Shanahan discusses new role

[HydrOshocK]

OK guys. There are a bunch of you who are really high on the kid so here's your chance to stoke the fires of man love. ;)

http://www.houstontexans.com/news/Story.asp?story_id=4168

"If you’re prepared X’s and O’s wise and if you can help the players, then I think being closer to their age, you can relate to them and it can help you in some of your coaching, getting your point across." - Kyle Shanahan

[GT]

Great read, thanks for bringing it up.Found a whole lots of food for thought....just wanted to start copying the whole article, instead I just took one part that stood out to me.

Nate Griffin (Texans TV): That’s got to be pretty cool. I guess he’s going to be a really good resource for you.

Kyle Shanahan: Oh, yeah. Alex knows what he’s doing. When it comes to this system, there’s no trickery. He knows what to do and how to get it done

[GT]

I liked the fact that he's really a fan of the passing game and well versed. Hopefully he brings a little more aggressive playcalling when it comes to our passing game. I really noticed a difference when we switched our strategy last season and used the pass to open up our mediocre run game, rather than the vice versa. Did anyone else notice that slight change or am I just a tard? Anyways, I thought that was a nice twist for the WCO, that produced results. JMO. Great interview!:DNah your just a tard but I didn't want to bust your bubble!:D

On the serious side yeah I noticed that and was stating we needed to do as much midway thru the season.I'm sure glad Kubes called and asked my opinion. ;)

[Texan Naija]

Is it me or does that picture look like the young Shanahan is going grey?


But besides that, I agree with Neocon to an extent, I like that he is more of passing expert, that way with Gibbs run game, both sides of the offesense should be handled well. Let's just hope injuries won't be on the '07 level.

[SMC-22]

Soon he will be the most tanned man on the team,Just like his dad is the most tanned man in Colorado.:D

[coachdent]

I liked the fact that he's really a fan of the passing game and well versed. Hopefully he brings a little more aggressive playcalling when it comes to our passing game. I really noticed a difference when we switched our strategy last season and used the pass to open up our mediocre run game, rather than the vice versa. Did anyone else notice that slight change or am I just a tard? Anyways, I thought that was a nice twist for the WCO, that produced results. JMO. Great interview!:D
I've long held the belief that in the NFL, a league geared to throwing the football, you've got to throw the ball. Run-first teams are rare in their success over the long haul.

The rules are so tilted to the offense when it comes to throwing the ball, you have to put it up.

One of the things that a run game vicariously does, is that it sometimes keeps you closer to a lesser team. People always laud the fact that you can "control the clock" and "keep offenses off the field" when you run the ball. But the bottom line is, you create tight games and you're going to be hovering right around .500 in the NFL if you find yourself in 3-4 point games week in and week out. You've got to beat people by double digits. When you score quickly, you put the opposition in a pass-mode. Play action doesn't work. Then you pin your ears back and go at them.

Keep in mind, that I am in no way advocating scrapping the run completely. As a matter of fact, I got to know Kevin Gilbride when he was the coordinator for the Oilers. I spoke to him before a Monday night game at Philadelphia told him that I wanted to see more RUN in the Run & Shoot. Ironically enough, Gary Brown fumbled twice in the fourth quarter of the game and the Eagles won! Oh well!

I welcome 'lil Shanny's more wide open style of offense.

I tell you what I do what to see more of and that is a more concerted effort to get AJ touches. There were far too many games last year where we didn't not even look to his side and far too many other occassions where he wasn't even the third option. He spent too much time on the backside and out of plays. He needs to be moved around more so that he can avoid jams and get across the field. No offense, but if you are running your offense through Kevin Walter, Andre Davis and the likes of Putzier and Bruenner, you've got problems scoring points. Again...hopefully Shanny fixes that ailment.

[El Tejano]

I like that he is more of passing expert, that way with Gibbs run game, both sides of the offesense should be handled well.

He was a receiver in college so you know he likes the passing game.

[kcwilson]

No offense, but if you are running your offense through Kevin Walter, Andre Davis and the likes of Putzier and Bruenner, you've got problems scoring points. Again...hopefully Shanny fixes that ailment.

What games were you watching? Was the offense really being run through Jeb Putzier and Mark Breuner? I mean, really, was it? Do you have tape... because as far as I can tell, those two accounted for 6 catches - all by Putzier.

And if you didn't notice, Walter and Davis were good weapons to use. Mostly because AJ was out for 7 games, but when they returned, they were making plays. I have no problem with how the offense was working down the streatch with AJ back.

I am in favor of getting him more touches, but you can't get it to him every time. I like showing balance to keep the defense honest.

[HJam72]

I've long held the belief that in the NFL, a league geared to throwing the football, you've got to throw the ball. Run-first teams are rare in their success over the long haul.

The rules are so tilted to the offense when it comes to throwing the ball, you have to put it up.

One of the things that a run game vicariously does, is that it sometimes keeps you closer to a lesser team. People always laud the fact that you can "control the clock" and "keep offenses off the field" when you run the ball. But the bottom line is, you create tight games and you're going to be hovering right around .500 in the NFL if you find yourself in 3-4 point games week in and week out. You've got to beat people by double digits. When you score quickly, you put the opposition in a pass-mode. Play action doesn't work. Then you pin your ears back and go at them.

Keep in mind, that I am in no way advocating scrapping the run completely. As a matter of fact, I got to know Kevin Gilbride when he was the coordinator for the Oilers. I spoke to him before a Monday night game at Philadelphia told him that I wanted to see more RUN in the Run & Shoot. Ironically enough, Gary Brown fumbled twice in the fourth quarter of the game and the Eagles won! Oh well!

I welcome 'lil Shanny's more wide open style of offense.

I tell you what I do what to see more of and that is a more concerted effort to get AJ touches. There were far too many games last year where we didn't not even look to his side and far too many other occassions where he wasn't even the third option. He spent too much time on the backside and out of plays. He needs to be moved around more so that he can avoid jams and get across the field. No offense, but if you are running your offense through Kevin Walter, Andre Davis and the likes of Putzier and Bruenner, you've got problems scoring points. Again...hopefully Shanny fixes that ailment.

That's a really good explanation for wanting to pass more, or not run more (whatever). I kind of agree about AJ, too; but, he was injured for quite a while.

We need some rules to make the run game more important again.

Let's see:

When playing against the Texans :D, only one-arm tackles are allowed.

A 15 yd. penalty will be applied any time the D starts out with more than 6 men in the box in a short yardage situation.

Texans' fumbles do not count. A 10 yd. unsportsman-like penalty will be applied to any defender hitting a Texan hard enough to knock the ball loose.

We'll do fine with those. I mean, we don't wanna cheat or anything. ;)

[coachdent]

What games were you watching? Was the offense really being run through Jeb Putzier and Mark Breuner? I mean, really, was it? Do you have tape... because as far as I can tell, those two accounted for 6 catches - all by Putzier.

And if you didn't notice, Walter and Davis were good weapons to use. Mostly because AJ was out for 7 games, but when they returned, they were making plays. I have no problem with how the offense was working down the streatch with AJ back.

I am in favor of getting him more touches, but you can't get it to him every time. I like showing balance to keep the defense honest.

As a matter of fact I do have the tape and do look at these things quite closely. The Putzier and Bruenner comments was a sarcastic jab at the idea that we are running too many of our pass plays without Andre Johnson involved.

I notice that Walter became a more viable part of the offense after AJ got hurt. Before that he was a zero. Davis also was non-existent BIAJ (Before injury to AJ).

My problem was that AJ was lined up on the offensive left side of the formation over 75% of the time. This makes for a difficult line of sight for the quarterback. In addition, he was frequently left on the backside of the formation BY HIMSELF. When this happens, this makes it extremely easy for a defense to double AJ, to bracket AJ and to give all sorts of help to shutting AJ down. By design, I think there is a major flaw in a system that simply sticks your best player on the backside and say that you are excited about having him double teammed, because that frees up other players. EVENTUALLY, you need to feed your best and you need to find ways to get him the football. Our offense did NOT! <Exclamation point added for extra stress and sense of urgency.>

You don't have a problem with the first three series of Indianapolis where no balls were thrown in the direction of Andre Johnson? Seriously? That wasn't the only time this happened either. You can go back to the tape yourself and see this happening time and time again.

AJ needs to go in motion. AJ needs to be paired up with another reciever so that defenses can't double him so easily, so they can't in & out him, so they can't bracket him.

The passing game has progressed, but has been woefully elementary over the past four seasons. I could draw out every route the Texans have run in the past five years on a napkin at the bar of your choosing and do so in less than fifteen minutes. That's a problem.

Is it the worst problem? No. Should the entire staff be fired? No. Am I saying that Walter and Daniels and Putzier and Bruenner all suck? No...except for Bruenner. :) But the disappearing act of Andre Johnson is not something that an offensive coordinator looks at as being a positive. I HOPE that Texan coaches are trying to devise MORE ways to get AJ the ball. I for one think that this would be a prudent stance to take.

[kcwilson]

As a matter of fact I do have the tape and do look at these things quite closely. The Putzier and Bruenner comments was a sarcastic jab at the idea that we are running too many of our pass plays without Andre Johnson involved.

I notice that Walter became a more viable part of the offense after AJ got hurt. Before that he was a zero. Davis also was non-existent BIAJ (Before injury to AJ).

My problem was that AJ was lined up on the offensive left side of the formation over 75% of the time. This makes for a difficult line of sight for the quarterback. In addition, he was frequently left on the backside of the formation BY HIMSELF. When this happens, this makes it extremely easy for a defense to double AJ, to bracket AJ and to give all sorts of help to shutting AJ down. By design, I think there is a major flaw in a system that simply sticks your best player on the backside and say that you are excited about having him double teammed, because that frees up other players. EVENTUALLY, you need to feed your best and you need to find ways to get him the football. Our offense did NOT! <Exclamation point added for extra stress and sense of urgency.>

You don't have a problem with the first three series of Indianapolis where no balls were thrown in the direction of Andre Johnson? Seriously? That wasn't the only time this happened either. You can go back to the tape yourself and see this happening time and time again.

AJ needs to go in motion. AJ needs to be paired up with another reciever so that defenses can't double him so easily, so they can't in & out him, so they can't bracket him.

The passing game has progressed, but has been woefully elementary over the past four seasons. I could draw out every route the Texans have run in the past five years on a napkin at the bar of your choosing and do so in less than fifteen minutes. That's a problem.

Is it the worst problem? No. Should the entire staff be fired? No. Am I saying that Walter and Daniels and Putzier and Bruenner all suck? No...except for Bruenner. :) But the disappearing act of Andre Johnson is not something that an offensive coordinator looks at as being a positive. I HOPE that Texan coaches are trying to devise MORE ways to get AJ the ball. I for one think that this would be a prudent stance to take.

I have a problem with AJ not getting the ball early in games, but at the same time, if he isn't open I don't want the ball forced in there. If AJ isn't open, it is likely because of a safety taking away the top and bracketing him, which means that we will have a favorable matchup somewhere else. Albeit, Walter and Davis are not AJ in terms of explosiveness, but I thin Jones could be down the road.

Offensively, the coaching staff needs to recognize how they are playing AJ and adjust accordingly during the game. Far too often in the past, it would appear that the coaching staff would not make these type of adjustments (more earlier in the year, than later).

I don't disagree with some of your points... I think that having KW and AD involved is important to keep them engaged and keep the defense balanced.

The sarcasm of Jeb and Breuner didn't really shine through so I guess I missed your point on that.

[Wolf123]

AJ is plenty involved in the offense and I'm pretty sure that every team doesn't get their star receiver the ball as much as fans would want. AJ is a terrific talent but the ball shouldn't go to him every time. We have other quality receivers to spread the ball around too. I'm sure there's a reason the texans leave him on one side of the field.

[Texan Naija]

I got to agree with kcwilson, on the point that at times this previous season, the QB (both Schaub and Rosenfels) would force the ball into a reciever that was covered. A lot of times it was AJ, but when he was gone, you saw similar throws as well to Daniels and Davis. I do hope that during this offseason, they work on getting the QB to scan the field better because a lot of times, there were wide open guys that got passed over to a failed pass.

I actually think I remember two times where even the announcers pointed out how wide open some of the guys were. The replay on Walter one time was priceless.

[coachdent]

From a systematic approach, I do not think it is a terrific idea having your number one receiver on the offensive left side. We had AJ on the left side more than 75% of the time.

This is the blind side for the quarterback and getting the shoulders turned and finding that guy is not easy. It is also where the majority of pressure comes as defenses generally have their stud defensive end coming off of this side. When the QB is flushed, he will scramble away from your #1. As I stated in previous posts, when he is by himself, he is easier to double.

Wolf -I would be interested to have a reporter ask Kubiak why they choose to keep AJ so stationary and primarily on the backside. Because it is a bit unusual.

As far as the force goes for Sage and Schaub AND Carr I would point out that there are a number of occassions when the Texans run one and two receiver routes. They try to sell play action and then pop a big play. This doesn't give too many options for a QB and forces him to either "try to make a play" or throw it away. There was a long held philosophy here that the ball needed to be thrown up for AJ and let him battle for jump balls and just out-athlete people ala Randy Moss. I saw a number of times this year where this was in play again. "We're going to take a shot here"... come hell or high water, regardless of coverage.

I am a spread guy myself, so I do not think AJ should be the ONLY guy getting the ball. But I do think the Texans go away from him and ignore him far too much and they did so at the beginning of games last year and that hurt them. That's all. I think we would be more effective being a little less vanilla.

[HydrOshocK]

I have to agree and disagree with you here coach. In the past AJ was the only focal point in our passing game. Most of that had to do with lack of trust in a QB that couldn't read past his first option, and part of it had to do with bad play calling. Now we see what happens with our offense when we don't constantly focus on forcing the ball to AJ all the time and our QBs are able to go through all of their reads and get the ball to the open man. AJ's still the best player on the field but now we have balance in the passing game which is why we had 3 players over 60 catches and 700+ yards.

I agree that I would like to see AJ moved around and more plays dialed up for him to get more touches, but that's not to say what we're doing now isn't working either, just look at his #s. In only 9 games he still had 60 catches for 851 yds and 8 TDS.....that's production at its best. If he had played a full season I still think he would've broke 100/1000. I think a lot of that is a result of having other viable receiving options that teams have to account for, and not always making AJ the primary focus.

To compare and contrast just take Randy Moss for example. In Minnesota they had the "Randy Plan" (or something like that....maybe it was the Moss Project or some ****). The Vikings even went so far as to throw a % out there in the media of just how much they planned to run their offense around Moss.....I think it was like 63% but I'll let someone else do the research. The point is their plan failed because everyone knew exactly where they were going with the ball all of the time. Now look at him in NE. The Pats still go to Moss the majority of the time but Brady said it's all about the open man. They can go to Welker, Stallworth, or Gaffney if Moss is covered. That's why Welker ended the season with 112 catches for 1,175 yrds and 8 TDs to lead the team in receptions, yet Moss still had a monster year too.

Again, I'm no coach so I can't dispute X's and O's with you. I understand what you're saying about moving AJ around and calling better plays to go his direction, but I also have to caution about disrupting the flow of your offense by keying on one guy too often.

.02

[HydrOshocK]

No doubt, I agree about opening up the play book to create mismatches for AJ, as long as it doesn't mean always keying on him as the primary option.

So that brings us back on topic......do you think Shanahan will implement more motion sets into the offense to move AJ around and create mismatches? I think it's a safe bet to think so given his knowledge of both the QB and WR positions. Also, since he's from the school of Shanahan and Kubiak, I expect to see more boot legs and roll outs next season. The Broncos were notorius for moving the pocket for Jake Plummer and it worked pretty well.

[GT]

I have to agree and disagree with you here coach. In the past AJ was the only focal point in our passing game. Most of that had to do with lack of trust in a QB that couldn't read past his first option, and part of it had to do with bad play calling. Now we see what happens with our offense when we don't constantly focus on forcing the ball to AJ all the time and our QBs are able to go through all of their reads and get the ball to the open man. AJ's still the best player on the field but now we have balance in the passing game which is why we had 3 players over 60 catches and 700+ yards.

I agree that I would like to see AJ moved around and more plays dialed up for him to get more touches, but that's not to say what we're doing now isn't working either, just look at his #s. In only 9 games he still had 60 catches for 851 yds and 8 TDS.....that's production at its best. If he had played a full season I still think he would've broke 100/1000. I think a lot of that is a result of having other viable receiving options that teams have to account for, and not always making AJ the primary focus.

To compare and contrast just take Randy Moss for example. In Minnesota they had the "Randy Plan" (or something like that....maybe it was the Moss Project or some ****). The Vikings even went so far as to throw a % out there in the media of just how much they planned to run their offense around Moss.....I think it was like 63% but I'll let someone else do the research. The point is their plan failed because everyone knew exactly where they were going with the ball all of the time. Now look at him in NE. The Pats still go to Moss the majority of the time but Brady said it's all about the open man. They can go to Welker, Stallworth, or Gaffney if Moss is covered. That's why Welker ended the season with 112 catches for 1,175 yrds and 8 TDs to lead the team in receptions, yet Moss still had a monster year too.

Again, I'm no coach so I can't dispute X's and O's with you. I understand what you're saying about moving AJ around and calling better plays to go his direction, but I also have to caution about disrupting the flow of your offense by keying on one guy too often.

.02Good post ;)

Feeling a little bored!:rolleyes:

[GT]

Yeah, I think it's safe to say we will see a more complex and vicious WCO than we are accustomed to watching from any team. I mean when you think about it, Kubes, Gibbs, and someone as young and hungry as little Shanny running a WCO...the results "could" or have the "potential" to be one nasty booger for our opponents to get a handle on. With Sherman and his power scheme out, and Kubes going back to his original plan for the offense and the fresh ideas he will get from Gibbs, and Shanny, the potential is there so we will see what happens. Not to mention what Rhodes brings to the defense....it's an exciting time to be a Texan!!!**** I agree with whatever he said. ;)