[Chief Rum]

I have my ideas for how I want my football teams to play, of course, but I have found that, unless you're incredibly lucky, you don't end up with a team that fits your philosophy too well when you first start a game.

As such, rather than trying to fit the square peg into the round hole, I'm going to try to adapt a philosophy that suits this team best, and move it gradually to a system I am more comfortable with.

On offense, I feel that my best chance to move the ball is on the ground. Shipp may not be a great outside runner, but he can move the pile. And Smith should be nice for a change of pace. Also, I don't have much confidence in the passing game.

As for that passing game, I have very little in the way of steady receivers, and a quarterback who is much better throwing long than displaying anything resembling touch on short passes. So when I do pass, I will probably be rather vertical.

Defensively, I have good depth int he front seven, and they all seem to be big time hitters. That tells me I should play this one aggressive. Overall, this team isn't particularly smart defensively, so by playing aggressive, I should be able to counter the need for too much play recognition. Of course, I'll beburned by play action fakes and the like, but what can I do? Hopefully, I'll force many turnovers and rack up the sacks.

In the secondary, I will probably go with a bump and run philosophy. Starks is a fine, physical corner and my starting safeties are big and nasty. I may need to double-cover corner 2, since Barrett and anyone likely to replace him aren't very good at al. I wish I could say I would go with a flat zone or man-to-man, but I simply have too much variance in my players to make either work. If I go with one, then I'll have a fine man defender playing zone instead, or the other way, vice versa.

CR