Thoughts on offense

[OILERMAN]

One of the biggest questions is going to be what LaFluer does with the offense and Mariota. Based on comments, the roster, the Walker extension I think I have a pretty good guess of what we'll see. 

 

I think they way the Titans are going to help Mariota and the passing game is by using heavy sets from run formations and create mismatches in the passing game. They have pretty much ignored the WR core in free agency and the draft and have next to nothing after Davis and Matthews, at least not proven. They don't care because I bet they are among the team with the least amount of 3 and 4 WR sets and the most among 2 and 3 TE sets. Even if they have injuries to the top two WRs if you can run the ball this strategy will still work. 

 

Mariota and the passing game is going to run through Walker, Jonnu, Lewis and Corey Davis. 

 

I think we're going to see a ton of two and three TE sets and they are going to pound Lewis and Henry and then they are going to run the exact same formations and playaction from this to the TEs, RBs and have Davis beat single coverage. 

 

You can also spread the field with Smith, Walker and Lewis and throw against heavy run defenses with plodding run stoppers. 

 

The Saints and Pats already started doing this. Mularkey's biggest mistake last year was not doing it even more and they were among the leaders in heavy sets. Mularkey should have ran more playaction from heavy sets vs wasted plays to the RBs. 

 

Not only will this create easy throws for Mariota but they can still make big plays. Davis will be a beast vs single coverage and Walker and Smith are likely the fastest pair of TEs in the league. This will also protect Mariota and limit hits while teams are geared to stop the run and it creates more max protect possibilities vs the blitz. 

 

 

[Starkiller]

Vrabel already said they are going to use the run pretty heavily. They have 2 good RBs and a good OL and Mariota’s best success 2016 was when the playaction was killing it. 

 

The WR depth being thin means fewer 3WR sets than we first thought. With the TE depth though it’s pretty much a sure thing that they plan to run a lot of 2TE sets. Maybe not as much as Mularkey did, but plenty. 

 

And yes, a set with Walker, Smith, and Lewis as the TEs and RB is a big threat in the passing game. Even with Henry at RB it’s a big threat. 

[OILERMAN]

7 minutes ago, Starkiller said:

and Mariota’s best success 2016 was when the playaction was killing it. 

Even last season Mariota led the league in passer rating off of playaction 

[Jamalisms]

I don't remember what player it was but he said your favorite thing, and then caveated it in a meaningful way.

 

He said (paraphrased, obviously) it's not that this offense has any different plays than the last offense, it has similar plays, but this offense will use more of them more often.

 

I think it's pretty easy to underrate how bad Robiski was at play calling. That and the marriage of run and pass looks should be a bounty in and of itself. And then I think running more of the outside zone looks is going to benefit Henry quite a bit. And Dion is a world better than Murray.

[Tex in a Can]

**THIS** is the reason I come to this board, independent, in depth analysis backing an opinion. 

[OILERMAN]

29 minutes ago, Jamalisms said:

He said (paraphrased, obviously) it's not that this offense has any different plays than the last offense, it has similar plays, but this offense will use more of them more often.

That's not a revelation......

 

The funny thing is if I'm right about LaFluer, he's going to do more of what people disliked Mulakrey doing and Mularkey's biggest sin last year was not doing more of it himself 

[scine09]

While Mularkey's offense was terrible his biggest sin was his clock and game management, costing the team 4 potential wins with horrible decisions, mostly late in games.

[Titans279]

It sounds like we’ll see a lot of stuff that Mularkey didn’t really though like bootlegs and just the heavily zone running game used in Shanahan style offenses. The offenses might have some similarities but as always the differences in NFL offenses can be small from one perspective but huge if you delve into the details.

 

All NFL offenses are pretty similar. There’s not a ton of truly unique stuff.

[Number9]

2 hours ago, OILERMAN said:

One of the biggest questions is going to be what LaFluer does with the offense and Mariota. Based on comments, the roster, the Walker extension I think I have a pretty good guess of what we'll see. 

 

I think they way the Titans are going to help Mariota and the passing game is by using heavy sets from run formations and create mismatches in the passing game. They have pretty much ignored the WR core in free agency and the draft and have next to nothing after Davis and Matthews, at least not proven. They don't care because I bet they are among the team with the least amount of 3 and 4 WR sets and the most among 2 and 3 TE sets. Even if they have injuries to the top two WRs if you can run the ball this strategy will still work. 

 

Mariota and the passing game is going to run through Walker, Jonnu, Lewis and Corey Davis. 

 

I think we're going to see a ton of two and three TE sets and they are going to pound Lewis and Henry and then they are going to run the exact same formations and playaction from this to the TEs, RBs and have Davis beat single coverage. 

 

You can also spread the field with Smith, Walker and Lewis and throw against heavy run defenses with plodding run stoppers. 

 

The Saints and Pats already started doing this. Mularkey's biggest mistake last year was not doing it even more and they were among the leaders in heavy sets. Mularkey should have ran more playaction from heavy sets vs wasted plays to the RBs. 

 

Not only will this create easy throws for Mariota but they can still make big plays. Davis will be a beast vs single coverage and Walker and Smith are likely the fastest pair of TEs in the league. This will also protect Mariota and limit hits while teams are geared to stop the run and it creates more max protect possibilities vs the blitz. 

 

 

When I started reading this the pats came to mind. Taylor and Sharpe are going to have to make plays too.   They should see a lot of easy catches. 

[TheBukafax]

3 hours ago, OILERMAN said:

That's not a revelation......

 

The funny thing is if I'm right about LaFluer, he's going to do more of what people disliked Mulakrey doing and Mularkey's biggest sin last year was not doing more of it himself 

LaFleur is going to call passing plays with 2 route runners? LaFleur isn’t going to utelize and route checkdowns more or better? Cmon man.

[japan]

1 hour ago, titantez said:

You got to have a deep threat to make any of this work...

Taylor and Davis both have speed. Looks like they are going to try and force Taylor into the offense come hell or high water. He’s going to know the offense this time (we hope.) Sharpe is fairly slow in person compared to those guys. 

Edited July 28, 2018 by japan

[japan]

3 hours ago, OILERMAN said:

That's not a revelation......

 

The funny thing is if I'm right about LaFluer, he's going to do more of what people disliked Mulakrey doing and Mularkey's biggest sin last year was not doing more of it himself 

From what I see, one big thing he is going to do that the last resigme did none of is to get Mariota on the edge using boots and roll outs. How we didn’t do that with Mariota is unfathomable. 

[OILERMAN]

23 minutes ago, japan said:

From what I see, one big thing he is going to do that the last resigme did none of is to get Mariota on the edge using boots and roll outs. How we didn’t do that with Mariota is unfathomable. 

I agree rollouts are more a part of this offense but Mariota is the healthiest since he entered the league and AAS was way more strict on protect #8 at all cost after Whiz. 

[Jamalisms]

4 hours ago, OILERMAN said:

That's not a revelation......

 

The funny thing is if I'm right about LaFluer, he's going to do more of what people disliked Mulakrey doing and Mularkey's biggest sin last year was not doing more of it himself 

No, the passing game design between route combos and playcalling were the biggest complaints on this forum. Next was Murray over Henry. Behind that was probably commentary on how the run game and pass game weren't married and almost felt completely disconnected.

 

People wanting 3 WR plays and spreading the field (me) were a smaller population.

[OILERMAN]

Oh please, it morphed as time went on