Quote:
Originally Posted by tredadda
Well let's see if that continues this year before anointing him as a failure here. The offensive schemes he played in in SF could have been a large reason for that.
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They were. Some people want to overlook a few things here, because to look at them would put a dent in their agenda.
Our next new offense began in 2011, obviously, when Harbaugh and Greg Roman joined up. It took a long time for all of the offensive players to get on the same page. Alex received the playbook first, so that he could teach the others the basics until the lockout ended. He learned what he needed to early on, but it took a lot of time for others to figure shit out. That much is well documented.
On top of that, Roman was building up the playbook on the fly. So there was a lot of trial and error in seeing what worked and what didn't. When new management comes in, defenses and offensive running games are the quickest and easiest to pick up. Then comes the short pass game.
We learned in 2011 that, quite frankly, we didn't have good receivers for the deep pass game. Running the seam and wheel-routes to the TEs was generally the best we could do.
Add to that, our pass protection was a mess. We had a bottom 5 center and right guard... and Anthony Davis was pretty crappy still at blocking edge rushers. So we needed to stick with the short pass game. Harbaugh was building a winner, but was very conservative in doing so. He wanted to lean on mistake-free football above all else. Who wouldn't with a good defense and special teams?
Is Alex limited? Eh... if compared to some of the freakish QBs emerging in the league. He can make all the throws though, and is fairly athletic himself. Andy Reid wouldn't have given up that much if he agreed with others here in that Alex is mediocre at best. I think many people know he is good... but they also feel (and have a point) that he isn't exciting. And these days, the fantasy football kiddies want the big plays and dynamic ball-chucking.
There are a lot of valid reasons for why our offensive numbers were not eye-popping. Still though, it was some impressive efficiency happening despite the aforementioned issues.