Sgt. Largent":2igzyxms said:
It's not all on Pete or the coordinator, IMO it's more about Russell.
For all that Russell is great at, and there's a lot...........unfortunately he's not a robot pocket passer like Brady or any other tall methodical pocket passer.
Russell is a tempo/rhythm/confidence building type of QB that needs to get into rhythm and tempo in order to get going.........and that's killed us for entire 1st quarters and halves.
How many times have you said "man Russell looks off" at the beginning of games? Like EVERY game? It's not until the end of the half or even into the 2nd half that Russell finally looks in rhythm.
I have no idea how to fix that, and obviously neither does Pete and his staff, cause it hasn't been fixed in Russell's entire career here.
A way to attempt to fix (fix is even too strong of a word here, attempt to mitigate might be better) it isn't seemingly on the table by dogmatic adherence to a tactical philosophy and a diminished coaching input - yes, no huddle, but not hurry up (let the clock run, ezpz), audible heavy opening drives. This gets RW engaged and focused right off the bat and helps the offensive staff see how the teams react to that situation. Not allowing subs for the defense and locking them into the base package they can exploit with a handful of potential plays. It would also keep the defense guessing from the get go because at this point, most defenses are probably not expecting that out of the Hawks the first drive at all. And on subsequent drives they might try and prepare for seeing that again with a different base package that is open to exploit.
But hey, if the Hawks don't really practice this mode of offense, it's probably not going to approach a fix.
I think doing it this way would also be a morale boost to some extent for all the offensive players although (hey, we're actually playing with some fire rather than doing flaccid crap to get a 3 and out), I bet Pete would hate it working well because it would undermine what he thinks is the best way to win, despite you know, it seemingly not being such at this point.
I would love to see an offense operate on this principle of catching the defense in a specific personnel package and then just hammering the hell out of the weakness of that package until a busted down allows for a huddle again. But again, like I've said too many times - you don't practice that, it probably won't be great.
