But here's the catch Macbob - often you have OLs made for running or ones made for passing. Rarely OLs are good at both. Do you really want a better OL at running if it might be worse at passing (protecting Aaron)?
Careful what you wish for.
Now, I do stand by my statement that rushing success is irrelevant. Heck, especially with this team. We already proved we can win a SB with 11 RB rushes. You can even say 13 if you include Aaron's 2 kneel downs.
"macbob" wrote:
Yeah, we won it, but we wouldn't have without the 3 turnovers. The elite QB and the passing offense by itself wasn't going to be sufficient if the elite D had not gotten those 3 turnovers.
Let me ask you this--did you think our offense was better in the first half or the second half?
I thought we were clearly better in the first half. And in my opinion, it's no coincidence that in the first half we had a more balanced attack, rushing 7 times for 35 yards.
We had a respectable run game, and then completely abandoned it in the second half--we only ran it 4 more times. The announcers noticed and commented on it during the game.
We abandoned the run, and then started to struggle offensively. We did not convert a single 3rd down play in the 3rd quarter--we were 0-4.
Personally, I'm uncomfortable with a team that relies solely on one player--even if he is an elite QB. If we lose Rodgers (due to concussion, broken foot, etc) , or he has an off-game we're toast.
I'd much rather have a more balanced offense. If the other team has a top 10 run defense but are weak against the pass we can exploit them. But conversely, if they've got a top 10 pass defense but their run defense is weaker than a wet paper bag, then we can have our way with them as well.
John Elway--an elite QB--could not win the Super Bowl until he had a good running game (Terrell Davis) to take some of the offensive pressure off of the QB.
In my opinion, the more diversified we are the better. I want to be able to beat the Patriots in their own stadium with Flynn at QB, and we won't do that without a running game.
We almost pulled that off this year when McCarthy came out and committed more to the running game (37 passes, 35 rushes). It was that game that McCarthy committed more to the run and kept it up through the playoffs (until the 2nd half of the SB).
Our offense was able to keep the Patriots offense sitting on the sidelines, when they did get on the field they were cold and out-of-synch for sitting for an extended period. Our D had an easier time of holding them, which put them back on the bench for another extended period of time. And we would have won it without a comical special teams gaff at the end of the 1st half where we let an OL man lumber down the field in slow motion returning a kickoff to inside our 5 yard-line.
Earlier in the year, it was the games where McCarthy completely abandoned the run that we lost to teams like Chicago (13 carries, 45 passes), Washington (13 carries, 46 passes), etc. As noted in threads during the season, in the games we were winning we were maintaining a healthy pass/run ratio of 50s/40s, and in the ones we were losing our pass/run ratio shot up to 70s/20s.
And the pass/run ratio in those losses wasn't because we were losing those games--we were ahead in each one at the end of the 3rd quarter, except for the Miami game.
It was a conscious decision to abandon the run, and it bit us big time.
"zombieslayer" wrote: