I agree Schaub wasn't being asked to carry the team. But I really believe what made our offense unique and so effective was the balance. No team in the NFL was better in terms of Run/Pass. After AJ went down the balance was thrown off, teams loaded up, and we saw that we are not the "impose your will" running game we thought we were. Our bootleg passes and stretch runs are a great chicken and egg type of thing for defenses to deal with.
Kubiak did the coaching job of his career to get long TDs on the throwback from the boot action to Dreesen, Foster, and JJ in successive weeks to scare teams back into being bludgeoned by our run game. We will now face that process all over again.
And my concern with Leinhart is that he does not push the ball down field. Look at the Redskins. They recently went to Beck because of his mobility. But after a few weeks they had to switch back to Grossman because Kyle Shannahan kept calling downfield plays that Beck would checkdown every time. Leinhart has always been that guy. He was that guy at USC but his checkdowns went to Bush and Mike Williams and turned into long gains that made him look good. He was that guy in Arizona and got benched and then cut for it. He was that guy in every preseason game this year for the Texans. He just doesn't push the ball downfield.
And teams know that. They will gameplan for that. With Schaub in, every safety had to worry about the deep route, the middle drag to OD, the flat, and the running play. And they all failed miserably. Now they will camp on the LOS and figure they can recover to the short routes, and if not surrender a medium gain and make us go 10+ plays with a compromised running game for every score. So Schaub was not throwing it that much, but his past success and his ability to gouge teams deep gauranteed a defense respected/feared our passing game.
Or I am an alarmist, and the Leopard will change the spots he has had for nearly a decade sample size. Believe me, I really want to be wrong here.
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