Brady Unlimited III: Wolverines in the NFL & NFL News

[UMStan White]

And Alabama playing a freshman at tackle to replace its All American who had been injured

[AlabamAlum]

Chris Samuels had been cleared to play that game. He did not out of concern for his draft status. I still hate him.

[Hannibal]

We shoulda win that game.

Not as much as we should have won the '96 game.

[AlabamAlum]

I was at that game. Pretty even. Dwayne Rudd's 90-yd pick 6 was the differnce.

[Hannibal]

I was at that game. Pretty even.

We outgained you guys something like 415-275 and we even won the turnover battle. You guys got 17 points off of a shanked punt, an INT return for a touchdown, and one long run. Possibly Carr's worst choke job.

[iam416]

AA was also at the Battle of Atlanta. Considered it a draw.

[AlabamAlum]

Heh. I was at the Battle of Troy.

Yeah, iirc, you moved it between the 20's some but coouldn't ever punch it in. Bama's problem was we had Freddie Kitchens at QB. We should have never attempted a pass. Just keep feeding Alexander.

[Hannibal]

Yeah Alexander only got 7 carries in that game. Unbelievable.

[Jeff Buchanan]

We watched four NFL teams at the top of their games this weekend. I thought the differences between the college game and that of the NFL are stark. Some things stood out to me:

The speed of the game. Nothing new here in a general sense obviously but I looked at it by play type on offense. The Falcons, in particular, are quick and with what appeared to me to be the most diverse offense. The RB duo of Coleman and Freeman racked up some big season and post season numbers on the ground. That is unique in the pass oriented NFL. I thought the difference was the quickness of the OL and, certainly, the play calling that made it hard to over-focus on stopping the run game as Matt Ryan is probably the best in the league right now at throwing it.

The second thing was how quickly and accurately the 4 QBs could release the ball when the play called for it. Even Big Ben did that. That was augmented by some nifty route running by receivers that made those quick throws possible and resulted in completions

To me, when I look at M, who is clearly trying to run a pro-style offense, It's a reasonable question to ask if Harbaugh has the pieces in place to do that. Speight has a notoriously slow release that makes it hard to have the quick out patterns that are nothing more than run plays to the edge intended to get 4-6 yards.

In the 2016 run game, that quickness was entirely absent. In 2017, I can see Higdon and to a lesser extent Evans as the kind of speed backs that can hit holes that aren't going to last very long for decent yard per carry. The problem though is that the OL, right now, is far from quick enough to allow either of those guys to do that.

Not saying JH needs to change but when you see a pro-style offense run like the Falcons run it, it's pretty obvious why M's offense looks so fundamentally dysfunctional against good defenses or even average ones that find weaknesses and exploit them without a great deal of capacity to cover or adjust to those weaknesses (2016 Iowa).

Then there is Tom Brady. What, the Patriots had 13 yards rushing on 13 plays and over 400y passing until Belichick went into the wind the clock mode? Who needs a run game (and they actually had one with Blount to close out the game!!!). The accuracy of the 4 QBs especially Brady and Ryan, with the medium and deep throws is pretty spectaular and so are the deep ball target receivers.

M has some growth potential and the capacity to realize portions of that kind of NFL passing game within the context of Harbaughffense.

[entropy]

does the NFL even want you to run the ball?

[hack]

It doesn't seem like it does. January is my annual time to check in, marvel at the athleticism, and note the lack of diversity.

[Hannibal]

Lack of running is one of the big reasons that I don't watch the NFL. They need to restore balance to the league. It has always been at least a little easier to run in college than the NFL, but it seems like that gulf has never been larger.

[UMStan White]

Speed is the difference. Pro game is so much faster.

[entropy]

they have SEC speed?

[froot loops]

The defensive lineman are too good to run consistently. I'm not sure how you get that balance back.