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.