That would be pretty dumb for passing plays where the qb is standing flat footed in the back feild overlooking wide open receivers, but thanks for blindly spinning all negative sounding posts. You’re doing an excellent job
Let's just take a moment and try to count up all the things our coaches--and many of our better players--know that we don't. Boil it right down to a single play. Just one play. What do they know, what advantages do they have over us?
(a) They know the capabilities of our QB. Far, far better than any of us. They've spent hours with him, hours upon hours, on the practice field, in the QB room, studying tape, talking, listening, watching, evaluating. We have what, 3 minutes of film a day, at most, for the 15 days of camp? (Thanks again, Fingers!)
(b) They also know the capabilities of each WR. Each TE. Each RB. Each lineman, and the OL as a protective ensemble. We know even less about all these guys than we do the QBs.
(c) They know our playbook. Some of them literally
wrote the playbook. They know which plays can be called, and which can't yet. None of us have ever seen the playbook, not even a single glimpse.
(d) Not only that, the coaches and players know the _specific_ play called on this down. They know what options the QB has, and what he doesn't. They know which receivers are "live" to receive a pass and which aren't. They know the reads, and the progression. We know none of that.
(e) They've spent hours upon hours studying the opponent's defense. They know the capabilities and limitations of each opposing player. They know when our lads and theirs line up what matchups are favorable to us. We usually don't know much of that. Maybe the more astute of us will be keying on where their best DBs are and where our best WRs are and whether any of our best are covered by a weaker defender. Maybe. Sometimes. These are things the coaches, and our players, are intensely aware of on every play where it matters.
...
I could go on. Those are just some of the biggest ones. But one thing's for sure. When we stand in the bleachers, and we see an open receiver and a QB holding the ball, we're thinking as if the lads were playing a pick up game in the back yard. He's open, throw to him. Without knowing all that stuff above, it seems as easy as that.
We're watching checkers. They're playing 3-dimensional chess.
And when they're doing it well, we win games. When we face a lesser opponent, we win by something like 32 points.
So yeah, how about instead of shouting "throw the damn ball" for the 30th time tonight, we spend more time appreciating and enjoying all the complexity behind what we're seeing. Or at least tip our caps to the coaches and players for having a much deeper understanding than we ever will.
You know, from the bleachers.
Go Vols!
