There's no way your coaches "ran plays we knew would would not work." You run plays designed to get 3 yards. When the defense tries to take away the 3 yard play consistently, then you run the similar looking play designed to go 30 yards. Nobody is going to run a play intending to get <=0 yards.IM confused. You don't think certain plays are ran to open up the field even if they don't work? That is strange when everyone knows that a ton of plays are not designed to gain yards but to set stuff up for later or open up the field. Have you coached before? I played college football at Iowa Central (I know not the NFL or major college) However, we ran plays we knew would not work to set up other things.
You can run receivers deep to keep safeties back without actually throwing it deep. What are they going to do, not cover the WR? If they do that, THEN air it out. Otherwise, take what's easiest.