First, I get it. It's typically lower variance in outcome than passing, it can leverage other things you want to do, it keeps the clock moving under your possession, etc etc.
Here are the problems though.
Rushing already has a lower expected value than passing even if you're very good at rushing. But that doesn't matter much if your rushing is in fact very good because distance to down will be achievable with consistent rushes.
So why do I invoke the expected lower value? Think of it like an investment - we are investing a lot of capital and labor into something that already has lower returns than another investment type.
The calamity starts when the running game is straight up bad though. Sometimes we still get the dividend of play action passing sometimes we don't. I know that this seems really obvious, like "No duh T, bad things are bad" but the problem is focusing on the running game at the expense of other possibilities in formulating a gameplan, plays themselves, etc etc is it leaves you in a brittle situation.
Brittle how?
Rushes are getting sub 3 YPC. Which means in general we're having to execute passing plays on 3rd down around 4+ yards which isn't insurmountable by any means but...
If we had the ability to consistently hit passes that went for 5-7 yards on 2nd down, we wouldn't necessarily NEED to on 3rd and it's quite possible that we'd actually be more competent at it when we needed it on 3rd down by virtue of making it a strong part of our offense.
But it feels completely absent. It isn't but it feels like this is an schematic aspect of our offense that is just completely lacking. We can hit the showtime down the field shots and that's awesome. But if the stakes of a 3rd down is 4 yards, we seem tragically incapable of doing that.
So why is this short passing game seemingly absent or seemingly inept? I can only guess that for the ranges they would cover that a run seems just as good from a risk reward perspective (And that does ask how risky they think it is to pass with RW short. I swear to god, if SB49 made PC this risk adverse, that's quite the millstone). That's a PC/Schotty judgment call.
How else does the run first mentality make the offense brittle? The game situation might call for you to score faster than the running game can deliver. Or you want to preserve clock as much as possible so that you can ensure your offense gets more opportunities down the road. But if the two things your offense excels at are taken away by the defense and you're under the gun with needing to score quickly and not burn a ton of clock in the pursuit of that...welp, hope you have a short passing game that can help.
Finally, and this is the Pete Carroll specific problem. If your running game accrues holding penalties especially but any penalty you're completely screwed. Runs won't dig you out of the hole, the short/intermediate passing game you avoid isn't developed enough to get you out of the hole, so you're just hucking it up there and going 3 and out. Pete's consistently undisciplined OLs, no matter who is their coach is just one of them things that will always undermine his offensive passion with rushing.
Thems my thoughts. Happy offseason!
Here are the problems though.
Rushing already has a lower expected value than passing even if you're very good at rushing. But that doesn't matter much if your rushing is in fact very good because distance to down will be achievable with consistent rushes.
So why do I invoke the expected lower value? Think of it like an investment - we are investing a lot of capital and labor into something that already has lower returns than another investment type.
The calamity starts when the running game is straight up bad though. Sometimes we still get the dividend of play action passing sometimes we don't. I know that this seems really obvious, like "No duh T, bad things are bad" but the problem is focusing on the running game at the expense of other possibilities in formulating a gameplan, plays themselves, etc etc is it leaves you in a brittle situation.
Brittle how?
Rushes are getting sub 3 YPC. Which means in general we're having to execute passing plays on 3rd down around 4+ yards which isn't insurmountable by any means but...
If we had the ability to consistently hit passes that went for 5-7 yards on 2nd down, we wouldn't necessarily NEED to on 3rd and it's quite possible that we'd actually be more competent at it when we needed it on 3rd down by virtue of making it a strong part of our offense.
But it feels completely absent. It isn't but it feels like this is an schematic aspect of our offense that is just completely lacking. We can hit the showtime down the field shots and that's awesome. But if the stakes of a 3rd down is 4 yards, we seem tragically incapable of doing that.
So why is this short passing game seemingly absent or seemingly inept? I can only guess that for the ranges they would cover that a run seems just as good from a risk reward perspective (And that does ask how risky they think it is to pass with RW short. I swear to god, if SB49 made PC this risk adverse, that's quite the millstone). That's a PC/Schotty judgment call.
How else does the run first mentality make the offense brittle? The game situation might call for you to score faster than the running game can deliver. Or you want to preserve clock as much as possible so that you can ensure your offense gets more opportunities down the road. But if the two things your offense excels at are taken away by the defense and you're under the gun with needing to score quickly and not burn a ton of clock in the pursuit of that...welp, hope you have a short passing game that can help.
Finally, and this is the Pete Carroll specific problem. If your running game accrues holding penalties especially but any penalty you're completely screwed. Runs won't dig you out of the hole, the short/intermediate passing game you avoid isn't developed enough to get you out of the hole, so you're just hucking it up there and going 3 and out. Pete's consistently undisciplined OLs, no matter who is their coach is just one of them things that will always undermine his offensive passion with rushing.
Thems my thoughts. Happy offseason!
