[CTcard]

It's kind of weird to me that an offense predicated on throwing deep all the time gets both the quarterback and the coach a reputation of conservatism, but the term has always been super vague anyway.*

*(actually, that's not true. For football, "conservative" means "offense or defense I do not like." "Aggressive" means "offense or defense I do like.")

I have noted this as well, particularly the part in your asterisk.

Shaw definitely has conservative, meaning risk averse, tendencies personally and in his play to play decisions. I think he really doesn't like turnovers, he really doesn't like allowing sacks/tackles for loss, and when he has a strong defense (2012, 2013) is not overly concerned about punting. He also is conservative in how he talks about making personnel decisions, though I am less convinced than others that these comments should be taken at face value. Altogether that mostly just makes him a coach - as I think that attitude is more common than not.

Describing the offense of 2011-2012-2013 as conservative as in unchanging is certainly wrong. Describing the overall plan over those years as conservative as in risk averse is complicated. We certainly run toward the center of the field a lot - which is typically viewed as a low risk, low reward type of play. However, our passing game early 2012 and most of 2013 was based upon the long ball which tends to be the opposite. We don't run a lot of pass plays with completions within 5 yards of the LOS - which is a staple of a lot of the pass-a-lot-but-still-kind-of-conservative offenses out there. I am not sure whether the slow-down-the-game gambit is necessarily conservative in the usual meaning of that word - but it is something Shaw took to the extreme last year.

Hogan on the other hand I see fairly little reason to call conservative - though what that really means in a player is not so clear to me.
Some aspects of his game that seem the opposite of conservative: he likes throwing the long ball, he's willing to throw into coverage, he gives up on plays early and improvises (mostly scrambling).
Some aspects of his game that seem conservative: he hands the ball off a lot, ... others? 

[CTcard]

It's kind of weird to me that an offense predicated on throwing deep all the time gets both the quarterback and the coach a reputation of conservatism, but the term has always been super vague anyway.*

*(actually, that's not true. For football, "conservative" means "offense or defense I do not like." "Aggressive" means "offense or defense I do like.")

I have noted this as well, particularly the part in your asterisk.

Shaw definitely has conservative, meaning risk averse, tendencies personally and in his play to play decisions. I think he really doesn't like turnovers, he really doesn't like allowing sacks/tackles for loss, and when he has a strong defense (2012, 2013) is not overly concerned about punting. He also is conservative in how he talks about making personnel decisions, though I am less convinced than others that these comments should be taken at face value. Altogether that mostly just makes him a coach - as I think that attitude is more common than not.

Describing the offense of 2011-2012-2013 as conservative as in unchanging is certainly wrong. Describing the overall plan over those years as conservative as in risk averse is complicated. We certainly run toward the center of the field a lot - which is typically viewed as a low risk, low reward type of play. However, our passing game early 2012 and most of 2013 was based upon the long ball which tends to be the opposite. We don't run a lot of pass plays with completions within 5 yards of the LOS - which is a staple of a lot of the pass-a-lot-but-still-kind-of-conservative offenses out there. I am not sure whether the slow-down-the-game gambit is necessarily conservative in the usual meaning of that word - but it is something Shaw took to the extreme last year.

Hogan on the other hand I see fairly little reason to call conservative - though what that really means in a player is not so clear to me.
Some aspects of his game that seem the opposite of conservative: he likes throwing the long ball, he's willing to throw into coverage, he gives up on plays early and improvises (mostly scrambling).
Some aspects of his game that seem conservative: he hands the ball off a lot, ... others?