[stupac2]

To piggyback off of your point, stupac, it strikes me that this is a new situation to which people are proposing old explanations -- primarily focused on the offense and/or punting-on-fourth-down whatever. But we've been arguing about these flaws, real or exaggerated, for ages; it's never gotten as bad as it is now. The most likely explanation for an unprecedented situation is an unprecedented factor -- which is to say, injuries.

(Injuries are also the most parsimonious explanation for why a seemingly-good team through the first three games of the season descended into sheer awfulness the next two.)

Exactly, we know this system can work fine, and we've been doing the things people lament for forever. The combination of a weaker-than-average OL (which could be a coaching issue, could be a recruiting issue, or could just be bad luck) and injuries (definitely just bad luck) have lowered our ceiling considerably. It's possible that a different scheme would be more effective, but when the OL can't block anyone in the run or pass game I'm not sure what that scheme would be. When we're losing TOP to an air raid team, there are too many problems to really name them in a meaningful way.

[stupac2]

To piggyback off of your point, stupac, it strikes me that this is a new situation to which people are proposing old explanations -- primarily focused on the offense and/or punting-on-fourth-down whatever. But we've been arguing about these flaws, real or exaggerated, for ages; it's never gotten as bad as it is now. The most likely explanation for an unprecedented situation is an unprecedented factor -- which is to say, injuries.

(Injuries are also the most parsimonious explanation for why a seemingly-good team through the first three games of the season descended into sheer awfulness the next two.)

Exactly, we know this system can work fine, and we've been doing the things people lament for forever. The combination of a weaker-than-average OL (which could be a coaching issue, could be a recruiting issue, or could just be bad luck) and injuries (definitely just bad luck) have lowered our ceiling considerably. It's possible that a different scheme would be more effective, but when the OL can't block anyone in the run or pass game I'm not sure what that scheme would be. When we're losing TOP to an air raid team, there are too many problems to really name them in a meaningful way.