According to Google: Your Offensive Coordinator’s Playcalling is Too Conservative

No matter which team you support, it’s very easy to find some mouthbreathing idiot whose only contribution to discussions is to proclaim that “Offensive coordinator X is TOO CONSERVATIVE!”  You’ll also find this particular breed exhorting that what the offense really needs to do is “ram that ball down their throats”, that they’ve had enough of these “screen passes on third down” and that the “playcalling is just too damn predictable”.  Much like basketball teams simply need to “bottle up Steph Curry on offense”, all your team really needs to do is stretch the field a bit and any offensive woes – real or imagined – will instantly disappear.

I fucking hate Hue Jackson.  A number of Raider fans still love him, which I can’t understand.  Sure he presided over their last non-losing season and has performed his duties quite well since the Raiders dropped him, but his own ineptitude as a “general manager” in Oakland has contributed to his success in Cincinnati, courtesy of the first and second round picks he coughed up in the disastrous trade he orchestrated to obtain Carson Palmer.  I can actually distill my dislike for Hue Jackson to a single play, which occurred against the Lions in 2011.  The Raiders had started the season 7-4, and it looked like Al Davis’ parting gift to the Raiders faithful as he finally shuffled off this immortal coil was going to be their first trip to the playoffs in almost ten years.  After a pair of embarrassing losses on the road to Miami (14-34) and Green Bay (16-46), they hosted the Detroit Lions with what would amount to a chance to clinch a playoff spot.

The Raiders built a 27-14 lead with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, then promptly surrendered another touchdown.  Starting at their own fifteen, they put together a decent drive consisting of nothing other than runs by Michael Bush and found themselves facing a 3rd and 3 at the Detroit 48 with 2:32 remaining.  A “conservative” playcall would be another run – with a worst-case scenario of forcing Detroit to burn their last timeout or running the clock down to the two minute warning.  Instead, Hue Jackson dialed up a deep pass on the right sideline to Chazz Schilens.  A play designed to “ram the ball down their throats” and lock up the win for the Raiders.  It was close – Carson Palmer only overthrew it by a tiny bit – but it fell incomplete and stopped the clock, forcing the Raiders to punt.  The rest, as they say, is history.

That’s why I hate Hue Jackson.  His insistence on running a high risk play in that situation cost the Raiders the game, and ultimately cost them a winning season and a trip to the playoffs.  Sometimes the conservative play is the right one.  For this week, I thought I’d rank the teams in order of how much their fans bitch about their offensive coordinator being “too conservative”.  As usual, this SOPHISTICATED STATISTICAL ANALYSIS is entirely based on Google’s search results.  Since there’s a lot of guys embarking on their first stint as offensive coordinators, I’m only going to list the top 20.  Without futher ado…