Harbaugh on the Offense

[vmax]

Here's what Harbaugh has to say....

 

“We’ve got to find a way to run the ball better, for one thing. I think that’s something that’s really important. I’m disappointed in the fact that we haven’t run the ball for a better yard-per-carry-type average. I think we’re capable of doing better than that, and I think that establishes a lot of other things. And that’s the kind of football team that we believe in being, and we just haven’t been able to get on track there. That would take a lot of pressure off a lot of the other elements, so that’s important. Protection is important; we’ve got far too many sacks, far too many pressures, and it goes on everybody. It’s coaches, it’s Joe [Flacco], it’s the backs, it’s the offensive line, it’s all of us. But, that’s got to be really dramatically reduced. To me, that leads to the other areas.”

 

I don’t’ think we are consistent. Right now we’re not good at all on third down as a rule. A lot of that is because we’re in third-and-longs a lot. So, there are a lot of things that go into that. We’re not good in the red zone in terms of putting the ball in the end zone like we should. And, therefore, we don’t score enough points. We should be an offense that’s scoring a heck of a lot more than 10 points in any particular football game. We had an opportunity to go down there and at least kick a field goal on one occasion and we got ourselves sacked out of the fringe. That’s where we are right now. We’ve got to get better. We’re not good enough on offense, there’s no question about it. I don’t think we’re good enough in all phases, but that particular area, we should be doing better and we need to.”

 

We didn’t close games out against good teams at times. We’ve closed out some games this year, but we’ve also not closed out some games. I think if you look at all of our games, we don’t ever get blown out by anybody, do we? We’ve got a bunch of guys that know how to fight, and so when we do lose, and we lose close ones. That’s not closing out. So, I’m disappointed in the four games we lost that we didn’t close them out. We’ve got to find a way to get that done in the next four weeks.”

 

Generally, I think our coaches do a fabulous job in all ways, and yet, not good enough – not good enough to win that one yesterday. And that’s how we’ve all got to look at it.”

[yagersports]

It's nice to hear Harbaugh say some things out loud. I like that he's acknowledging glaring problems and not trying to sweep them under or rug or make an excuse. There is a problem, let's call it what it is and do something to address it.

 

I don't like his last comment about his coaches. I'm sorry, you may really believe in your staff, but you have to light a fire under them. If they did such a great job this year with all the talent this team has, we wouldn't be where we are right now. That's just calling it as it is. The season isn't over, and nor do I think that Harbaugh should bombard his staff with comments about how pathetic they are. However, spoiled milk is spoiled milk. Let's come out and say that our status quo isn't up to snuff and we're changing things in an attempt to rectify the situation.

 

No more sitting on leads, it's time to step on throats.

[ravinmaniac52]

“There are certain plays in there that I didn’t particularly like and Cam didn’t particularly like when we looked back on it and he’s the first one to criticize himself,” Harbaugh said. “But when you’ve got guys wide open on plays that can seal the game for you, it’s pretty hard to say it’s a bad play call.”

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=nfp-20101207_ravens_were_not_good_enough_on_offense

[Spen]

“There are certain plays in there that I didn’t particularly like and Cam didn’t particularly like when we looked back on it and he’s the first one to criticize himself,” Harbaugh said. “But when you’ve got guys wide open on plays that can seal the game for you, it’s pretty hard to say it’s a bad play call.”