Earnest Graham Says Offensive Philosophy Has Changed

December 02, 2009 at 11:59am by Scott   •  1 Comment »

Pewter Report transcribed a bit on Earnest Graham‘s interview on CBS radio yesterday and put it into this article, unfortunately titled “Graham Touches On Freeman, Olson“. Most of it is just Graham telling us how Josh Freeman has improved, but the last bit about Greg Olson is kind of interesting.

“I like Greg Olson. We can put up some serious numbers with him as the offensive coordinator. I think the pound the rock and the 2-2-1 running back rotation feel has changed. We are throwing the ball around a lot. I think we have confidence in our quarterback and we are trying to lean on Josh [Freeman] because he needs to develop his skills during the big time situations.”

The way Graham makes it sound, the Bucs are discarding their “run first” philosophy to become more of a passing team in order to give Freeman more experience as a passer this season. But it could be the first step in a fundamental shift in offensive philosophy. That’s kind of a big deal for a team that had loudly committed to being a running team.

But the Bucs are pretty much already built for it. They have an offensive line that seems better at pass-blocking than run-blocking, they have two pass-catching tight ends and running backs who are good as receivers. There might not be a need for a physical run-blocking wide receiver who can’t catch, so we might be seeing the last of Michael Clayton. But besides that, they looked prepared for this shift.

And thank god for the end of the 2-2-1 rotation. That was the worst idea since Greedo shooting first.