Complimentary Football

I'm not really big on creating fanposts because i'm not sure i really know enough about the game yet.. Coming from London, UK, football has not been something i have been brought up on so most of the info i have learned comes from this site.. therefore reading often feels more relevant than posting because i have a lot to learn and not much to teach.. However i am very interested in this sport and the more i watch and learn the more i like it.. so with that in mind i decided to create this fan post about complimentary football as much for my own learning as for any benefits that others might find in my simplistic thoughs..

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One statement Josh McDaniels made yestreday in his press conference yesterday really interested me..

On if fatigued played a role in Cincinnati's 91-yard touchdown drive

"(It) could have been for sure. We weren't on the field enough offensively to prevent that. We have got to have the ball for more than 26 minutes offensively if we want our defense to hold up as the game goes on. We have got to play better complimentary football on both sides."

Complimentary football as i understand it goes a little like this.. (At kick off assuming we are recieving) Good Special teams play provides good field position for our offense:-) Good Offense kills time on the clock (there by keeping the Defense off the field), moves the ball down field and hopefully scores; if it doesn't score it at least moves the ball downfield enough so that the punter and the Special Teams unit can secure a bad field position for the opposition so that our Defense has the right conditions to pressure the other team and essentially stop there drive:-) (If they are not stopped then this process start again from the beginning) If they stop the opposing offense then the ST unit once again trys to provide good field possition for the offense so that they have less yards to gain in order to score and the process start again..

In a Nutshell: ST helps the Offense by giving them good field position, Offense kills time to keep D fresh and if they don't score ST helps D by backing up opposition, D helps Offense by giving them another chance to score.. and so on..

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While this may sound incredibly simplistic to most of you.. I think it is interesting because it really shows that a whole team effort is required in order for every element of the game to function smoothly and effciently and ultimately help the team win.

In his in depth post The Dude Abides...a 2008 Lesson in Field Position, Time of Possession, & Turnovers lebowskibronco shares his insight about how big a role FP, ToP & Turnovers play into getting a win. This is important for us to understand because it is something that our newish HC focuses on pretty strongly. I think that complimentary football ties in with these ideas perfectly, not only because these things are important in getting the win, but they can each be affected by one area of the team helping other areas of the team and becoming a cohesive unit that works together to acheive victory.

With all that being said i will look at how we did in terms of complimentary football in our last game.

You will have to bare with me a little through this because i am not a stats guy and as i said at the begining i am doing this for myself as well.. So if it's a little boring or simplistic i apologise in advance..

Lastly i want to thank lebowskibronco for his posts on the subject because without them i doubt i would have understood enough about this to even attempt this post.. haha... anyway enjoy.. ;-P

Here is a little snippet from the game to help us understand how each third of the team (ST O & D) can help or hinder the other.

1st Quarter

Kickoff from CIN 30 to DEN 17. E.Royal MUFFS catch (BTW Muff means something totally different on this side of the pond.. lol), recovered by C.Buckhalter at DEN 20 - didn't advance.

Straight away you can see that Royal slipping on that play effects the starting field position for the Offense making the field long for them.

First Possession, 1 first down, 1 drop by Marshall, What should have been a penalty on Stokley cost us the drive. Total time off possession 2:04.

The drop hurt us as did the non-penalty but ultimately we didn’t eat much time of the clock and only ended up at the Den 42.

4-9-DEN 43 (12:51) Kern punts 45 yards to CIN 12, fair catch by Q.Cosby.

Good punt backing the Bengals back near there end zone.

Doom blocks Palmers pass on 3rd down after the Bengals gained 30 yards.

4-10-DEN 47 (8:48) 10-K.Huber punts 31 yards to DEN 16, Center-48-B.St. Louis, out of bounds.

D does their job, Punt was not returnable..

2nd Pos: 3 and out.. ToP was just over a minute..

4-5-DEN 21 (7:23) Kern punts 43 yards to CIN 36, Q.Cosby to 50 for 14 yards (59-W.Woodyard).

Kern has a long way to punt thanks to the offense.

D starts with bad FP, manages to stop a TD and recovers a botched fieldgoal.

3rd Pos: Start with good FP (Den 44): 3 and out.. Sack, Marshall misses a long ball, another sack.

Kern punts to the 21 returner is downed at 32.

D stops the Bengals just after the quater...

I won't break down the whole game because we could be here forever, but as the game went on the Offense improved slightly but still couldn't manage a long drive, final ToP was 26:33 so the D was on the field a lot and started to make mistakes in the 4th quarter largely due to tiredness.

All in all you can see that the sloppy play on offense caused a couple of problems.. Firstly we did not score.. Secondly we did not take time off the clock so that the D was on the field more, which has a knock on effect of tiring them out so that later in the game they become less effective.. Thirdly we didn't move the the ball at all so that ST had a harder time of managing the FP battle.

The Defense played well most of the game and stopped the opposition the majority of the game only giing up 7 points... Which is a great acheivement in itself. They only gave up 307 total yards, 86 rushing, 221 passing. The average per running play was only 3.2.. but the average per passing play was a little worst at 6.1... most of the passing plays seems to be down to missed assignments at LB but some where just good plays by the Bengals.

On ST we had 3 PR for 17 yards and 2 KO returns for 17 yards.. this area needs just as much work as the offense does going into the next game. Kern punted o.k mostly with one or two bad ones and had an average of 42.5. Prater had a good night.. both with field goals and kickoffs.

From all this you can see that Denver has to do a better job with the offense, managing the clock.. not dropping balls, throwing to the receiver with space to catch.. and lastly making yards haha.. They also have to improve on returning duties so that the O which has struggled has a slightly better FP to start with so it has more chance of scoring.. And the D just needs to do it all again but hopefully be on the field for less and improve on LB coverage..

Here is what Josh McDaniels had to say on the subject after the game..

"We talked a lot about getting off to a good start on each drive, and we had too many bad plays to start series that led to three-and-outs. You do not want to be in second-and-10 or second-and-12. We had too many of those situations. We dropped some balls. We had some miscommunications. We had some bad throws. We kind of took turns offensively being the reason why we couldn't get into a good rhythm. In such a field-position game that was played yesterday, we need to do a heck of a lot better job of getting it out of our end, and then at least if we have to punt it, punt it back so that they are backed up. For the most part, we were in our end a bunch yesterday. We started seven or eight drives inside our own 20 and a few times had enough going there to get it out but didn't do it on a consistent basis. A lot of little things to clean up, certainly, and our players are going to see a number of things in areas where we can improve."

 

Hopefully these areas will be worked on and improved by next week.. I guess my main point is we don't need just one aspect of of our team to be fantastic (thats the way you build 8-8 seasons.. lol), we have to play better Complimentary Football in order to win more consistantly.

Hope you enjoyed my limited exploration of Complimentary football...

Peace :o)