Breaking down the tape from Vikings win over 49ers

[Demi]

We can run the triple option for all I care, as long as we keep winning. However, I don't think this can be kept up for the season.

And that's the rub, is this going to be successful in the long term? Wasn't the cover 2 designed in part to combat this type of offense?

This is one of those games where the statline doesn't even come close to telling the whole story of Ponder playing very well.

Just like the previous weeks the stat line didn't show the story of Ponder playing *not* that well, because of his no-risk play style. But I didn't see many posts about that...just posts about his incredible completion percentage, and lack of turnovers. Funny how this door only swings one way...

And it wasn't "out of context" it was just an interesting nugget in the article. I find it hard to believe any team regardless of personnel is similar in regards to using the entire field. And I agree it'd be interesting to find out if a team like maybe the Browns, or Jaguars with a lack of talent has similar numbers.

I guess one thread that doesn't gush about the Messiah's arrival is one too many. (despite the actual article and Pelissero's love affair with the man)

Horizontal offenses no longer win super bowls....

[Mothman]

And it wasn't "out of context" it was just an interesting nugget in the article.

It was an interesting nugget of info but when you pull one line out of an article, it is, by definition, being presented out of context.

I guess one thread that doesn't gush about the Messiah's arrival is one too many.

[Just Me]

I guess one thread that doesn't gush about the Messiah's arrival is one too many. (despite the actual article and Pelissero's love affair with the man)

Horizontal offenses no longer win super bowls....

I'm OK with looking at the good and the bad, but no one seems to know if 14% ( or thereabouts ) is a low or a high percentage for deep attempts. The innuendo is that it is substandard. I'm OK with the observation as long as it is in the proper, excuse me, context.

If I say 97% of your posts have critical comments about Ponder (and fail to acknowledge 97% of your posts also contain positive comments about Ponder) I may be accurate in my observation but the statement is misleading (either deliberately or unintentionally).

Edit - changed intentionally to "unintentionally" (what I meant - otherwise it was redundant)

[FailedtoOpen]

You play to the strengths of the team. If your team isn't a deep ball team then you don't attempt too many deep balls. That's just how it is.

[VikeMike]

Exactly. It's called game planning.
With the pressure the 49ers can bring from rushing four lineman, plus the quality of their safeties, it isn't surprising that there were few throws past 15 yards — especially considering that there is one WR, Harvin, on the field that has the speed to stretch the field, and he's being used effectively with underneath stuff. Even with Simpson on the field, I don't expect seeing many long passes in Detroit ... he will need to acclimate himself into the offense.

[S197]

And that's the rub, is this going to be successful in the long term? Wasn't the cover 2 designed in part to combat this type of offense?

No, I don't think so simply because I don't think Percy can take a full season of abuse like this. He leads the NFL in receptions and while it's great that he's getting a lot of touches, his workload is too high at the moment IMO. And there's simply no one else on the team that can do what he does. Ponder has the luxury of throwing 8-10 passes behind the LOS because Percy is a special player who can turn those into positive plays but if he goes down, there's no one else in the system that can do what he does.

With Simpson back, we'll see if the gameplan changes a bit. I don't think they need to fully go away from the Harvin screens, they're obviously working, but I think they need to cut down on the amount it's utilized.

[mansquatch]

Exactly. It's called game planning.
With the pressure the 49ers can bring from rushing four lineman, plus the quality of their safeties, it isn't surprising that there were few throws past 15 yards — especially considering that there is one WR, Harvin, on the field that has the speed to stretch the field, and he's being used effectively with underneath stuff. Even with Simpson on the field, I don't expect seeing many long passes in Detroit ... he will need to acclimate himself into the offense.

This hints at my point which was that criticizing the lack of downfield passing along with our short game being unsustainable doesn't seem to stand up to deeper analysis. The 49ers had 2 game tapes of our offense. They knew they didn’t need to respect Michael Jenkins or Devin Aromashedu. They knew our passing game was built on YAC and getting the ball to big TE, one of which has been a non-factor so far this year. Despite this, they were not able to adequately slow it down with one of the top 3 defenses in the NFL. Was that just a complete failure of game planning on their part? Did they just play a really sloppy game? Or did we out play them?

Look every offense gets better when you add a downfield threat to the mix. I get that. But that doesn’t mean you cannot win games without it. It seems to me that the Vikings are doing exactly what people criticized Childress for not doing: Putting their playmakers in situations to make plays. It seems like some are suggesting that we should do less of this for the sake of more 20+ yard attempts. Most importantly, it is working. Let’s not get bent out of shape just because Ponder doesn’t have a 300 yard game.

[Crax]

Was that just a complete failure of game planning on their part? Did they just play a really sloppy game? Or did we out play them?

I think part of that had to do with the o-line. They may have been expecting to get a lot more pressure than they were. The pass blocking from our o-line was better in that game than against the colts. 49ers may have thought they could do better job than the colts who were without Freeney did.

[mosscarter]

ponder still hasn't started a full 16 games yet, give him a break. in order to go down field, you need wr's who can actually make plays down field. at no point in his career did michael jenkins make plays consistently down the field.

[John_Viveiros]

I guess one thread that doesn't gush about the Messiah's arrival is one too many. (despite the actual article and Pelissero's love affair with the man)

Sometimes, the sarcasm makes me wonder whether you pass the Turing Test. It's just too consistent.

[Purple bruise]

Sometimes, the sarcasm makes me wonder whether you pass the Turing Test. It's just too consistent.

Amen to that.

[Mothman]

Sometimes, the sarcasm makes me wonder whether you pass the Turing Test. It's just too consistent.

LOL! I never expected to see a reference to the Turing Test on this board.

[Purple bruise]

LOL! I never expected to see a reference to the Turing Test on this board.

"The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. In the original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being. All participants are separated from one another. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. The test does not check the ability to give the correct answer; it checks how closely the answer resembles typical human answers. The conversation is limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen so that the result is not dependent on the machine's ability to render words into audio.[2]"

[VikingLord]

I find it hard to believe any team regardless of personnel is similar in regards to using the entire field. And I agree it'd be interesting to find out if a team like maybe the Browns, or Jaguars with a lack of talent has similar numbers.

I guess one thread that doesn't gush about the Messiah's arrival is one too many. (despite the actual article and Pelissero's love affair with the man)

Horizontal offenses no longer win super bowls....

I think the 49ers are a team that is similar in regards to how it uses the entire field. In fact, other than their much better rushing average the 49ers pass pretty much like the Vikings.

Not everyone here is sold on Ponder yet. I'm one of them, although I do acknowledge when he does well and I think he's got a chance to become a very good pro. Unfortunately, at this stage of his career about the best we can say is "let's see what happens in the next game". I think that will be true until the end of this season at least, but so far he's done well with what he has to work with.

As for horizontal offenses winning Superbowls, they may not, but a strong defense puts just about any offense in a position to win.

[BGM]

I guess one thread that doesn't gush about the Messiah's arrival is one too many. (despite the actual article and Pelissero's love affair with the man)

You are so much better than this, Demi. You make good arguments, have valid points, and then submarine it all by taking an over the top rhetorical pot shot. I accept that this is your style, but as someone who sees intriguing analysis in your posts, sometimes it's really infuriating.

Of course, maybe you relish the role of gadfly. If so... well played.