They are not mutually exclusive. This is not a call to fire KOC or a KOC is a bad coach post.
The architecture of the offense is awesome. KOC has brilliant play design that can be leveraged against a lot of different schemes and personnel, creating easy yardage for the offense, and he and Kwesi have also clearly helped to instill a great culture with this team.
Those positives are not invalidated by anything else good or bad.
But it feels like it’s increasingly hard to deny that offensive playcalling contributes to these losses, and even some of their-to-the-wire wins that they could/should have blown open. It’s not to say he doesn’t have streaks where he’s able to get the offense into a rhythm and string together great drives.
But the constant running between the tackles. The play calls in “gotta have it” situations where the play by design cannot get a first down (think about those two dropped Hockenson passes 5 yards downfield on the final drive). The inability to dial up chunk yardage play calls despite a playbook full of plays he’s designed to do just that. The unsophisticated running plays in obvious run situations. Not running your offense through your best players (I’m talking mainly JJ here, but the lack of Addison involvement the last few games has been glaring too). Playing the offense through Mattison like he’s an all-pro three down back.
The offensive talent and frankly his own scheme is just too good to be hindered this much but his playcalling. It just feels like he cannot get out of his own way.
Yes KOC cost 2 fgs against us. The obvious option play that gets our starting qb flattened. Along with poor clock decision that gave the ball back with over a minute before the half.