The Spread Offense
Apologies for not blogging over the holiday. But its difficult to post at the in-laws. I will have a couple of post over the next few days, so keep on reading and I appreciate all comments.
The Spread Offense is killing football as I know. The whole object is to spread the defense out and use the the whole field to your advantage. Defense's have to be in nickel or dime situations and your depth at the defensive back position is suppose to be put to the test. The guy who gets credit for this is Rich Rodriguez who used it at Tulane, Clemson and West Virginia. The reason why I say its killing football is simple. Teams who use this can't seem to run the ball consistently or get the tough yards when needed.
Pass Happy
Teams used to use the running game to set-up the pass. Now everyone is so pass happy they don't even get the running game going. Its not only a college problem, you see it in the pros as well. Take a look at the Patriots and Colts. Brady and Manning easily throw the ball 30-40 times a game. But neither of these teams rank very high in the league when it comes to running the football. Defense's can sit back and jam their receiver's because they know what's coming. All the fuss about Belichik's decision to go for it on 4th and 2 could have been moot if they would have ran the ball. The Patriots aren't built to run the ball consistently. I have previously stated that Florida and Texas don't have great running games. Tebow and McCoy are the their teams best option at running the football. I agree that the ball should be in your best players hands to make plays. But what about having balance in your offense. The knock against the West Coast offense was that is was the short passes and all you had to do was crowd the line. However, Bill Walsh and the 49ers teams that ran the true version of the offense always had a great run/pass balance. Roger Craig, Ricky Watters, Tom Rathman and William Floyd would agree. You want to keep a team off balance. The Spread doesn't add an element of surprise.
Tough Yards
4th and 2 and you throw the ball to a back out of the backfield!?!? Or how about Kansas in a rivalry game on their own 2 and they call a qb draw that results in a safety and them losing the game to Mizzou. If KU could have or would have used a rb to get out of the end zone, they probably would have won the game.These situations are examples of how using the spread cripples coaches into making dumb decisions. You need to be able to get the tough yards, hard yards. Franco Harris, John Riggins, Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson, even Marhall Faulk could get the those tough yards when the game is on the line. When the Colts finally beat the Pats a few years, Peyton Manning audible out of a pass into a run and handed it off to Addai on a third and short, and it propel them to the win. It proved the toughness not only of the Colts but of Manning as well. Being able to break the defense will by getting that yard of two that can end a game is devastating to the psyche of a defense. 
Its cool to light up the scoreboard but you also have to go back to the roots of the game and play some smash mouth football once in a while.
What do you do if you don't have the personel to play smash mouth football? A team that realizes that it's running backs aren't as good as they thought may not have any other option. When your backfield looks like a M*A*S*H unit you throw the ball so your running backs don't get beat up any more than they already are.
ReplyDeleteMost teams don't have or aren't recruiting short yardage backs and that is hurting them in the long run. The fullback position is almost obselete
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