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Is Art Smith More Mularkey or LaFleur?


tgo

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Something I've been pondering, and then I came across this Kuharsky article this morning: 

 

Vrabel quote:

 

I just felt like with those one-timers, those one-hitters that whether you want to call them scheme plays, you’re only going to have one crack at it in the game,” he said. “I think we really took the next step and were able to hit those. Maybe we didn’t, for whatever reason, probably coaching on my part and then just the execution throughout practice, we probably didn’t hit as many of those (in the past)."

 

https://www.paulkuharsky.com/news/mike-vrabel-liked-what-titans-did-with-one-crack-plays-in-cleveland

 

I personally noticed during the game that a lot of the plays looked more like those highly schemed Mularkey plays than more routine LaFleur plays (run/pass conflict, run and pass looks the same, more reliant on routine pass plays and routine run plays) if you understand my meaning. I think the base offense and verbiage is based on the LaFleur/Shanahan scheme, but to me the mechanics of the offense looked more like a Mularkey offense with zone running. Maybe we now have a healthy mix of both. 

 

I'm looking forward to hearing Cosell's take on the offense tomorrow. 

 

 

 

The two plays above look a lot like Mularkey plays to me. There were a few other plays like this too, including the handoff to Jonnu Smith, the play with Daren Bates in at FB as an eligible receiver, and even the Derrick Henry screen. 

 

Regardless, my opinion is that at first sight over preseason and the first game, this system is better than LaFleur's at least for a mediocre QB. 

 

Thoughts? 

Edited by tgo
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He's definitely more Mularkey and that's a good thing. Mularkey's run scheme was brilliant and very intricately designed, it was his passing game that left a lot to be desired. Smith seems to be able

That's situational football and was something Robiskie just wasn't good at. Defenses and their personnel show abilities and deficiencies and tendencies throughout a game and a season, and Robiski

As for the 75yd screen pass, they used the same play in the first qtr. The difference was that in the first qtr, Henry ran through the line and got caught up, hence Mariota overthrew him to avoid the

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I didn't notice a ton of schemed plays when I watched it live but I could easily be wrong.

 

They did seem to throw it a ton in the first half though iirc. Seems like they almost threw it to open up the run later which was good to see.

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1 minute ago, Justafan said:

I noticed that the play action and shots downfield definitely reminded me of Mularkey.  I also noticed that there was a quite a bit of traditional power blocking by the lineman.  Last year, it was really zone heavy but this year it was more mixed.

 

Not as many condensed sets as Mularkey though and I didn't see them try and run the same play 3 and 4 times trying to get it to "pop".  

This is what I was wondering, thanks for that insight. I agree on the last two points as well. Any idea on percentage of zone vs power?

 

Can anyone else that really knows scheme chime in on how much power vs zone we used as well? 

 

@Face @NewsToTom 

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2 minutes ago, tgo said:

This is what I was wondering, thanks for that insight. I agree on the last two points as well. Any idea on percentage of zone vs power?

 

Can anyone else that really knows scheme chime in on how much power vs zone we used as well? 

 

@Face @NewsToTom 

It was just something I noticed.  I would have to go back and really study each play to give you any credible percentages.  Hopefully someone with all-22 can really break it down and give us a solid number because I would be interested to see the no shit numbers myself.  

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4 minutes ago, Justafan said:

I noticed that the play action and shots downfield definitely reminded me of Mularkey.  I also noticed that there was a quite a bit of traditional power blocking by the lineman.  Last year, it was really zone heavy but this year it was more mixed.

 

Not as many condensed sets as Mularkey though and I didn't see them try and run the same play 3 and 4 times trying to get it to "pop".  

in their defense...they did see a "hole"

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I think it's a combination of both but the sad reality is most of the plays in the playbook are used across the league.  If someone adds a tweak, it shows up on film and other team's add it if it worked.  I liked Smith's play calls/designs and they looked similar to plays run last year and also under Mularkey.

 

I think Vrabel is pointing out that the plays have been there in the past but on Sunday they hit them as opposed to an inaccurate pass, blown block, drop, etc.  The game is ENTIRELY different if the Henry screen pass is dropped, mis-blocked, or thrown way off target.  Same for the TD passes to Walker. 

 

We've talked about all of the yards left on the field in the past and a lot of it was on Mariota.  It was glaring because those often came in games with minimal scoring.  On Sunday, the offense scored 4 TD's.

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13 minutes ago, LongTimeFan said:

As for the 75yd screen pass, they used the same play in the first qtr. The difference was that in the first qtr, Henry ran through the line and got caught up, hence Mariota overthrew him to avoid the sack. 

On the 75yd TD, Henry went around the back of the line and was free to catch the pass.

Subtle change, big difference in results

I noticed that also...Mariota had a little less time first time they tried it also.

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What is abundantly clear is that the passing game is going to be heavily reliant on play action or scheme to maximize the efficiency of MM (or minimize the deficiencies of MM).  When they did do straight drop backs, it was ugly as Romo pointed out. 

 

I know this came up in another discussion but play action can work without the run game working but you have to be doing both from the same personnel grouping/formations to keep teams honest.  Late in the year, the Rams faced this problem after Gurley was clearly playing hurt.  Teams ignored play action and sent heat after Goff.  His production from PA was far less effective. 

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