Stopping the zone blocking scheme

[Roy P]

Originally Posted by Big Texas

So we should adopt a page outta the Eagles playbook. Make little dump offs and screens our run plays.

Somebody give that man a dollar!

Amen!

[NBT]

Maybe screens, but that dumpoff shovel pass to Leach got blown to hell up!!

[NBT]

How can the ZBS be so successful one year, and totally fall on it's face the next? Defenses have adjusted, but the ZBS doesn't seem to have adjusted at all. Or am I wrong?

And speaking of adjusting, Kubes doesn't seem to be doing too good of a job in that regard either. You can't fall 21 points behind to a team like Arizona and expect to logically come back and win.

[Roy P]

Originally Posted by NBT

How can the ZBS be so successful one year, and totally fall on it's face the next? Defenses have adjusted, but the ZBS doesn't seem to have adjusted at all. Or am I wrong?

And speaking of adjusting, Kubes doesn't seem to be doing too good of a job in that regard either. You can't fall 21 points behind to a team like Arizona and expect to logically come back and win.

On your first point, I'm not sure that I'd say that the ZBS was successful last year. Statistically, there were some big plays that Slaton was able to make that inflates the numbers. For example, Slaton gained over 100 yards against the Titans Twice last season. I believe in both games he was bottled up, but was able to break open long runs. The first game he had 18 attempts for 116 yards (one of those being a 50-yard scamper). Take out that "fluke" and you get 17 attempts for 66 yards ( 3.8 ypc). The second game he had 24 rushes for 100 yards (his long was 34 yards), so looking at 23 for 66 yards ( 2.8 ypc). It's not like we were seeing a consistent gain every time he had the ball, but occasionally he'd get a seam and exploit it. So, we haven't really seen that big play this season out of Slaton.

This season his long runs have been 16 out of 13 attempts, 32 out of 21 attempts, 20 out of 12 attempts, 12 out of 17 attempts, and a "long" 7 yard gain when given 9 attempts. I'd have to say in fairness that Slaton hasn't been getting enough touches this season. He was only give a chance to run the ball more than 18 times once in a game.

On your second point, we were VERY close to coming back from 21 points behind. Even after throwing a heart-breaking pick six interception, we could and SHOULD have been able to convert a 1 yard run or pass on the goal line. The biggest adjustment I saw between the 1st half and 2nd half of the Cards game was on defense. We stopped playing Zone and went to more Man coverage.

[nunusguy]

Even if McNair keeps Kubiak on beyond the 2009 season I suspect this is Gibbs (the ole man) last year here which probably means that his ZBS leaves with him. OK they'll probably keep some zone schemes in their repertoire, but I suspect we will move away from it like ATL did when Gibbs left there and transition if not fully convert to a basic man system.

[Roy P]

Originally Posted by nunusguy

Even if McNair keeps Kubiak on beyond the 2009 season, I suspect we will move away from it like ATL did when Gibbs left there and transition if not fully convert to a basic man system.

I find it hard to believe that Kubiak won't keep the ZBS. We had it before Gibbs got here, Kubiak was elated that he was getting the GURU out of retirement so it could be coached the right way. Straight from the horse's mouth, since Gibbs is the Godfather of the ZBS.

[Warren]

The thing that really bothers me about Myers on that last play wasn't that he got overpowered by a bigger, stronger player, but that he allowed the DT to get under his pads and get leverage on him. The undersized OL in the ZBS are supposed to make up for their lack of size with superior quickness and technique. When they get beaten on technique the results are pretty ugly.

[papabear]

Originally Posted by Roy P

I find it hard to believe that Kubiak won't keep the ZBS. We had it before Gibbs got here, Kubiak was elated that he was getting the GURU out of retirement so it could be coached the right way. Straight from the horse's mouth, since Gibbs is the Godfather of the ZBS.

I agree with that. We did have some man power principals. We had several plays with Pitts pulling and things like that. Those were likely Sherman's influence, but pre-Gibbs we were mostly zone. It could have been called a little bit of a hybrid scheme though with some of the things Sherman added. They went to 100% pure Gibbs zone scheme when Gibbs arrived with the intention of only doing a few things....but do them very well. That's a good approach, but it's probably past time to add a few wrinkles to help keep teams off-balance.