My Two Cents 9-15-12
What’s up RaiderNation? Welcome to this week’s edition of My Two Cents, with your favorite geriatric Raider fan, Old Timer. Well, Monday was a big disappointment for the one and only nation, but there were at least some positives we can take from the game. And the fans got to see Ice Cube perform his new anthem, “Come and Get It”. As promised, I am following up this week on last week’s column.
First of all, let me give a big shout out to Marcus who brought it to my attention that I left “Just Win Baby” by Shieldhead off my list. I will make up for that now:
I would also like to thank all of the fans who participated in the poll. Here is the results as of the time of this writing:
1. Autumn Wind Poem with 69 votes
2. Back in Black by AC/DC with 30 votes
3. Raider Nation by Ice Cube with 18 votes
4. Come and Get It by Ice Cube and Darren McFadden with 8 votes
5. Raider For Life by ENOC with 3 votes
6. Flirtin’ with Disaster by Molly Hatchet with 3 votes
7. Thankyou Al and Solidarity by Hazmat Boyz tied with 1 vote
I have to say I am happy to see there are a good number of purists like me out there who find it hard to put aside Raider tradition!!!
Well, on to this week’s column. This week’s subject is the change in offensive philosophy to a zone blocking west coast style offense. While I think our offense can be very successful with it, I think it is something that we should not have tinkered with. Let’s face it, our offense was not a problem last year, it was the defense that did us in. And you can say all you want about it being Al’s fault by him butting in and controlling how the defense was played, but he certainly wasn’t calling plays after he passed away and our defense continued to cost us games. We had the talent, but Bresnahan was not able to utilize that talent to its ability.
OK, I will admit that I am a big fan of the pro style power blocking scheme, and the vertical game. You can say it is outdated all you want, but the fact is, if you have the right personnel for it, and the Raiders do, it is an explosive offense that can put up a lot of points for you. We saw the proof of that last year, even though we were without many of our star players, and had to bring Palmer in, off the couch so to speak, and throw him right into the fire. An off-season with the same offense, would have meant an extremely potent offense on the field in week 1.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that our offense will not be an extremely potent offense, but it is
not going to happen overnight. There are going to be growing pains, that we would not be going through had we not changed the offensive philosophy. As for why the change, Dennis Allen has told us time after time. In his career as a defensive coach, the toughest offense for him to defend against has been a zone blocking type scheme, so that is what he wants his offense to be. And this is not a short term plan to get us quickly to the playoffs, but rather a long term plan to get us in the playoffs consistently. I get that, I really do. I just would rather see our long term plan for our offense be something other than a zone blocking west coast style of offense.
So enough of what I think, what say ye RaiderNation? Hit me up either with a comment to the column, or with an email. You will always get a reply, and might even get mentioned in the next week’s column just like Marcus did in this one. Thanks again Marcus for the comment, and thank-you to all of our readers for making silverandblackdaily.com one of the top Raider fan-based websites. But remember, you as readers can help shape the content of our website. How? Just hit us up. All of us writers have both email and Twitter accounts. Let us know what you want to read, and help us make this the best Raider fan-based website ever. We aim, to please, help us do just that.
Well, that’s it for this week my Raider brothers and sisters. Make sure to check back next week for another edition of My Two Cents.Peace out RaiderNation!!
Old Timer
Questions? Comments? Email me at OldTimer@silverandblackdaily.com
Loading ...
Hey man ! thanks for the s/o !
I would not pretend to understand all the finer points of detail about the differences between a zone blocking scheme versus a power blocking scheme – but Id be interested to know which one you think is a better fit for DMac – because right now, for me, that is the key question.
All I know is that last season, he looked pretty much unstoppable until his injury, whereas on MNF, he looked pedestrian. Was that the play calling, the scheme or just great defense ?
Love the articles … makes me glad to know that Im not the oldest Raider fan on the internet ;)
Thanks again for a comment, and continuing to visit our website. And you are quite welcome for the shout out. To explain the differences between a zone blocking scheme (one where the lineman blocks an area or zone if you will, rather that a particular opponent) and power blocking (also called man or drive blocking, would take quite a bit of explaining. The main difference, aside from the blocking assignment, is that zone blocking typically moves laterally, creating seams for the RB to run through, instead of more of a straight ahead blocking. We started getting away from zone blocking when Cable was no longer running the show, and McFadden flourished.