You nailed it Danny. Martz is a fine offensive coordinator, but he passes waaaay too much for the 49ers personnel. I charted the Jets-SF game last night and the 49ers had six red zone first downs and Martz called pass plays on five of them, no play action. I think the 49ers only had two red zone first downs against the Dolphins and one was an incompletion and one was a sack.

Martz does it on the other side of the field, too. Thinking back to the Dallas game, deep in their own territory after a sack, Martz called a deep passing play from the 49ers own 9 yard line looking for a deep strike instead of trying to get some field position. Shaun Hill gets sacked again and Andy Lee’s punt is blocked for a safety because of field position. This isn’t Madden. Field position is extremely important in the NFL. After the first sack, Martz should have tried to gain some field position for a better punt, but he can’t help himself.

I’m really curious about who Singletary would choose to run the offense if he’s hired permanently after the season. I’ll be a little disappointed if it’s Martz.

i’ve tried to work through the logic of martz’s offensive philosophy, and i just can’t find any reasons to support it:

1) it could be argued that a “pass to set up the run” philosophy on offense is just what bill walsh utilized to a great deal of success. the distinction i find, however, is that walsh used short passes that served as psuedo-running plays to set up the run, whereas martz uses intermediate and long passes for the same purpose. walsh’s was a high-percentage application of the philosophy, whereas martz’s is a low-percentage application.

2) similar to the passing premium puzzle, it could be argued that passing in the red zone is more successful than otherwise realized, and that martz is simply exploiting a statistical advantage. again, however, there’s a problem: if you look at the top 8 red zone DVOA offenses, you find a who’s-who of run-first red-zone offenses: MIA, TEN, DAL, CAR, NYG, CHI. the only two exceptions are GB and IND, but even these teams are, in fact, above average in red zone rushing DVOA, which compensates for their pass-first predilictions.

3) another argument could be made that frank gore’s absence made the niners more pass-heavy in the red zone. again, a problem: foster was a more-than-capable RB on sunday.

so basically, i have yet to figure out a reason for why martz, whom i presume is far more qualified an offensive tactician than i am, continues to use a red-zone play-calling philosophy that is repeatedly unsuccessful.

in terms of your specific point about the other side of the field. if you go back to my discussion of martz’s field zone performance (linked in this story), he’s actually above average until his offense gets to the opponent’s 39. again, i think this has to do with the predominance of intermediate and long passes in his play-calling philosophy. as the field shrinks, the defense has less field area to cover, which leads to an increase in sacks and interceptions.i’d have to look at it in detail, but i remember those successful rams teams having an inordinate number of 40-plus-yard passing TDs, and a whole lot of marshall faulk 40-yard-and-under rushing TDs.

i have no idea who singletary will choose at OC, but, as i’ve been repeating on here for 2 months, i’m almost positive martz is gone at the end of the year.

I’m sure it can be split between Martz and Hill. The reason I voted for Hill is because of Steve Young. Listening to his show the other day, his comment was, he’s kind of inexperienced at dealing with the red zone situations. Because there’s less space to cover, defenses can play a tighter defense, so your openings for completions are going to be tighter. So either you’ve got to have faith in being able to punch it into the end zone via the pass, or you’ve got to make something happen yourself, and that can be something difficult to do if you haven’t gone through the experience enough yet.

It doesn’t make Shaun a bad QB, it just means he’s still inexperienced.