Popeyejones":1eermro5 said:
I think people over-emphasize the loss of Lynch on the downfall of the Hawks' running attack, and massively under-emphasize the decline of the read/option as a staple of NFL running attacks, and that the Hawks haven't really adapted from the loss of the read/option as a staple of the offense.
Unlike the other read option teams (e.g. Washington, Carolina, San Francisco) which have all transitioned to other types of rushing attacks (e.g. outside zone in Washington, power gap and then outside zone in SF, a kinda "exotic smashmouth" in Carolina) the Hawks are still essentially running inside zone read option plays without any actual read option.
People forget that even Lynch was really ineffective in the Hawks' offense in 2015, which was when the read/option really went away because it had been figured out.
To be very clear though, I don't think this is just an issue of poor scheming, as the types of run plays you can call from shotgun are much more limited than what you can do from under center, and there's other reasons why the Hawks still prefer to play out of shotgun.
I don't think its over emphasis when the alternative is straight crap in multiple facets
1. Yards after contact - ML was pretty good at this and it is fundamental to eeking out SOME yards when the OL invaribly crapped it up
2. Health - ML for that 3 year stretch of greatness was abolsutely more healthy than any individual RB currently on the team and possibly the entirety of the RB stable currently on the team.
3. Pass blocking - he could do it and not just do it but was actually pretty decent at it. That hasn't been the case since.
4. Attitude - That je ne sais quoi
5. Pass catching - okay this is one area where they've probed and had some success - Prosise if he wasn't a glass man would easily be getting 10-15 snaps a game in that kind of role. McKissic did alright in that role. As a dump off option, Mike Davis mysteriously appeared as the only capable back.
I don't think the loss in itself was catastrophic, it was the replacements having maybe 60% of the utility of ML in all those capacities that was. It's not the divorce, its the 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 10th wives, that are the problem.
This speaks nothing to the OL itself but I have a nagging feeling that the expectations that ML set up were way too high and almost denigrating to his individual talent - how so? The assumption that the combination of this line with this stable of running backs would be 'good enough'. I look at it from the other direction - things were only good enough for the greatest spurt of the Hawks history because of ML - take out that factor and what was previously good enough out of the OL (the OL that very few Hawks fans have loved since 2005), obviously isn't.
I do agree though that the diminishment of the RO league wide, not just the Hawks is an indicator that whatever juice that brought to the game is spent.
