Yoop wrote: ↑27 Apr 2020 12:08
well, you'll never convince me that MCCcarthy schemes where as much of a problem or AR declined do to them minus what a couple receivers wouldn't have cured, your defending changing everything versus just getting him those receivers, our draft actions the last few seasons wasted some of the best years of his career, I don't know how that can't be more obvious, when he had receivers that could win the iso routes and one on one matchups he wasn't taking near the risk's, sacks or extending plays as much.
sure I get that times change, McCarthy had a long tenure, schemes get old, but imo that stuff deteriated because of receiver decline more then anything else.
I mean, no, you're right about a bunch here.
MM's scheme required WRs who consistently won 1-on-1 matchups, and over the years, we didn't have guys who were doing that as consistently. Jordy, Adams, Cobb was a great trio, but with Cobb being too-often knicked up, and Jordy's juice declining, we probably tried to squeeze a bit more out of them than we should have, and didn't have the kind of ready-for-action depth to move on from them like we did when Jordy, Jones, and Cobb emerged as Driver and Jennings departed.
We probably could have kept going with MM if we kept an insane WR room going--but that's what it was. What we had in 2011, when we had the end of Driver's career supplemented by 2nd round pick Jennings, 2nd round pick Jordy, 2nd round pick Cobb, 3rd round pick Jones... we were drafting a Day Two WR every year, and they were all hitting. You view that as the standard for how to make the best use of Rodgers. I, and some others, view that as unsustainable. We view the depletion of defensive talent on the team after Collins and Woodson moved on in part because we were stocking the cubboard with WRs over and over again.
So we shifted; we started drafting defense. The picks weren't all hits. So both the defense and the WR room suffered. But we went from INCREDIBLE WR room to a normal one, with a legit top guy and some other lesser players. And MM didn't adjust, as coaches should do. What's worse, MM
AND Rodgers over-bought into the "big plays = wins" philosophy that each cited, out loud, openly, frequently. And they stopped playing short to set up those long plays, and started trying to just create those big plays out of thin air, with WRs who weren't up to the task.
That was both a failure of MM to understand how to interpret and implement the analytics he had discovered, and Rodgers developing a lot of really bad habits and learning the wrong lessons from that.
It's not necessarily anyone's fault or that Rodgers is a bad QB or MM is a bad coach. It's just that both seemed to move in the wrong direction together, and the fact that it didn't work probably left both frustrated with the other that their ideas weren't being implemented correctly. So it was time for a change. And Rodgers needs to re-focus himself on completing passes first, looking for the downfield shot later. He needs to rrust the scheme to uncover WRs even if they aren't his trusted buddies.
And meanwhile, MM goes down to Dallas where Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, and CeeDee Lamb will win 1-on-1 matchups, particularly with Zeke forcing teams to respect the run and a solid OL. It's going to work out fine for everyone.
But keeping a WR room that looked like 2011 and 2012 is a VERY tall task. It's asking a lot. And it comes with a price--the opportunity cost of adding talent to other positions. And now we've brought in a guy who, everywhere this scheme is run, has seen QB success regardless of who the secondary weapons are. Mohammed Sanu, Taylor Gabriel, Justin Hardy in Atlanta... and Corey Davis and whoever in Tennessee had Mariota's career high completion percentage (and he only had one year). Absolute no-name WRs in San Fran with Shanny right now. A constantly rotating cast of WR characters on the Rams with McVay right now, and making a star out of Cooper Kupp, who is no more athletic or talented than many of our guys.
Things change. And you're not wrong that better WRs would have led to more offensive and QBing success under MM and AR. But you also have to understand why we didn't have them and how hard it is to keep them. And you should accept that change is afoot and there are other ways to succeed. Right now, we need Rodgers to trust the open guy, whoever it is, trust the scheme, and focus on completing passes. And yeah, we need Gutey to find weapons that fit the scheme. And we need MLF to use the scheme to put put talent in the best position to succeed. But simply tripling down on drafting WRs again won't necessarily mean they all pan out like they did for us from 2006-2011.
Sorry, I rambled.
