[HAL 9000]

Hello everybody, it's been a while since my last post. I trust all is well with Rams United. Just to keep you updated, I am completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly. However after this post some of you may think otherwise.

There is no denying that McVay is a remarkable coach and I think most of us would not replace him with any other coach, even Belichick (due to his age).

However, it seems McVay out thinks himself at times, gets to cute with certain situations, has head scratching clock supervision moments, burning timeouts like he’s graduated head of his class from the Martz school of time management. His red zone TD ratio could improve quite a bit, although Goff needs to improve there as well. More alarming, is the anemic first half offense of the first three games this year and to an extent the latter part of last year.

Clock management and time out usage is alarming at times. I think he would be better served sacrificing “the perfect play” instead of burning time outs. IMHO, time outs are more important than a single play. Much of the time, coming out of a time out, the play often fails spectacularly anyways. Last night was a perfect example of overthinking the situation by calling a time out and nullifying his own teams first down.

So whats going on.....Is McVay juggling too much and being overwhelmed at game time? Should he hire a dedicated OC?

[Elvis]

Absolutely 100% no from me.

McVay is 27-8 and 3-0 this year regular season coaching and calling plays.

That's pretty good where i come from...

[AvengerRam]

Absolutely not.

From the standpoint of workload, McVay has delegated the defense to Wade and that allows him to wear the OC hat.

And while, yes... he's made some mistakes and needs to be a better game-day "counter-puncher" at times, I would not want anyone else running the offense.

[Will0120]

Clock management and time out usage is alarming at times. I think he would be better served sacrificing “the perfect play” instead of burning time outs. IMHO, time outs are more important than a single play. Much of the time, coming out of a time out, the play often fails spectacularly anyways. Last night was a perfect example of overthinking the situation by calling a time out and nullifying his own teams first down.

This is actually a point that I have pondered quite a bit over the past couple seasons. I also have noticed that McVay is very willing to use the timeouts rather than saving them for the end of half/game scenarios. It hasn't burned us too much THUS FAR but who knows for down the road.

I think there are two schools of thoughts here in terms of timeouts. I still have not quite decided which side of the fence I am on yet...

[moklerman]

I agree. McVay doesn't need to be replaced, but there is room for improvement. But that isn't something unique to McVay. Coaches make mistakes and 33 year old, 3rd year coaches should be expected to make a few more while they're still growing and learning.

[Elvis]

Martz started the idea that timeouts were for more than saving for clock management. He used them as part of the offense. I went to camp once in Macomb and actually saw Bulger call a timeout in a scrimmage (or was it an install). Sometimes in Martz's offense, based on the play called and the defense shown, a timeout was the correct answer.

People hated Martz for that but it's another one of his innovations that have been adopted by others.

I laugh when people compare Martz to McVay as if it's a bad thing. Martz was terrible with people and widely hated. McVay is the opposite. But when it comes to football, the similarities are good. The last time we regularly scored points and won games is when Martz was our HC. If you're innovative, if you defy the conventional wisdom, people will jump on you the second any cracks start to form and lambaste you for not doing it the way everyone else does never noticing that the game is changing because of what you're doing.

Things are gonna have to get a lot worse for me to think McVay doesn't know what he's doing...

[Elvis]

BTW, a new thing McVay does with timeouts that i don't think i've seen before is use them like they do in basketball, before a big play, see how the other team lines up on offense and then call a timeout. We did it a few times last year and again yesterday...

[moklerman]

Martz started the idea that timeouts were for more than saving for clock management. He used them as part of the offense. I went to camp once in Maccomb and actually saw Bulger call a timeout in a scrimmage (or was it an install). Sometimes in Martz's offense, based on the play called and the defense shown, a timeout was the correct answer.

People hated Martz for that but it's another one of his innovations that have been adopted by others.

I laugh when people compare Martz to McVay as if it's a bad thing. Martz was terrible with people and widely hated. McVay is the opposite. But when it comes to football, the similarities are good. The last time we regularly scored points and won games is when Martz was our HC. If you're innovative, if you defy the conventional wisdom, people will jump on you the second any cracks start to form and lambaste you for not doing it the way everyone else does never noticing that the game is changing because of what you're doing.

Things are gonna have to get a lot worse for me to think McVay doesn't know what he's doing...

Martz still has one of the best winning percentages of all time is +30 in the win column. As someone pointed out earlier, give Martz a DC like Phillips and a GM like Snead instead of the front office that he had and things would have been a LOT different.

The Rams should have never given Martz full control. I'm sure they thought they had to but it was the worst thing for such an inexperienced guy. How great would it have been if Vermeil would have wanted to move upstairs and become the GM for Martz? I don't believe for a second that Vermeil wanted to quit coaching at that time though even though that's the official story.

[dieterbrock]

25.7 PPG, 8th in the league. And this is during a "slump"?
Wow, how lucky are we?

[Mr. Sparkle]

This is just CRAZY how people are feeling to me. You could mistake this forum for the Panther or Saints forum. I could see if we were 0-3 or something but Rams are undefeated with a very winnable game up next and a quarter of the season is in the books.

However, not just a Rams thing, but I have always though there are enough coaches and staff hanging around with not a lot to do, there is a Get Back coach for crying out loud, why not have a clock coach? Basically someone with a clipboard with a bunch of stop watches crunching numbers? Something the HC or OC/DC doesn't really need to commit that kind of brain power to.