Really good chalk talk from Huard this week

Worth watching if you missed it. He's covering the last play of the Hawks 2nd drive where Russ and Baldwin couldn't connect on the fade.

[youtube]ihPKXav70XE[/youtube]

Huard would make a great quarterback coach, or offensive coordinator.

I thought this was a big play that nobody really talked about. I also think this play and the number of targets really shows how much Russ trust Doug over Jimmy. When they showed the replay you can see Jimmy Graham running open in the middle of the field while Doug is being double. As much as we blame Bevell it seems like there's times that Russ makes his mind up before the snap and in this case he was wrong.

Almost seems simple. If the FS goes toward Baldwin, throw to Jimmy and vice versa. The play is designed to make the safety decide, the QB should play off that.

Bigpumpkin":1c84psyg said:

There seem to be many plays where Russ is unable to see the open receiver. Aaron Rogers doesn't miss much!

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Part of this is the result of "David Carr Syndrome". You can see RW start freaking out as soon as his O-Line breaks containment. He usually turns the wrong way and allows one big fat slow dude to corral him or throw the ball away.

Maybe his injuries were / are part of it, but you watch other QB's and they are playing like RW USED to when pressured.

It is affecting his accuracy big time. I wish we had a stat for how many wide open overthrows he had this year.

sutz":6on08tmh said:

Almost seems simple. If the FS goes toward Baldwin, throw to Jimmy and vice versa. The play is designed to make the safety decide, the QB should play off that.

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Yep. It's a really good breakdown.

Also worth saying that this is really typical of most passing concepts in the NFL these days, which really simplify things for QBs. People talk about the rules restrictions on defenses to explain the passing explosion in the NFL, but it's this same basic force concept that has taken the NFL by storm which has more to do with it, IMO.

Basically, on almost all modern passing concepts, rather than going through progressions a QB has two jobs on every pass play:

1) Correctly diagnose defensive coverage pre-snap.

2) Read the force defender (in this case, the FS) and then throw the ball to the place he isn't after he declares.

It's why I think the "can't get through his progressions" talk gets thrown around way, way, way too much, as most passing concepts have been dumbed down to not even really have progressions: you're just watching one defender and throwing the ball to where he isn't.

Progressions only come into it if 1) you've misread the defense pre-snap, 2) you get moved off your spot due to quick pressure, or 3) the defender totally beats his man in your 1 on 1 matchup you were creating space for.

I mentioned this in the gameday forum (but obviously broken down much better by Brock). Jimmy had inside leverage on the SS as the FS was already running towards Doug. I'd say 9/10 times if he throws to Jimmy that is a touchdown.


1000% have to do a better job getting him the ball in the red zone next season. Too big of a threat to avoid him the way we did.

Excellent breakdown. I think Russ still has a lot of work to do in regards to navigating the pocket like Brady or Rodgers. Those are QBs who are able to buy enough time to see the entire field which is why they rarely ever make bad decisions or miss open receivers. Part of it is the o-line of course but Russ seems to pull the trigger too quickly sometimes even when he has a good pocket.

Softy and Holmgren were talking about this play last night. Anyone have a link to the whole play?

Bigpumpkin":1db0t2u1 said:

There seem to be many plays where Russ is unable to see the open receiver. Aaron Rogers doesn't miss much!

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Drives me crazy.

Bobblehead":2m6lbza1 said:

Bigpumpkin":2m6lbza1 said:

There seem to be many plays where Russ is unable to see the open receiver. Aaron Rogers doesn't miss much!

Click to expand...

Drives me crazy.

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Thats what happens when he gets hit/pressured on what 30% of his drop backs? Makes him throw the ball quicker then he should. If he could of taken a half second more he would of seen the FS commit and could of gone to Graham. But he doesn't usually have that half second so even when he does, he see's ghosts and throws it.

gowazzu02":283t4lde said:

Bobblehead":283t4lde said:

Bigpumpkin":283t4lde said:

There seem to be many plays where Russ is unable to see the open receiver. Aaron Rogers doesn't miss much!

Click to expand...

Drives me crazy.

Click to expand...

Thats what happens when he gets hit/pressured on what 30% of his drop backs? Makes him throw the ball quicker then he should. If he could of taken a half second more he would of seen the FS commit and could of gone to Graham. But he doesn't usually have that half second so even when he does, he see's ghosts and throws it.

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My feeling is Russell didn't advance a much this year as I would have liked or thought he was going to at the beginning of the year. I think his injuries and the Oline were definitely a hindrance, but he should have seen the play in question here. If you break pass plays into segments, first 2.5 secs, then the next 1.5 seconds and then what happens when he escapes, at different times we've seen him be great in all three of those phases. Early he was especially deadly in the 3rd portion. I think he's always had that ability to get away and it has slowed his progress, his recognition and instincts, in the other two. The last 8 games of last year show he can be exceptional in the first 2.5. The injuries this year took away the escapability and the Oline took away a level of comfort in the first. It's really not surprising when you look at it this way that he is where he is at this point in his career.

A co worker and I were talking bout this and comparing different QB's. Manning, Rothlesberger, Rodgers and Kaepernick. Rodgers is the most complete. Manning and Ben are all arm and Kaep was all legs and an empty head. Russell is much closer to Rodgers than he is to Kaep, but he needs to take that next step to Rodgers territory. He's absolutely capable as he has the brains and the arm and while he will slow over time he'll always have some moves to get a bit of extra time. I really hope we get to see him next year with a better Oline and healthy legs.

I'm not a Bevell supporter, but this just goes to show that all of our issues don't lay at his door step.

Honestly, it's been a common enough theme in the red zone that it's resting on Wilson's shoulders now. Once Lynch retired, it's been even worse in the red zone since we don't have a threat in the backfield.

I wouldn't mind seeing us going CB in the 1st round, and BPA between RB and OL for the 2nd round. A truly dynamic RB changes this offense entirely.

At this point, it looks like Russell needs it. The lack of targets in the red zone to Graham is just mystifying to me.

Largent80":31ilpiag said:

Bigpumpkin":31ilpiag said:

There seem to be many plays where Russ is unable to see the open receiver. Aaron Rogers doesn't miss much!

Click to expand...

Part of this is the result of "David Carr Syndrome". You can see RW start freaking out as soon as his O-Line breaks containment. He usually turns the wrong way and allows one big fat slow dude to corral him or throw the ball away.

Maybe his injuries were / are part of it, but you watch other QB's and they are playing like RW USED to when pressured.

It is affecting his accuracy big time. I wish we had a stat for how many wide open overthrows he had this year.

Click to expand...

Great post L80. I watch highlights of Russell when he came into the league and his pocket presence was better. As our line finally became fully cable guys, he has lost all confidence in them for good reason and now compounds the issue by sacking himself in a panic.

Great breakdown.

Bevell still sucks, but as stated before, RW's pocket play has declined considerably. Granted, the sucky O-Line has understandably contributed to that, but RW did not improve this season - he declined.

Injuries? Sure, but overall, his timing was off, his accuracy, etc.

Hoping 2017 will be a strong bounce-back for him.

Brock illustrates well the next step Russ has to take to become a more complete QB. Bev and Carl Smith have to their parts to build that awareness in him.

So, while many continue to bash Bevell, isn't the QB coach responsible to doing what Brock did?

Who is the QB coach? why isn't he sitting next to RW with the Surface showing him what the D is doing?

We're paying RW a boatload of money, I would think the team would do as much as possible to protect their investment with a competent QB coach.....and a solid OLine.

Our QB coach for Russ's entire tenure has been Carl Smith, who you can hear more from here. I'm not sure how you would go about evaluating Smith from the outside, since if you attribute Russ's errors to him then you should probably also give him credit for Russ's successes.

So lets look at this a little more, and I agree Wilson missed that one and has not been as good in the red zone as years passed. So in

2016 48% (no Lynch)
2015 56% (Lynch injured and hardly played)
2014 51%
2013 53%
2012 54%
2011 46% (pre Wilson but with Lynch)

So we have always been pretty good with Wilson except for this year. So what is different this year; Oline sucked, it has in years before so not an issue. No Lynch okay did not really have him last year and we were good, had him in 2011 and we sucked. So again probably not the main issue. Wilson regressing, okay maybe but we really don't know, because we do know he had 3 major injuries that would not heal while he was playing, Pectoral, Knee and ankle.

So given his consistency in the red zone since being here and that including without Lynch last year, the logical conclusion is not that he regressed but that indeed injuries are the main issue. To further illustrate this earlier in the season meaning prior to all 3 injuries with only 1 we were over 50% It started to drop after his 2nd injury.