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I wrote this in response to a board member's Facebook status, but it bears repeating here, I think.

The two fundamental cornerstones of football are blocking and tackling. If you do both of those well, you have a great chance of winning most any game. Last night, the Falcons did neither consistently well.

It's tough to tell if our QB is good enough or not, because he didn't have a consistent running game (because we didn't get consistently good run blocking); that, in turn, practically eliminates pages and pages of your playbook. Additionally, the pass protection was, at best, inconsistent. You can only mask that so much by using quick slants and screens. At some point, you have to be able to take a 5-step drop and work through your progressions.

Noah was laughing at me throughout the game, because I had gotten in the habit of counting the missed tackles on each play. On the big ones, you could easily count three or four missed tackles. It wasn't that the defensive scheme was bad, it wasn't. It wasn't that the players weren't in position to make plays. They were. We just consistently failed to execute the most fundamental defensive skill - tackling. And it's not just making a one-on-one open field tackle, which is no small task, but even managing to make contact and, at least, slow down the opponent. We "whiffed" way too many times.

It seems that we have the athletes. At least from my couch here in the Philly area, our players didn't look out-matched in that regard. But last night, Toledo blocked well and tackled well. We didn't. The difference was apparent on the scoreboard and on the stat sheet.

So it would seem the Falcons off-season focus should be simple - fundamentals. If we make marked improvements in blocking and tackling, I don't see why we can't be in the running for the MAC East title next fall.

Missed tackles?? I would be curious to see how many you came up with. I was sitting in the stands counting but then I stopped when I get to 47. Of course at times there were 3 or 4 missed tackles on the same play.

We cut our penalties down but still as you mentioned blocking and tackling are the key. Just look at the Lions in the NFL. They haven't been able to block or tackle in 5 years and look at their record.


On a separate note our coaching staff needs to fire up this team. Back in the days of Brandon and Urban and even under Blackney the offense and defense coaches would gather the team on the sidelines and fire the players up. Hitting their shoulder pads, grab the facemasks, push the players around to get them fired up. This coaching staff calmly walks over to the benches and just talks, if that. The coaches lack urgency. Anyone else present at the games see this. Even Clawson shows little emotion.

Without beating the "dead horse", we cannot hope to improve offensively without some stability on the OL.... thought it was interesting that the announcers mentioned that TU's (sorry guys, but that's what WE called them, "back in the day") OL had been together AS A GROUP all season long. While we move DL people (at least two by my count who've played) to the OL...These kids probably DID play both ways in HS, but this isn't HS anymore. Rousseau in particular, had a tough time staying with the outside rushers...but I'm sure not going to blame him for this...
Add the tackling woes, and they ARE WOEFUL, and you have a 33-14 score. The one thing I'll say for these kids is that they DON"T QUIT...but when you're down this much , this quickly, it's almost impossible to come back.

1987alum wrote: Noah was laughing at me throughout the game, because I had gotten in the habit of counting the missed tackles on each play. On the big ones, you could easily count three or four missed tackles. It wasn't that the defensive scheme was bad, it wasn't. It wasn't that the players weren't in position to make plays. They were. We just consistently failed to execute the most fundamental defensive skill - tackling. And it's not just making a one-on-one open field tackle, which is no small task, but even managing to make contact and, at least, slow down the opponent. We "whiffed" way too many times.

We have had trouble tackling the opposition for a number of years now. And then when we do tackle the opponent, we usually are in front of him and drag him forward another five yards because while we have him wrapped up, we are trying to steal the ball.

Glad Noah was laughing at you. No telling what the people walking down the hallway at the hotel were thinking when I kept yelling "Just tackle the guy!!!"

gmartin wrote:On a separate note our coaching staff needs to fire up this team. Back in the days of Brandon and Urban and even under Blackney the offense and defense coaches would gather the team on the sidelines and fire the players up. Hitting their shoulder pads, grab the facemasks, push the players around to get them fired up. This coaching staff calmly walks over to the benches and just talks, if that. The coaches lack urgency. Anyone else present at the games see this. Even Clawson shows little emotion.

I seem to notice Clawson yelling at the refs (about God knows what usually) more than he ever is talking to the players.

Also noticed right from the start that we had players wearing ski hats, fanny pack hand warmers, and coats on the sidelines. I mean it wasn't a balmy night, but it wasn't snowing and 10 degrees either. Are these guys not tough enough?

Warthog wrote:

gmartin wrote:On a separate note our coaching staff needs to fire up this team. Back in the days of Brandon and Urban and even under Blackney the offense and defense coaches would gather the team on the sidelines and fire the players up. Hitting their shoulder pads, grab the facemasks, push the players around to get them fired up. This coaching staff calmly walks over to the benches and just talks, if that. The coaches lack urgency. Anyone else present at the games see this. Even Clawson shows little emotion.

I seem to notice Clawson yelling at the refs (about God knows what usually) more than he ever is talking to the players.

Also noticed right from the start that we had players wearing ski hats, fanny pack hand warmers, and coats on the sidelines. I mean it wasn't a balmy night, but it wasn't snowing and 10 degrees either. Are these guys not tough enough?

If the player just rides the bench, let them keep warm. If they ever had to go into that game, you wouldn't want them stone cold trying to start playing. That would just cause more injuries. Everybody thinks that being tough means being stupid and trying to be macho. If I were the coach, I would be making my back-ups keep warm, just-in-case they had to play at some point that game.

Class of 61 wrote:Without beating the "dead horse", we cannot hope to improve offensively without some stability on the OL.

Spot on, Den. We need a stable group of starters who can execute the fundamentals. I don't think most people realize how important chemistry is for offensive linemen, but it is huge.

Also, we need to develop more depth so that if we lose a starter or two, we're not pulling D Lineman across the LOS mid-season to plug holes. Not a good practice.

I wanted to say that I did see some flashes from the O Line last night. On one replay, ESPN did a great job of isolating the backside guard sealing off the hole on an inside trap play to Willie Geter. The result was a gaping hole that allowed Willie to gain 6 yards before he was hit by a Rockette. But you hit on a real sore spot - we just could NOT contain the edge on pass plays; I found myself yelling "step UP!" to our QB every time he took more than three-step drop. Obviously, he shouldn't have to do that so often.

The off-season priorities seem clear to me. Offense = blocking. Defense = tackling. Everything else is secondary.