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Originally Posted by barrett
Agreed Chuck. The NFL is a league designed for every team to have 8-8 talent. It doesn't always work that way obviously. A small few are superior. A small few are inferior. And the middle 25 or so are pretty even in talent. This middle wins and loses depending on scheme. Basically can your coach "take his'n and beat your'n, or he could take your'n and beat his'n." It's a very small line between 5-11 and 11-5.
I think if we change the script and stay one back we become nearly impossible to defend. Nobody has secondary depth to deal with Slaton, OD, AJ, Walter, and Anderson/JJ on the field at once. When we put those guys out there we will face a steady diet of dime defenses and deep safeties. Now all of sudden our OL just has to guide an upfield DE out of the play while Slaton runs or catches it in the spot they just vacated. And our OL is good at this because they can move. Duane Brown's block on Slaton's screen was a thing of beauty. So put him in position to do that rather than asking him to push a DE off the ball.
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If I were the OC my main objective would be to force the defense to play with two LBs - nickel, dime, whatever the package. I would then do everything I could to get the ball to Slaton in space. He is not the fastest guy out there nor is he going to run over anyone, but when he has a little room to work with very seldom does one guy bring him down. If I can get the defense into a two LB set I'll likely end up with one of them covering OD (which is a matchup I like just fine) and I'll also have plenty of space for screens to Slaton. You should also be able to run draw plays out of this formation until the cows come home easily racking up 8 yards a pop.
The team's OL is surprisingly adept at pass protection but what strikes me about them overall is that they are highly athletic. You can forget about their manhandling any DL at the LOS, but if you ask them to block guys on the move I think you'll see much better results.