If we kick off and the opposing team drives the ball down and scores, it's 7-0. Then on the first play on offense for us Donte fumbles and they get the ball back and score again. 14-0. We go 3 and out on our next offensive series and the opposing team gets the ball back and scores. We're down 21-0. We've only run four of the scripted 17 plays. Are we going to continue to run the ball at this point? Our offensive play-calling should be geared towards the other team's weakness and the game situation at hand, not McCarthy's pre-planned scripted plays. At this point, if we had to chose who to get rid of between McCarthy and Venturi I would have to go with McCarthy. At least Venturi has the excuse of an injury-riddled defense, McCarthy has nothing. I like a coach who can adjust and call plays on the fly, not one who drives his game plan home at all costs.

"cassady37" wrote:

I can\'t say that I agree with the McCarthy/Venturi statement, but I whole-heartedly agree that the play scripting is rediculous. That kind of thing has been talked about for over a decade and I still don\'t understand it.

I think that from the first play McCarthy needs to be fine-tuning the game plan. What if the first play from scimmage goes for 9 yards? I think any time you have a 2nd and 1 situation, that play needs to be downfield. If it succeeds, great. If not, a good NFL team ought to be able to pick up a 3rd and 1.

The reason it should go this way is because even on the first drive of the game, McCarthy needs to have an urgency about scoring. I understand that he wants to get some long drives going at the beginning of the game to build confidence, but nothing builds confidence like TD\'s and 40 yards drives that stall at the opponent\'s 35 don\'t impress me.

Scripting plays and ignoring the circumstances is just plain stupid. The sad thing is I\'m pretty sure we\'ve seen him do this about 5 times this year.

"ScottyRo" wrote:

Don\'t get me wrong, I would like to see the whole coaching staff fired. I was just really making a point with the Venturi/McCarthy statement. At least Venturi was depleted on his resources although he\'s an idiot on defense. McCarthy has no excuses, he has practically the same offense as he had last year but somehow he acts like he\'s getting use to a new scheme and players and needs several games to adjust. I\'m not sure who posted the article about the AFC scouting report on the Saints but it nailed us. It said McCarthy will find what he thinks is a weakness and stick to exploiting that weakness even if it means not adjusting. Maybe someone can help me out and post the link to that article?

"Cassady37" wrote:

All I know is that scripting the first 15-plays sure did work for the 49\'ers. There are a couple of reasons that a coach does this. One of the reasons that the plays are scripted is because the players are less likely to make a mental error, which is more likely to happen at the begining of the game, especially in a hostile enviroment. Secondly, a coach will change the plays if he feels it necessary to do so.

"BillyCarpenter1" wrote:

Ok, let me clarify this post. \"Why I think scripting the first 17 plays is ridiculous for the Saints with McCarthy.\" Of course other teams with other schemes work for them. It all depends on how they\'re scripted and what is exploited in scripting them. It also depends on your OC being able to adjust. Both of which I see lacking in this organization with ANY consistency with our OC.

"Cassady37" wrote:

I\'m not anything close to an offensive coordinator, but I think McCarthy relies to much on establishing the rush and trying to set up the pass. Our offense isn\'t a smash mouth offense. We are more of a finesse offense, like the Rams. McCarthy strives to have that perfect balance of the run and the pass. But, the problem is that he is too insistant on establishing the run at the beginning or the game. It\'s obvious that defenses are playing to stop the run with 8-man fronts, so why would anyone want to keep trying to pound the ball in there?

McCarthy can still have balance on offense, but I think he needs to come out throwing and get back to running later on. The wrong playing calling can hurt an offense as much or more than anything.

"BillyCarpenter1" wrote:

I don\'t believe that coaches put in stone that they will run 17 plays in a certain order. Play number one, I guarantee is firm. Play two is a check down of what happened on play one. If it was unsuccessful and you\'re 2-10, play two is totally different than if you are 2-3. It\'s like a flow chart. There is an order of plays scripted for scenarios on 1-10, 1-5, 2-long, 2-short, 3-long, 3- short, 4th down. It\'s not like they state, run 17 plays in order regardless of circumstance. They have probably highlighted what they want to see in each of the first two drives and then pick and choose from the chart from that point on.

Billy is correct in that it minimizes early mistakes by focusing on certain plays heavily in practice, and you should see more precise routes and easier reads for your QB since everyone should be on the same page on these plays for sure.

"lumm0x" wrote:

Ok, I\'ll take your word for it that it works that way and that it should lead to fewer mistakes and the like. Consider this from the nola.com:

\"In 53 regular-season games since 2000, the Saints have scored only five touchdowns on their opening possession, only once in their past 21 games. That touchdown came against the San Francisco 49ers in Game 7 last season. Deuce McAllister caught a 4-yard scoring pass from quarterback Aaron Brooks.\"

http://www.nola.com/saints/t-p/index...7982172740.xml 

So if it\'s supposed to make us better, why are we so bad at it? It just doesn\'t seem that the scripting is working all that well for us.

"ScottyRo" wrote:

And if it is a flow chart for different cirumstances I\'ll once again refer to McCarthy as OC. His flow chart needs unclogging. We seem to have a very unimaginative, very antiquated offensive scheme. We need to keep opposing defenses off balance and it seems we let them dictate to us what we\'re going to do instead of us dictating to them what they\'re going to do. Ever notice how much fun defenses seem to have when playing us? Kind of a let-everything-go sort of attitude? It\'s because we let them settle in and then they start to bring it as we fail to adjust. And the more they bring it with success, the more we get bogged down and dig ourselves into a hole that we can\'t seem to climb out of. It\'s like we\'re playing not to lose instead of playing to win.

"Cassady37" wrote:

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.

"lumm0x" wrote:

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.

"BillyCarpenter1" wrote:

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?

"Cassady37" wrote:

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.

"BillyCarpenter1" wrote:

Well, I don't see anybody talking about what advantages are gained by running these scripted plays which is finding out early what kind of defenses your going to see against certain sets.

"warhawk" wrote:

It wasn't the point of this thread to bash McCarthy for scripting plays. The point was that the same complaints have been made against McCarthy for years. These problems seem deeply ingrained to his system.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

Mike McCarthy sounded pissed about that yesterday post game.. bet your ass that it doesn't happen next week.

"pack93z" wrote:

The scripted plays "feels" out the opposing teams and helps set the table for the remainder of the game.. just as the first half sets up the second half adjustments.

If you want to get on Mike McCarthy, Staff and players.. it is the lack of emotion, it a everything counts game early in games.. then they wake up and get going. Last week it took Old man Driver to light the fire.. this week, Jennings dropped the potential fire starter and then Rodgers got dinged.

Mike McCarthy sounded pissed about that yesterday post game.. bet your ass that it doesn't happen next week.

And if it does.. the Patriots will have their third straight blow out week in a row.. and I don't see that happening. Packers win this game vs the Patriots and shut the talking head up.

"pack93z" wrote: