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[QUOTE="CreaseRat, post: 2133549, member: 5802"]
My rumblings on the offense...

Salcido does not practice all week due to a lingering foot issue (noted by Desko in a post game presser). This impacts how the first unit gels together and players feeling comfortable with one another and knowing where a certain player will be. Especially when it's your top middie missing time.

Lack of an X attackman to run the offense. The offense relies heavily on alley dodges, which is fine, if you have good movement on the backside and move the ball to the adjacent and then that player moves it quickly and doesn't hold it. Too many times it's one on one and holding the ball looking for an individual shot, rather then getting a shot through ball movement and defensive rotation. I'm a big proponent of having your middies dodge the SSDM from X and making the D slide towards GLE (easier to back cut towards the goal). Side bar: Both Dearth and Solomon scored on back cuts when the ball was on the low wing. It's going to create 2 possibilities that the alley dodge doesn't. 1) crease feed due to a slow 2 slide and/or finding a step down shot off an adjacent slide. They have multiple players with good outside shots that they should be able to capitalize on the defense rotating. This is a coaching problem, they are trying to put a round peg in a square hole. Utilize each player to his skill set, tweek the offense to allow players to succeed.

Lastly, with all the random substitution patterns, I don't think players get a feel for the game and play care free. Looks like a majority of players are trying not to make a mistake instead of being aggressive and trying to make a play.
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