Shame of the Game - @ OAK, 11/28/10

[Dave Gray]

^ I disagree.  The one time we weren't conservative in the red zone, Henne threw a pick.

Henning called a great game.

[fyo]

Dave, you may not agree, but let me expound on what I see as a problem with Henning's play calling:

To look at what we did when getting within field goal range, I looked at all drives with a 1st down within the Raiders 40. That's a first down looking at a 58-yard field goal, so you need a little to get within range, but not a lot. Feel free to disagree with my "line", I had to draw it somewhere and the 40 was easy.

We had 8 drives with a 1st down within the 40 + a  two-minute drill at the end of the first half (which featured all passes inside the 40, with the exception of a single WildCat run for -1 yard).

Looking at plays within the Raiders 40 in those 8 drives:
--> there were 20 runs, 10 passes and a sack.
--> averaged 2.3 yards / attempt on the 20 running plays, of which the longest was the 8 yard keeper by Thigpen on 3rd and 12.
--> there were 12 first downs on which we ran 11 times and passed once (29 yard TD pass).

That's pretty much what it felt like when watching the game. We weren't running well with the ball in field goal range, yet we kept trying -- settling for field goals all too often.

Running on 92% of all 1st downs inside the 40 is PREDICTABLE. Although I haven't looked at the numbers from previous games, it has certainly felt like that every week.

Basically, our OFFENSE -- rushing and passing -- was doing GREAT until getting into field goal range (sound familiar?) when play calling became extremely predictable and the (otherwise great) running game completely ineffective.

You can look at the score and say, well, we scored 33 points with Hennings game plan, so it must've been good. And Henne did throw that interception in the red zone, so...

I'm just saying that there's a reason I, and others apparently, feel the way we do about the play calling. I honestly do feel it's costing us points every game and has cost us several games this season.

[CF DolFan]

The predictability of our offense is what frustrates me mostly. It's pretty much run, run, pass and then crucify Henne when he fails against the worst of odds. The closer we get to scoring the more conservative it becomes. We put our odds to getting as FG more likely and usally end up doing so. Henning and Sparano seem perfectly willing to accept this when if they played it a little more open we just might get 7 instead of 3 and those add up much faster ... even with an INT once in a while. 

For the record this is one of the things that doomed Marino's carreer. Jimmy would only let him throw on third down.