I don't necessarily love Chan, primarily for the egotistical reason that he doesn't do things the way I would do them. But I do respect him as a solid coach; that's why I'm so surprised that these guyys were clearly under-prepared yesterday. Maybe wearing two hats is just one too many for him. I know I'd never want my coach to be my GM, maybe the same principle applies here.
And apologies for the ugly mugs comment yesterday; if I'd have known it was your boys first game, I'd have been less of a cynical bastard.
I think your first two questions go together like peanut butter and jelly. It's hard enough trying to get that many guys on the same page and right now they look like a bunch of guys worried about making the right read instead of focusing on attacking the defense.
Imo the problem with dumbing it down too much is that instead of relying on scheme to beat people, then you'd be more relying on talent. And aside from a couple/three guys, there is a significant dearth of talent on that side of the ball.
I'm sure I was because a) they're scrimmages and b) they are for the most part meaningless. The Jets seemed ready to go yesterday and it wasn't because they were going balls to teh wall in preseason. The Patriots were ready to go yesterday and it wasn't because they went balls to the wall in preseason. Atlanta, Detroit, Denver and St Louis were all ready to go after marginal preseasons. On the flip side Philadelphia, Seattle, Jacksonville and Tennessee went a combined 14-2 in preseason and all looked like **** yesterday.
Trying to predict regular season results from preseason data is generally a fool's errand