Film Review: "Bad Play Calls" Aren't Really Bad; and You Should Feel Bad About It.

This is excellently written. I clicked on your link, and I particularly liked your summary near the end:

"I don't expect the casual fan to start digging through All-22 to resolve problems that they don't really care to resolve. It's unrealistic. But maybe tone down the rhetoric. Maybe don't pretend you know when you don't. Feel free to give opinions, but understand it isn't facts, and understand that you don't have all the facts to support an opinion, all you have is your limited perspective. And that's fine."

It seemed fitting that you put Michael Spath's tweet in there - he seems to me to be a very influential complainer who puts emotion and oversimplified conclusions over logic routinely.  And then his unwitting listeners parrot his negative rhetoric because they care too much about football but don't care enough about intellectually nuanced thinking.

I had a professor who loved to say, "every offensive play in football is designed to score a TD".  One day I asked how a QB sneak on 4th and 1 from the 45 yard line was designed to score a TD?

I got a blank stare and then he started talking about something else....   

I passed his class, so at least he didn't hold a grudge.

FWIW

Great article Coyote.  Especially excellent insight on the option play, which I'll admit to think seemed dumb when called but, upon reading, I get why it makes sense, just didn't work.  

Seth pointed out why the play calls were made to protect the LT. Just because a team can't execute the play doesn't excuse a bad play call. No play is designed to work occasionally or be executed by 50% of the players.

Gentry basically played LT for 1 play and it was designed that way! That play should have resulted in a strip sack.

I played in a veer-option offense for a long time. You are dead on in your analysis of the option problems. Great call. Poor execution. Bad spacing by QB/RB. QB should have attacked the inside leg of the defender forcing a commitment/always wrong situation. This should have gone for big yards. Thanks Coyote

That would have been an amazing call if the line held for half a second and Shea had time to look 18° to his right and see Perry standing there open. 

You thought All Borges was a good playcaller.  /thread

Thanks for the perspective.  As someone who doesn't get into the weeds on schemes, I continue to be baffled at how we can be so hideously awful compared to offenses like Oklahoma and Ohio State, despite recruiting talent that is at or near their level.  Those teams overcome injuries, suspensions, inexperience, and probably tons of mistakes made all the time, yet still move the ball at will.

Would you say that our schemes and play calls demand a higher level of execution than other offenses do?  Depend on a higher level of talent and experience?  An assumption that we will physically dominate?  Are they more apt to fall apart when just one assignment is blown?  

I do remember a similar refrain in the Hoke era, and could it be that we are simply demanding perfect execution from young and imperfect players?  It seems we are asking 11 guys, some of whom are still teenagers, to play with incredible precision all the time.  And it almost NEVER seems like our offense is playing with as much confidence and speed as the defenses we are facing.  The latter always seem to know exactly what to do to disrupt our offense, even if they don't know exactly what the play is.

I remember a Big Ten defensive player interviewed in the Hoke/Borges era saying something like, "Michigan runs an incredibly complex offense, but as long as you stick to simple defensive principles, it's pretty easy to defend."  

If it don't work, it's a bad play call. How's that?

What an excellent read.  I'm not going to pretend to understand all the components that factor into the explanations but I was able to follow much of the clarifying complexity that you provided SC.

Also it's nice to see you gently correcting and offering these clarifications to some of the expert Twitter playcallers out there.

You seem to know what you're talking about but your post on your blog is about as preachy as it gets. You don't have to talk down to people. We are all idiots. We get it. Thanks for pointing it out. Sheesh. 

Absolutely fantastic post, SC. Thank you for providing your perspective. 

Space Coyote, I think that you're overlooking another reason why people criticize play calling, which is closely related to why I love football.

Football is, ironically, the most cerebral of all sports.  You literally pause the action every 6 seconds or so in order to talk over what you want to do next.  You have committee meetings (over headsets, in the huddle) to debate the merits of each option.  You intentionally show a tendency in order to get your opponent guessing, then you break it, hopefully at a crucial time.  And of course there's the design of the playbook itself-- the spread didn't always exist, and before that the WCO didn't always exist, and before that the option didn't always exist-- you can literally think your way to a totally new and effective way of playing the game.

So I think one way many fans engage with the game is that they imagine themselves to be making those decisions.  Or they try to understand and predict why those decisions are being made (though in the vast majority of cases, this effort doesn't include any attempt at meaningful self-education).

So I think form a psychological perspective, fans latch on to play calling because it's a big part of how they are engaging with the game.  It's what they're thinking about between plays anyway, completely apart from any desire to criticize it.  When things go wrong, I think it's natural that a fan's first thoughts will turn to what he's been thinking about and imagining all along, rather than on something that he has even less of an understanding of that goes on invisibly behind the scenes (teaching technique, evaluating talent, etc.)

Or anway, that's what it feels like for me; YMMV

I feel bad about feeling like friday night lights there TV show feels real to me. 

I thought the speed option was an excellent call. I was ELATED to see the it in the offense as the play developed--yelling "YES!"...then groaning "Nooo!" at the execution by the QB (not attacking the option key more aggressively), and the pitch back (whose responsibility is to establish a wide enough 'pitch relationship'). Perhaps they didn't understand the concept of the play: to isolate a defender and make him wrong, whatever he decides--the one thing you don't do is allow the pitch key to cover BOTH. While it is possible there was simply not enough reps on the field, I find it hard to imagine that this coaching staff failed to explain the concept. But those are all things that are entirely different from "play-calling".

I can only hope that they don't abandon the speed option, and they'll come back to show and utilize it  as the year progresses. It is relatively simple, and can be highly effective in the red zone and short yardage situations. The mere threat of it gives defenses more to think about (which BTW is a big part of play calling) and have to prepare for, setting up other things.

Its all on the OL to improve, just enough for Shea to be 75% clean.  PFF is optimistic:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=fIgbLK4Zbx8

Handing the ball off to your TE who wasn't supposed to be in the game on 4th and 21 from your own 5 would indeed be bad play-calling. Otherwise, for the most part, cries of "bad play-calling" are a true sign of ignorance. Every player has significant decisions to make on every play...it's "all" about execution...there is no argument to be had here.