Sharing the Wealth

I was envisioning Royal with 1000 yards.

I’m just one among the masses who have picked up his refrain.

:D

I wasn’t the one who originally raised the point about Holds/Sacks — I’m trying desperately to remember who that was, it appeared in the comments section of a post.

I do believe you’re right in that Orton often didn’t have anywhere to step up into, that he often had a shortened read time and that those contributed to his throwing to his first read which was most likely Marshall.

I agree that we need a “go-to” guy, and that Marshall fits that bill. My only problem with the situation was that our go-to guy was getting thrown to almost twice as often as the next two receivers.

I think your example of the Indy game is especially apt — they weren’t afraid to let the Broncos throw to Marshall, because they knew it kept the other receivers out of the flow of the game and thus helped make our passing offense very one-dimensional.

It’s the coach’s responsibility to also tool the rest of the offense, so that it does not lean too heavily upon any single player.

Marshall’s extremely good at what he does, and I think McDaniels & Orton went to that well just a bit too much.

I also find myself waffling on the whole “keep him/trade him” thing. I’m becoming more and more convinced that McDaniels will treat Brandon as a Randy Moss type project. If they can make that work, we could see our offense really open up in the next couple of seasons.

1)I never said in this article that Marshall was “The Problem.”

I suggested that Orton, the play-calling or whatever, that led such an over-targeting of Marshall was a contributing factor to the offensive struggles. There were a lot of other factors that played into it. As you mentioned, play-calling was a big part of it. The lack of a consistently effective running game was a part of it. The o-line’s struggles with schemes played a role.

2)I have moved away from the “Let’s get rid of Marshall” position. Both here and in comments on other posts, I’m becoming more and more convinced that Denver will keep Marshall, that this will be a good move, and that Orton needs to be coached to look for other receivers.

3)The whole point of this article was to point out that when compared to the teams that made the playoffs, Denver did not do a good job of spreading the ball around, and that contributed to the offense’s struggles.

4)I also noted that what this pattern did was provide opposing defenses with a tendency they could exploit — something McDaniels did not want to have happen.

5)I wrote this article as much to see if I had been unfair in my previous article, and I am saying now that I believe I was unfair to Brandon.

Not only would it help the running game, but the defense would have to respect the run, opening up the passing game. Granted, having a deep threat receiver would help, too, but it isn’t just as simple as saying “McD’s offense was boring.” The bubble screen was an attempt to get the ball out quick and into the hands of a playmaker. Unfortunately, the safeties played up and were closer to the action and helped make the play. There’s a strategy behind a playcall and McD was just trying to do the most with the least.

The thing I’m getting at here is that even if we have Marshall, our offense still isn’t clicking on all cylinders. What will help it click on all cylinders is a great offensive line. Look at the jets. They made it all the way to the afc championship with a rookie QB and Braylon Butterfingers Edwards. Their offensive line and defense paved the way for them to make it that far. I would love to see our offensive line look like that. We could have all the weapons in the world on the outside, but if nobody can block up front, then it doesn’t mean anything. The jets showed that you can do more with a good offensive line and average weapons than we could with good weapons and an average offensive line.

I think Royal was just having a sophomore slump, exaggerated by having to learn a new offensive system.

Something that the stats don’t show is the number of times that Stokley was cutting on a slant across the middle and had the back of his jersey grabbed & held onto just long enough to make him break stride — which led to his slapping the hand of the ref in that one game.

Though I think all Stokes was doing was saying “Good call, ref, gimme five” ;-p

I agree with you that if we can improve the o-line (at least stop flopping between blocking schemes) and the running game, we can present a hard to defend offense.

Marshall, love him or hate him, you won’t replace him with a better receiver.

I just don’t see that that would provide us with an immediate improvement.

I’ve mentioned recently that I’m leaning towards the view that McDaniels may want to make Marshall a reclamation project (like the Pats did with Moss), and the biggest question in my mind is whether or not Marshall will be willing to go along with it.

I think if we can keep Marshall, improve the o-line, improve the running game, and spread the ball around more in the passing game, we will have an offense that will be strongly competitive. I know, I’m wishing for the moon here, but as the little boy JP repeatedly declared in “Angels in the Outfield:” “It could happen.” :)

Thanks for adding your viewpoint McG.

If Gaff and Royal were our #1 and #2 WRs to start 2010, we’d probably have close to the worst starting WR duo in the NFL. No Scheff at TE and we lose another pass catching weapon (not a big loss IMO, but worth noting). I don’t see how any of this helps Orton. No game breaking (sometimes Marshall), no go to possession WR (certainly Marshall) and no deep threat.

Is Royal a bad receiver? Did Cutler make him who he was in 2008? DId he just have a sophomore slump? If he’s not going to be a good receiver, then we should get rid of him, but how can we tell? One good year, one bad year. Seems like 2010 is his rookie season all over again. I can give a player a bad year, learning a new system, yadda yadda yadda. But more bad years, even cut with good years, means he has to go in my opinion. Inconsistency is just as bad as consistently bad, IMO.

I definitely noticed that Royal’s reception percentage was way below what it had been the previous year.

I had not heard the quote from McDaniels about Gaffney/Royal essentially sharing the number 2 spot. Thanks for bringing me up to speed on that one.