The playcalling is not predictable. Amen. Give credit where it is due… Gilbride is mixing it up. Could he have the offense run through Shockey a lot more? Well, in a word, YES! But you cannot argue with the success he has had spreading it out, pounding other teams with the run (because our O-line is so dominant) and getting the ball to Burress and Toomer. So Shockey has to get less touches if that is happening. As long as it is working and we are winning, you cannot complain about that.
With Hufnagel I would groan because I knew what was coming and (worse) knew that that also meant that the assasins playing defense knew too. We would be in the red zone and first down would be the (stacked up) predictable run for 1 yard. Then we would get the predictable pass for 4 yds (complete or incomplete, no matter). Then on third down he would wake tfu and throw to Shockey, but at that point it was too late because now everyone and their mother knew that that was coming too. With Gilbride, I have not seen the tendency yet on any down at any place on the field, so that is good. The moment u r safe and predictable u r dead.
It does not hurt that our O-line is controlling the line of scrimmage. That makes play action work, and boy has Manning been deadly with play action. As long as Gilbride keeps the defense off-balance, we are in good shape. We won’t likely get tested in London, but when we play Dallas and Chicago those defenses will test Gilbride a lot more and then we will see what we really have. So far it is UNPREDICTABLE!
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