lumm0x

Watching the games and wondering why we are running certain plays off the start of games, I can understand why we don\'t score on opening drives. There haven\'t been many thatwe don\'t three and out. It\'s what plays they script that has caused that. McCarthy is making me shake my head all season. He did it last season as well, but I adopted the \"if it ain\'t broke\" mentality and brushed it off.

We could walk in with just a book of plays and fly by the seat of our pants, and that very well may be feasible at home where you don\'t have crowd noise and by the fact that we haven\'t had to fill spots on offense due to injury, but on the road that would be tough. There would be nothing worse than opening a game with a call and one of the WR mistakes an out for an in and we give up a quick seven.

BillyCarpenter1

Well said. I\'d also like to add that mental mistakes and penalties have killed us on opening drives this year. I can\'t say about the past couple of years though. Also, our offense is missing one big thing that other offenses have and that\'s the \"Screen Pass\". How can it be so damn hard to run a screen? Hell, McCarthy hardly even calls a screen!!

I hope to be able to come here after the game Sunday and talk about how well the offense executed, instead of being so damn confused as to why the offense can\'t score. Let\'s face it. We all have ideas to why the offense is struggling, but we don\'t have the power to make the changes, so we can never prove ourselves to be right or wrong. Mike McCarthy is the only one who can right this ship.

Cassady37

You might have something there with the walking in with a playbook and fly by the seat of our pants. If we all will remeber back to the good ole days, ( you know, when we went to the play-offs) that is exactly what we did with Brooks coming in and taking over for Blake. The down side? As you pointed out a receiver going the wrong way on a pass. But, could that be any worst than a receiver letting a pass go through his hands for an interception? Or the receiver dropping the ball when he\'s wide open? That\'s what has been happening, the only difference is we would have the opposing defenses couyldn\'t set up for us as usual. Anything would be nice just to show the fans that someone in the organization is making an effort to correct thses problems. It seems McCarthy doesn\'t think anything needs changing. Anyone know where I can get McCarthy\'s blinders?

BillyCarpenter1

I have been critical of McCarthy but I don\'t know if the problem is more with the play calling or the execution by the players. To be fair, the blame should probably be shared equally. While I don\'t think McCarthy\'s game plan is the best in the world, the stupid mistakes by the players on the offense is limiting McCarthy\'s play selection.


There are two types of situations an offensive coordinator is faced with. One is favorable and the other is not. The first one is when the offense is in a short yardage situation. Offenesive coordinators love short yardage situations, because they have the whole play book at their disposal. Basically, the offense is able to dicatate to the defense what it wants to do. This keeps the defenders from pinning their ears back and coming after the QB, because they must honor the run, which really opens the passing game up. Really what it does in give the offense a big advantage in short yardage situation, because the defense is in a total guessing situation. They must guess whether to focus more on stopping the run OR the pass. But, it\'s up to the offensive coordinator to take advantage or these situations.

What\'s been happening to the Saints offense way too much this year, is that they are shooting themselves in the foot with dropped passes and penalties, This places them in 2nd and 3rd and long situations. Now the play calling is limited and the defense is dictating what the offense can run. In these situations, there will be more pressure applied to the QB and it allows the defense to drop more defenders in the secondary because it is a known passing down. While a team might still complete a pass, it is MUCH more difficult.

The Saints best chance to get the offense on track is to be successful on first down and put themselves in favorable down and distance situations. Now, it\'s up to McCarthy to call the right plays on 1st down and he shouldn\'t be content with just running Deuce up the middle everytime on 1st down. He needs to trust his players and call the type of game plan that utilizes all of the players strengths. So far, I haven\'t seen that happen very much this year.