Should you make big halftime adjustments when you're playing well?

[Dave Gray]

I ask this because of what happened to the New England game, but it really applies to all teams.

When the Pats came out of the locker room in the 2nd half, they were a different team.  They made changes and shut us down for the rest of the game.  Since things were working for us, we tried doing the same things, for which they had every answer.  It was another completely unsurprising loss for me.  I saw it coming from a mile away.

Should a team like us, that can't win on talent and will alone, make considerable adjustments and changes to a gameplan that's working, in order to proactively prevent our opponents from figuring us out and picking us apart in the 2nd half?

[Spider-Dan]

That's total hindsight quarterbacking and is pointless.

If you lose and you did the same thing, "Why didn't you make adjustments?"
If you lose and you did something different, "Why the hell did you go away from what was working?"

If you lose, whatever you did, people will say you should have done the other thing.  The only way to avoid that is to win.  Period.

[MikeO]

That's total hindsight quarterbacking and is pointless.

If you lose and you did the same thing, "Why didn't you make adjustments?"
If you lose and you did something different, "Why the hell did you go away from what was working?"

If you lose, whatever you did, people will say you should have done the other thing.  The only way to avoid that is to win.  Period.

I agree with this. Not to mention you can make all the adjustments in the world, if you don't have the players it means nothing. When you have Matt Moore as your QB, you are limited in what you can do offensively. He isn't very good. On defense when you have a weak link corner in Sean Smith all the adjustments in the world can't help. You can't hide bad players in this league. There are no special plays/adjustments that can mask that. Opponents (especially the caliber of New England) will always expose bad players/weak links in time over the course of the game. They did that Saturday.

And lets be honest, last Saturday Miami was so dominating in the 1st half of that game if they did change it up at halftime and it backfired, we would have looked foolish. What they were doing was working to perfection, the fact they blew a 17pt lead in about 10 minutes shows of the talent gap between the two teams. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Dave Gray]

That's total hindsight quarterbacking and is pointless.

If you lose and you did the same thing, "Why didn't you make adjustments?"
If you lose and you did something different, "Why the hell did you go away from what was working?"

If you lose, whatever you did, people will say you should have done the other thing.  The only way to avoid that is to win.  Period.

I'm 100% with you that this is the perception.  However, my question is "which should you do?"  Make adjustments or not?

[Spider-Dan]

If it's working, continue to do it.
If it stops working, then try something new.

But you don't make changes because you anticipate that they will figure you out.  You make them actually implement their changes and then you counter them.

[masterfins]

I'm 100% with you that this is the perception.  However, my question is "which should you do?"  Make adjustments or not?

I don't think its so much about making adjustments, as it is preparing your team for what the opposing team may do.  When you are playing teams in your own division you have seen enough film to know that if A isn't working for them they usually go to B or C.  So, it may just be reminding the players to be on the lookout for changes from the opposing team.

[BigDaddyFin]

You want to keep what was working without getting stale.  For example, if you were running well in the first half, you obviously would keep running, but maybe out of different sets or on different down and distances. 

Generally if it's working keep doing it, but if it stops working you need to come up with plan B.  One of the best examples of this that I can point to would have been Superbowl 17 vs. Washington.  Gibbs purposely spent the entire 3rd quarter throwing the ball trying to wear out our pass rush.  Our offense couldn't stay on the field, and then when it came time to hit us with Riggins we were ripe for the picking.