Cover your eyes.....Just looked at the play by play of our running game up until the end of the 3rd when GB went up 13 and starting playing the pass more and loosening up our running game a little bit. Here we go run by run. Not including the Flacco scramble for 6 yards.
Rice- 2yards
Rice- 0 yards
Rice- 1 yard
Pierce- -3 yards
Rice- -3yards
Rice- 0 yards
Rice-2 yards
Rice-1 yard
Rice- 0 yards
Pierce-0 yards
(BTW the last 4 plays were the runs we ran on the goalline where we got stuffed........ Now to that point our longest run had been 2 yards.... our total rushing yards was -3 on 6 carries. By the time Pierce got the ball on 4th down it was 0 yards on 9 carries.......that's why you don't go for it on 4th and take the FG. Feel for the game. )
Anyway continuing past the goalline stand:
Pierce- 5 yards ( our first gain of 3 yards or more on the ground came with 4 min left in the 2nd quarter.)
Rice- 10 yards( this was on 3rd and 15....read into that what you will but clearly GB is playing pass here too.
(1st half totals- 11 caries for 15 yards. We had more 6 carries that gained positive yards. We had 5 carries that gained negative or no yards. )
2nd half:
Pierce- -3 yards
Rice- 0 yards
Rice 5 yards
By this point there is 2 min left in the 3rd quarter and GB is up 13 points. They clearly back off and start playing the pass a little more aggressively here and we are able to gain 30 yards on 7 carries the rest of the way.
So up til the point where GB goes up 13 heading into the fourth quarter we had run 14 times for 17 yards. A cool 1.1 YPC. We had as many zero or negative yardage runs as we had had positive runs and our best run was a 10 yard draw on 3rd and 15. More than half of our l yards on the ground at this point had come on a 10 yards 3rd and 15 draw!
Folks, the running game isn't just bad, its down right pathetic. Yes, there is a time when you have to keep hammering away and trying but for us, right now, there is nothing at all to take away from even trying to run the ball. All we are doing is creating 2nd and 3rd and longs. I mean 10+ yards to go on 3rd downs. Its giving the game away when you let a defense get you in 3rd and long every possession. No team, no QB can dig a team out of a hole where its 3rd and long every possession.
I posted this in the morning after film fix thread but I think I know what the deal is with the running game....we appear to have abandoned the zone blocking scheme; particularly the backside cut blocking.
Remember how we gouged Pittsburgh in 2011 on Opening Day and Casey Hampton was bitching about getting cut? Those concepts were brought over by Vonta Leach from the Texans. That's Kubiak's deal that he employs in Houston and was also used in Denver when they had a different 1,000 yard rusher every year.
Take a look at the tape, we're not cutting anymore. If you don't cut backside, that means you absolutely have to win 1 on 1 battles across the LOS and we're obviously not doing that with any consistency.
My guess is that Juan Castillo has essentially thrown the zone blocking stuff out the window in favor of man blocking. What else could it be when the personnel hasn't changed all that much? I find it hard to believe that Gradkowski for Birk is the sole reason the OLine is struggling. Lest we forget that for the majority of the regular season last year we had Oher at LT, KO at RT and we rotated various turds at LG (Harewood, B Williams, Jah freakin Reid) and we ran the ball just fine.
