Jacksonville Jaguars week

[rns90]

55 minutes ago, Mythos27 said:

Right. And this is what makes me ask; Did Vrabel suddenly forget how to coach or is the talent level so low he can't "make soup" anymore. J-Rob got fired in large part because the roster is a disaster. Most of us said that the level of the roster was too low to expect Tannehill to win with. We're saying the same thing about Levis now. How does it make sense to expect Vrabel to win with it? J-Rob got fired in large part because the roster is a disaster. Are there things Vrabel is doing that are worthy of criticism? Hell yeah. But I don't think he's at the root of the problem nor do I think a shiny new, offensive minded HC will be the solution either save for a substantial talent infusion which is necessary anyways.

It’s talent level and his one Achilles heel is the thing he’s horrible at and killing this team.

I don’t think under his watch they ever developed a decent OL who can run and pass block.   2019, that OL had 3 starters that he inherited from the Mularkey era, and in the offseason signed a good G in Saffold.  Drafted Davis and he struggled in pass blocking and it didn’t matter as much since the other OL were good.  He didn’t have to decide who to start or develop someone who had to start;  the OL was gifted to him.  He didn’t have to worry about it.

 

Look at now, the talent level has diminished and he’s had to develop OL and failed horribly .  It’s not a strenght of his and got hidden by the talent in 19 and 20. You could kind of see the cracks in 2020 and 2021 but Robinson didn’t help and we ended up blaming him more.  The same goes for his offensive scheme.  Prime AJ Brown, Henry and Tannehill covered a ton.  It didn’t matter for the WR, if they weren’t schemed open because Brown is such a freak that he’d get open anyway.  Ditto Henry and the run game. Arthur does deserve some credit here.

I think if you have a solid OL he’s probably fine but it’s a bad mix now with him having to develop OL and WR and his philosophical issues get exposed.
 

 

 

[oldschool]

1 minute ago, Mythos27 said:

I agree that Vrabel and co haven't made good decisions on the OL but in all honesty the line is likely fucked regardless of the choices he makes because it lacks TALENT. Sure, we all want Sko to start at LT but let's not kid ourselves, the most likely outcome is that he sucks too. He finally made the move everyone has been clamoring for with Radunz and while he wasn't as bad as the other scrubs but he sucked too. We can be upset by his process but as the other options on the OL get their shot and proceed to suck, it becomes more understandable how Vrabel watched these guys play and thought "there is no way I can play this guy, he sucks".

 

As far as the offensive philosophy; weren't we all pretty pleased with the changes they were implementing on offense? Since most will pretend they didn't do the same; I'll go ahead and say that I was very pleased with them. What happened there is that as the year went on, it became very clear that we could not protect the QB and slowly reverted back to our same old same old. Now, I don't agree with that choice given it won't make us any better but I understand why the made the decision and the reason why is because we don't have the talent to run the kind of offense that we all wish they would. It always comes back to talent. The staff is hamstrung by these guys moreso than the other way around. If we tried to run the offense Houston is running Levis would be on a stretcher by half time.  

 

you realize Dullard wasn't benched Sunday right? He was in concussion protocol. 

[ctm]

Doesn't matter who's at fault.  Lose enough games in the NFL and you're gone regardless of circumstances.

[BudsOilers]

If they tried to run the Shanahan offense, which Houston, Miami, Minnesota, and the Rams are doing in some version of it, they'd have a QB friendly offense.  Andy Reid runs a WCO version too.  They get offensive football and what it takes to succeed/win.  Vrabel's way won't and didn't even at it's peak talent level.

 

As others point out, his OL development track record is awful and there's little doubt he's no better than Quiver Chins at identifying prospects.

 

 

[Bulluck4dmvp]

Doesn’t seem to be an issue for Houston 

[rns90]

Vrabel just isn’t a fit here anymore.  I do kind of wonder how many more games we could have won this year just on better RZ execution.

The product is boring and he’s getting the qb killed.  He’s gotta go.

 

[Mythos27]

7 minutes ago, BudsOilers said:

Vrabel owns the OL issues and conflicted down shit that puts said OL in it's most vulnerable state 60% of the time.

 

Quiver Chins fucked up plenty don't get me wrong but under Vrabel/Carthon they gave Dillard a 30 M contract, drafted Skoronski, signed Bunskill, and signed Hubbard.  Didn't sign Fant for cents on the dollar.  Have to use TE's and RB's to help pass block and even then it stinks.  It got Tannehill hurt and now they are getting Levis hit at an astronomical rate.  28th in points despite a top 10 scoring defense, flawed and all.

 

He lost me when he jizzed about NPF at LT because he pushed piles despite allowing 4 pressures/2 sacks in 22 snaps at LT.  Fuck him.

Vrabel tried to reverse course on the 1st down run stuff and without the numbers in front of me, has been much better in that regard than years past. I am pleased with this because it means he's capable of change, which I didn't think he was. Our problem now is that on those 1st down passes we're attempting more often, no one gets fucking open. Unless it's a PA shot, every receiver is blanketed all the way down the field. We can't execute a basic drop back pass game and the coaches are accurately saying as much. Levis can't get through a 5 step drop without getting blasted. Then on second down we try to set up 3rd and manageable but get stuffed on pretty much any run we try. I agree that perhaps we should adjust and throw more on 1st/2nd down consecutively but ultimate the issue is that we can't pass protect or create running room and the reason for that is that our OL has no talent on it. IMO the offensive issues are on J-Rob and now partly on Carthon. It's their job to acquire the best possible OL players and tell Vrabel to get fucked if he wants to sign some bum instead. 

 

Now on defense; that's a whole other story. I think there are significant, coaching related problems. The secondary has been injured and wasn't great to begin with so I get that but the front 7 is massively under-performing and I suspect coaching is an issue. 

[titanruss]

22 minutes ago, Mythos27 said:

I agree that Vrabel and co haven't made good decisions on the OL but in all honesty the line is likely fucked regardless of the choices he makes because it lacks TALENT. Sure, we all want Sko to start at LT but let's not kid ourselves, the most likely outcome is that he sucks too. He finally made the move everyone has been clamoring for with Radunz and while he wasn't as bad as the other scrubs but he sucked too. We can be upset by his process but as the other options on the OL get their shot and proceed to suck, it becomes more understandable how Vrabel watched these guys play and thought "there is no way I can play this guy, he sucks".

 

As far as the offensive philosophy; weren't we all pretty pleased with the changes they were implementing on offense? Since most will pretend they didn't do the same; I'll go ahead and say that I was very pleased with them. What happened there is that as the year went on, it became very clear that we could not protect the QB and slowly reverted back to our same old same old. Now, I don't agree with that choice given it won't make us any better but I understand why the made the decision and the reason why is because we don't have the talent to run the kind of offense that we all wish they would. It always comes back to talent. The staff is hamstrung by these guys moreso than the other way around. If we tried to run the offense Houston is running Levis would be on a stretcher by half time.  

 

It's hard to know anything concrete about what they want to do on Offense, if they want to modernize more, because of how bad the talent is.

[Yoshimitsu]

1 hour ago, Mythos27 said:

Right. And this is what makes me ask; Did Vrabel suddenly forget how to coach or is the talent level so low he can't "make soup" anymore. J-Rob got fired in large part because the roster is a disaster. Most of us said that the level of the roster was too low to expect Tannehill to win with. We're saying the same thing about Levis now. How does it make sense to expect Vrabel to win with it? J-Rob got fired in large part because the roster is a disaster. Are there things Vrabel is doing that are worthy of criticism? Hell yeah. But I don't think he's at the root of the problem nor do I think a shiny new, offensive minded HC will be the solution either save for a substantial talent infusion which is necessary anyways.

On offense, you can definitely make that case.  Defense though…there is plenty of talent there for them to be playing at a higher level.  The defense has always been putrid unless a talented coordinator is overseeing it, and Vrabel isn’t that guy.  

[BudsOilers]

The defense is a top 10 scoring unit though.  The offense is 28th in scoring.  If the Titans had a decent offense, they'd probably have 5 or 6 wins.

[BudsOilers]

9 minutes ago, Mythos27 said:

Vrabel tried to reverse course on the 1st down run stuff and without the numbers in front of me, has been much better in that regard than years past. I am pleased with this because it means he's capable of change, which I didn't think he was. Our problem now is that on those 1st down passes we're attempting more often, no one gets fucking open. Unless it's a PA shot, every receiver is blanketed all the way down the field. We can't execute a basic drop back pass game and the coaches are accurately saying as much. Levis can't get through a 5 step drop without getting blasted. Then on second down we try to set up 3rd and manageable but get stuffed on pretty much any run we try. I agree that perhaps we should adjust and throw more on 1st/2nd down consecutively but ultimate the issue is that we can't pass protect or create running room and the reason for that is that our OL has no talent on it. IMO the offensive issues are on J-Rob and now partly on Carthon. It's their job to acquire the best possible OL players and tell Vrabel to get fucked if he wants to sign some bum instead. 

 

Now on defense; that's a whole other story. I think there are significant, coaching related problems. The secondary has been injured and wasn't great to begin with so I get that but the front 7 is massively under-performing and I suspect coaching is an issue. 

You're way too easy on Vrabel.  One - he hasn't been an innocent victim in personnel moves under either GM, he's done an awful job developing coaching talent and developing young players, and he's got the whole self inflicted pass pro, conflicted down things....Secondly, he fucked it up even when he had the talent.

 

 

[Downtown]

The question isn't whether the staff is hamstrung or not. The question is whether they can fix it. 

[oldschool]

9 minutes ago, BudsOilers said:

The defense is a top 10 scoring unit though.  The offense is 28th in scoring.  If the Titans had a decent offense, they'd probably have 5 or 6 wins.

 

This is misleading, look at the QBs they have faced vs whats coming up.

 

Carr

Herbert

Watson

Burrow (injured)

Richardson/Minchew

Lamar Jackson

Ridder/Heinike

Pickett

Mayfield

[Bulluck4dmvp]

13 minutes ago, Downtown said:

The question isn't whether the staff is hamstrung or not. The question is whether they can fix it. 

Narrator: nope

[Mythos27]

22 minutes ago, rns90 said:

It’s talent level and his one Achilles heel is the thing he’s horrible at and killing this team.

I don’t think under his watch they ever developed a decent OL who can run and pass block.   2019, that OL had 3 starters that he inherited from the Mularkey era, and in the offseason signed a good G in Saffold.  Drafted Davis and he struggled in pass blocking and it didn’t matter as much since the other OL were good.  He didn’t have to decide who to start or develop someone who had to start;  the OL was gifted to him.  He didn’t have to worry about it.

 

Look at now, the talent level has diminished and he’s had to develop OL and failed horribly .  It’s not a strenght of his and got hidden by the talent in 19 and 20. You could kind of see the cracks in 2020 and 2021 but Robinson didn’t help and we ended up blaming him more.  The same goes for his offensive scheme.  Prime AJ Brown, Henry and Tannehill covered a ton.  It didn’t matter for the WR, if they weren’t schemed open because Brown is such a freak that he’d get open anyway.  Ditto Henry and the run game. Arthur does deserve some credit here.

I think if you have a solid OL he’s probably fine but it’s a bad mix now with him having to develop OL and WR and his philosophical issues get exposed.
 

 

 

These are good points. Where I get stuck is determining whether the players are failing to develop because they suck or because the staff sucks at developing them. A few case studies here;

 

Chig and Burks looked like potential success stories and then they started to regress. Does the staff deserve credit for making them look like breakout candidates or blame for the regression? Seems mutually exclusive to me. At first everyone praised the coaching staff for getting Levis ready to play and for him playing much better than we even saw at Kentucky, now it seems we're revoking that credit because the OL can't keep him upright. Gibby is not a great player at all but I think the staff deserves credit for turning him into even a starting caliber LB in just one year. Teiar Tart is an undrafted nobody, I think they get credit for developing him. McCreary has played very well save for the 2nd half vs the Buccs. Here's another little nugget: did you know that Chris Hubbard is having the 2nd best season of his 10 year career and best since 2020? To what do we attribute that? I'm not saying they're amazing talent developers, but I am suggesting that the issue isn't as black and white as it gets presented. Bad players, who will go on to be bad players, DON'T ever develop. It's why they suck forever. Holding coaches responsible for such players seems unreasonable. 

 

All I know about the NFL and really sports at the highest level, is that coaches either carried by their talent or buried by it. Belichick didn't forget how to coach; being a bad GM just finally caught to him in addition to losing Brady. We know Vrabel can coach. We have years of evidence he can. Not too long ago we were all lauding his ability to lead us to wins we had no business getting. We also know this roster is ass and have no evidence that better coaching would fix anything. Occam's razor tells me the problem is talent and rather than lose a good coach because he's not managing bad talent optimally, it's much smarter to demand that the GM do his job and give the good coach acceptable talent.