Mike Singletary Monday lunchtime press conference: Jaguars edition

Rec.

having a run game sure helps Brett Favre and the Vikings this year. In some ways you can’t really separate them. If Favre did not have the oline he has and the strong running threat, he might be pressing a more. Maybe his int’s would be up, etc.

I agree with your basic point: that a strong passing attack is essential to winning consistently. However, if people are afraid of your run, you get to pass against base defenses more; if they are afraid of your passing game, you get to run into nickles, etc….

Anyway, interesting post and I like this point: “…ESPN piece proving that the productivity of any running back on a team is almost entirely dependent on the team’s offensive line.”

Our game planning is definitely constrained by our current, and temporary, oline situation, and our running game is dramatically diminished. No doubt of that.

couldn’t one just as easily argue that yesterday’s game proved singletary’s “offensive strategy” was not so closely held? i mean, i’ve been detailing stats every week since smith took over that show they need to put him in a patriot/colts-esque “shotgun every play” kind of pass-first offense that uses the pass to set up the run rather than vice versa. so, i think it actually is a testament to singletary (and — vomiting in mouth — raye) that he’s as flexible about his “offensive strategy” as he is…to me, i already knew passing is what wins, and i already knew that the OFF they showed vs. JAX was the one they should have been running since the HOU game. but i’m not the coach, so i’m not the one that can do anything about it. he’s the coach, he’s the one that can either say “it’s my way or the highway” or “this is the right thing to do,” and there’s a graveyard full of head coaches (see Nolan, Mike) who stubbornly did the same thing over and over again when the fans, the media, the opponent, and everyone else knew that the best thing for the team was the exact opposite of what the coach was doing.

so, just to conclude my rant here, i think singletary’s “offensive strategy,” like he said at the end of the presser, all along has been “whatever it takes to win.” at the beginning of the season, he looked at the team and saw a winning, incumbent QB who couldn’t throw farther than 10 yards, a 50-year old #1 WR, and a 2nd-year late-rd pick at #2 WR, and said to himself, “self, frank gore and vernon davis are the only playmakers on my offense, so let’s play a run-oriented style w/ play-action to VD, and let the single best player on our team, patrick willis, and our defense win ball games for us.” now, he sees a starting QB with an arm, who plays better when he’s in the shotgun, a new #1 WR who’s got some serious talent, a TE who leads the league in TD receptions, and a running game that’s actually better since they’ve been using more shotgun. so he switches to an offensive style that fits that talent. so to say that his “offensive strategy” is this or that and say that the JAX game proved singletary, specifically, wrong, is missing the forest for the trees. not to mention the fact that he’s been saying all along that fans/media weren’t right to say he wants “3 yards and a cloud of dust.” every presser, he’s said over and over that that isn’t his philosophy.

so really, point is — and i know it’s taken a while to get there — that to single out singletary’s “offensive strategy” here is a strawman argument. he’ll do whatever it takes on offense to win, and that’s what he’s said all along. when he thought running would give them a better chance of winning (i.e., before the influx of talent in the HOU game), he wanted a conservative, run-first offense. now, after crabtree and smith have become starters (which were his decisions by the way), he thinks an aggressive, shotgun passing offense gives them a better chance to win, and is adapting accordingly. i’d much rather thave that in a head coach than a guy like nolan who the whole world is telling him what’s wrong with his strategy, and he refuses to change it (see Big Sub, “The Hybrid,” Jim Hostler, J.T. O’Sullivan, Mark Roman, etc., etc.). for this pragmatism and flexibility, singletary deserves mad props, not to be made into a strawman.

For this season you are accurate. Yet just last season the top 7 rushing yardage teams all made the playoffs, including three of the top four seeds, while only one of the top four made the playoffs. The team that won the SB was not in the top 15 of either.

Some of these things swing season to season so I’m not sure that any declarative statement about running or passing is accurate. For sure, if you play in outdoor stadiums that have awful winter weather or need to protect a bad defense, running is best. If your QB is your best player, you should certainly pass more than run. Looking at the last two SB losers, their inability to compliment their great passing games with any real threat of the run cost them a championship.

A team can’t be great unless it has a good to great passing game. If all you have is rushing you won’t be able to win in this league.

and postame pressers too…

now that i think about it, you sound like the perfect person for a weekly singletary “tails off” post. :-)

Good points. Personally, I think the timing of the offensive moves has been excellent. The timing and low-key way he worked Smith in, the quick entry of Crabtree, the gradual progression to more spread and more passing offfense.

I think the coach has a very good sense for timing and of what players are ready for and what they can and cannot do at a given point.