A Troubling Statistical Trend

[Beef]

(01-22-2011 07:55 AM)Radical Wrote:  As often as he's been hit behind the line this season, there's no way I can believe the offensive line isn't a major issue.

Turner is at or near tops in the league for yards after contact for a reason. He doesn't have a cut or the ability to move laterally at all. The entire concept of his run style is to power his way in & out of the line as a result. One would have to be absolutely blind to not see & understand this, and that it is going to cause him to get hit at or behind the line all the time purely by default of the style.

If we had a quick first step finesse back like Chris Johnson or AP, who can get to the line in a fraction of a second & then cut on a dime moving 90 degrees laterally in either direction & then burst like lightning past the line, they'd actually do pretty damn good with our line. I can't tell you how many times I screamed at Turner because there was a GIGANTIC hole a foot to his left or right, yet he takes 2 seconds to get to the line & then he slams into somebody before sliding into the hole falling down because someone has a hand on his ankles. The guy is an enormous powerful bruising RB who gets massive yards because he carries the ball a ridiculous amount of times, but he can't cut or find holes for shit and he's slow as hell until he gets in open field. And that's not our O-line's fault.

And again, same as my discussion with coop, we have no deep passing-game threat & as a result, opposing defenses stack the box against us, blitz significantly more than expected, & safeties cheat up way closer than if we did have a deep game. Add this to Turner's run style and this hurts our rushing tremendously while making our line appear worse than they are. And until we get a consistent 20+ yard receiving dimension to our offense, defenses will not spread out for us & they'll continue to have this advantage.

I love Turner, but I don't think he's an every-down RB at all. I dislike relying solely on the dink-n-dunk control the clock style. It's logically easier to defend because they know we're very likely throwing inside 20 yards if we do & they know Turner is going to try to power through the line constantly. It ultimately breaks down to the law of large numbers at this point & if you play to defend those 2 aspects the vast percentage of the time, you will ultimately have a higher degree of success stopping us. And this is why we need to add those 2 more dimensions, a change-of-pace speed back & a couple more receivers who are deep threats. And I firmly believe our O-line would shine if we gave them that & forced defenses to spread out.