes a bad call.

You can say this is in hindsight, but I disagree. Many have said already how you just got the feeling something bad was gonna happen every time Gus stepped back to throw. When I saw it was a pass play I cringed, when I saw the result I cursed. You just don't get fancy when you don't have to IMO.