Sherman playing not to lose- the play he SHOULD have called | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Sherman playing not to lose- the play he SHOULD have called

LoneStarPhin

LoneStarPhin

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First, as an Aggie, I was a big supporter of Sherman's program but eventually grew completely frustrated with his lack of the killer instinct.

Now, I understand running on 1st and 2nd down there at the end to make them use their time out, but on 3rd down we could have played very conservative AND played to win:

Since Pitt is likely expecting the run (knowing Sherman)-


Bootleg Tannehill to the right, with these explicit instructions:

only throw it if you have a clearly open receiver with an "easy" pass
if have a chance to run it in, then do so.
If neither of the first two, then just slide down.

I think you have to believe Tannehill is smart enough to carry out those orders. Basically, you give yourself two options for a TD BEFORE just going down and running clock. Sherman's call jumped right to option 3 (unless you think we had a good shot at scoring on that run)
 
Dolphins won. No game is perfect. Learn from mistakes and improve. Quit this nitpicking ****. This team is in a good state after all the **** they have endured. Give it a break
 
And hopefully we score 34+ pts next week in the same "playing not to lose" fashion.
 
Not nitpicking. Great win and I'm enjoying it.

At A&M, we saw Sherman blow huge 1st half leads over ranked or favored teams all season in 2011. Became a national topic. And then he was fired. Most of those games had several turning points where the Ags chose a course of playing not to lose- only to lose. Perhaps that is the next step that Sherman is planning in RT's development- trusting him a little more to do the bold stuff. Hope so.
 
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Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing on that 3rd down play. If you re-watch it, Tannehill was pretty much ignored. I would have been an easy TD. Even if they had reacted and covered it, he slides down just like you suggested. At least it wouldn't have been such a predictable call, all while still being 'safe'.
 
LoneStarPhin said:
First, as an Aggie, I was a big supporter of Sherman's program but eventually grew completely frustrated with his lack of the killer instinct.

Now, I understand running on 1st and 2nd down there at the end to make them use their time out, but on 3rd down we could have played very conservative AND played to win:

Since Pitt is likely expecting the run (knowing Sherman)-


Bootleg Tannehill to the right, with these explicit instructions:

only throw it if you have a clearly open receiver with an "easy" pass
if have a chance to run it in, then do so.
If neither of the first two, then just slide down.

I think you have to believe Tannehill is smart enough to carry out those orders. Basically, you give yourself two options for a TD BEFORE just going down and running clock. Sherman's call jumped right to option 3 (unless you think we had a good shot at scoring on that run)
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Tannehill has proven he can't be trusted in making decisions at the end of games. Jets game in OT last season he made a stupid audible to a long pass when we only needed a few yards, and he audibled from a run to a pass in the Buffalo game this season which resulted in a sack/strip/fumble and cost us the game.
 
I didn't have a huge problem with our approach there, but this is exactly the play I said I wanted them to run in that situation. Low risk, high reward and if I recall the wide side was actually pretty open at the time of the handoff. Good call.
 
The game had already been won at that point. Playing to preserve that is playing to win.
 
I agree totally.. i called for that same 3rd down play.. play action bootleg, if its wide open throw it.. if not tanne runs it.. if they don't go for the fake he falls down..

lets face it, you knew we were not gonna score a td just pounding it up the middle there
 
tommyp said:
I agree totally.. i called for that same 3rd down play.. play action bootleg, if its wide open throw it.. if not tanne runs it.. if they don't go for the fake he falls down..

lets face it, you knew we were not gonna score a td just pounding it up the middle there
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The problem with that play is that it takes Tannehill's eyes away from the defense during a portion of time after the snap in which an unabated blitz off the edge could cause a fumble by an unsuspecting QB. Better to get the ball in the hands of the running back immediately, while he's facing the line of scrimmage and can see what's coming at him and cover the ball.

Those who want to see Sherman's play-calling as problematic, however, will shoehorn this sequence of plays into their pre-existing belief.
 
There were one or two calls Sherman made I didn't care for, but I thought he called a pretty good game and I thought Tanney made pretty good audibles. Not much to complain about in this one for me.
 
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MiZFiT said:
Dolphins won. No game is perfect. Learn from mistakes and improve. Quit this nitpicking ****. This team is in a good state after all the **** they have endured. Give it a break
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Nope. hold up a sec. Lone Star is right. Although ANY win is a good win, the fact remains the coaches are already NOT learning from it. Between the coaches and our QB ( who by the way I think is very talented) almost EVERY game, we are giving the opposing QB a last chance to beat us. WE are not going to win important games (including playoff games) if we can't figure out how to run out the damn clock and keep the other QB on the bench. This is going to take a combination of good play calling and better smarts from Tannehill. We MUST find a way to get to the victory formation. This year we have been fortunate a few times that the defense has stepped up and stopped that last chance. Other times, giving the opponent that last chance (Buffalo, etc.) has bit us in the butt. I am optimistic that Tanny will continue to evolve into that "nail in the coffin" type of guy, but it WILL also require better play calling. To get more WINS we have GOT to stop letting the other QB have the ball with 1:52 and two timeouts left. We are not there yet. I cringe every time we don't get that one last first down. TO be able to accomplish that at a high rate is one factor that will take us from being a pretty good team to an elite team.
 
Wat about that 3rd and 1 where tannehill hits clay for 40 yrds. That was a nice throw downfield.
 
I couldn't agree more. If Pitt hadn't of stepped out of bounds on that last play everyone would be calling for Shermans head.
 
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