short yardage play calling...

[FlyingDutchman]

I have been mixed on my feelings about Malarkey for the last year and a half, but one thing i do know, I hate his short yardage play calling. For what was supposed to be a smashmouth football team, we sure do get cute on short yardage plays. Why can we just ram it up the gut two times if need be. Today on 3 and 1 we did a toss sweep to willis and he was stopped in the backfield. If we cant get a yard with two attempts of willis up the middle than we dont deserve to ever win. It wasnt the worst call ive seen from malarkey, but its just adding to my doubt about his ability to make good play calls. And one more thing...does anyone else think our offensive plays in general are redundant and predictable? I know we're trying to break JP in, but all we do is out routes to the sidelines, or short dump offs to the slot reciever, or its just a run with willis off tackle to either side....thoughts??

[Spiderweb]

The pitch was merely an extension of the lack of faith (deservedly so I might add) that the O-line would move somebody. Sure, up the gut seemed to be the call but with our O-line......

Sadly, the pitch seriously blown up as well....

[jamze132]

A soon as you accept the fact that Mularkey is full of mularkey, you will feel better. Don't bother trying to figue out what goes on in his little head throughout the course of a professional football game, you might be disapointed.

[ParanoidAndroid]

The pitch was merely an extension of the lack of faith (deservedly so I might add) that the O-line would move somebody. Sure, up the gut seemed to be the call but with our O-line......

Sadly, the pitch seriously blown up as well....

You are correct.
If we had a guard that could move or a center that could handle a run stuffing DT, McGahee would be top 3 and have twice the TD's with the number of carries he gets.

[G. Host]

Today on 3 and 1 we did a toss sweep to willis and he was stopped in the backfield. If we cant get a yard with two attempts of willis up the middle than we dont deserve to ever win.

Maybe our RB is not good enough for goal line situations and we need to get a bigger back for goal lines?

[Turf]

I got flamed earlier in the year for starting a thread about this.
We don't have the line, and we don't have a BIG BACK who can carry that short yard gain. We can't make the play. We need a BIG BETTIS TYPE BACK. Period.

[Jan Reimers]

Mularkey simply refuses to play fundamentally sound football. We were in 2 down territory on that 3rd and one play. With a big back like Willis, and a supposed road grader in Bennie Anderson, it seems to me we could have made one yard - if not on 3rd down, then we should have pounded it again on 4th down.

The last thing we needed was a 4 yard loss on a stupid pitchout.. We will never be a good, competitive football team until we are able to pound out some short yardage with fundamental football.