Pinkel says advantage of spread offense fading
- Thread starter Burnt Orange Bevo
- Start date
RedRiverRocks
500+ Posts
I don't know if its just me but watch Gary Pinkel's team.... When ever their QB actually throws the ball, he is like 12 yards or so behind the line of scrimmage it seems at times
L
longtex
Guest
The issue is not so much novelty as it is predictability, and that means on both sides of the line of scrimmage.
Granted, a novel approach (again, either offensively or defensively) is, ipso facto, at least somewhat unpredictable - but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be successful, and it will not be unless the strategy behind it is implemented in a tactically proper way.
As noted in many places, the Spread in its many forms primarily counts the Single Wing in its ancestral line, as does the Wing-T, and as does the "current fad" of the WildXXX in a perhaps clearer way. To say that the Spread (or any other offensive formation) is "fading" is seriously missing the mark. Like any other organic form, it is evolving.
Coach Pinkel's statement probably should be re-cast as "the parts of the Spread that I understand isn't working so well anymore, and I don't know what to do now."
Granted, a novel approach (again, either offensively or defensively) is, ipso facto, at least somewhat unpredictable - but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be successful, and it will not be unless the strategy behind it is implemented in a tactically proper way.
As noted in many places, the Spread in its many forms primarily counts the Single Wing in its ancestral line, as does the Wing-T, and as does the "current fad" of the WildXXX in a perhaps clearer way. To say that the Spread (or any other offensive formation) is "fading" is seriously missing the mark. Like any other organic form, it is evolving.
Coach Pinkel's statement probably should be re-cast as "the parts of the Spread that I understand isn't working so well anymore, and I don't know what to do now."
Full Flask
250+ Posts
So if defenses are adjusting by recruiting DT's who can rush the passer and safeties who can cover WR's one on one, and LB's who can cover, what happens if someone with Texas-type talent counters that by going with an offense based on power running? With 180 lb. safeties, 220 lb. LB's, and 270 lb. DT's, will they be able to stop an offense with 325 drive blocking OL across the board (e.g. Leonard Davis/Andre Gurode) who put those DT's on their back and a Ricky Williams/Earl Campbell type back who swats off those little safeties like gnats?
That's what I want to see.
Bring back the power running game! I miss Nebraska of 1994-1995. Those offenses were fun to watch.
That's what I want to see.
everybodygodeep
500+ Posts
Our spread offense is working just fine.
There are some other factors affecting the transition to offenses with more passing other than scheming (both offensive and defensive).
The changing rules and interpretation of rules to protect receivers and quarterbacks along with the very liberal pass interference rules has substantially altered the run/pass equation. Also, allowing the QB to throw away the ball without a downing penalty makes it incredibly difficult to get a sack now.
I doubt a QB could survive the number of passing plays in modern football without modern rules.
The changing rules and interpretation of rules to protect receivers and quarterbacks along with the very liberal pass interference rules has substantially altered the run/pass equation. Also, allowing the QB to throw away the ball without a downing penalty makes it incredibly difficult to get a sack now.
I doubt a QB could survive the number of passing plays in modern football without modern rules.
texas_ex2000
2,500+ Posts
Vince Lombardi when asked if they were going to rely on their awesome sweep play vs Kansas City in the early 60's said: "It doesn't matter what you run, you just have to be better at running it than they are at stopping it."
Still rings true...
Pinkel is just commentating on something I think everyone can agree on - the spread or whatever you want to call it is no longer the head scratcher for D Coords that it once was. When Northwester won the BigX, the D coords really struggled with the stresses that the offense put on them - they had to build a personnel base to handle the big powerful I formation teams so they had big linebackers and safeties and their DTs weren't required to be excellent pass rushers, they had to be able to stand their ground vs double teams.
I think it's easier on D coords to set themselves up personnel wise since most teams are running offenses that don't rely on 3 yards and a cloud of dust - they can find quick guys and play them at backer etc.. The teams who are the change-ups now are benefitting from playing against mustangs instead of F-350s.
For example, Georgia Tech like mentioned above. But, also note that they struggle when they play a team coming off a bye week or having time to prepare for bowl games - they are beating quality teams who only have one week to prepare. THAT mirrors an impact that the spread teams of the 90's had on college football. The D coords, and certainly the players didn't really understand all the option routes, or even not used to the erratic timing of no-huddle and quick release passes paired with more conventional timing plays and sets. They didn't have the depth in the secondary to play vs 4 wides all game long - remember our cramps vs Jenkins' UH cougars?
THOSE advantages are gone - now, as said above, it's all on execution...... which we are seeing often really drops off if the starting QB goes down or if the receivers are not yet on the same page with their options/reads as the QB whether it's them or the QB. Major kudos to OU on having Sam ready to go when he was a frosh and Landry playing really well.
I don't think it's too far a reach to couple the emergence of the spread or pass oriented offenses with the reduction of scholarships. The "little guys" started getting more quality athletes - really noticeable in the OL, the big guys were not able to just dominate both LOS as often - the offense rule changes like using hands to block and in college blocking while the pass is behind the LOS - and the rule changes on the defense like no contact after 5 yards, tight roughing the passer calls, throw aways outside of the tackle-box.....all helped pass oriented offenses.
There are a lot of factors (like 7-on7s) that have propelled the spread(s) to dominance, Pinkel is saying SOME of those factors aren't the factor they were a decade or more ago....
I agree.
Still rings true...
Pinkel is just commentating on something I think everyone can agree on - the spread or whatever you want to call it is no longer the head scratcher for D Coords that it once was. When Northwester won the BigX, the D coords really struggled with the stresses that the offense put on them - they had to build a personnel base to handle the big powerful I formation teams so they had big linebackers and safeties and their DTs weren't required to be excellent pass rushers, they had to be able to stand their ground vs double teams.
I think it's easier on D coords to set themselves up personnel wise since most teams are running offenses that don't rely on 3 yards and a cloud of dust - they can find quick guys and play them at backer etc.. The teams who are the change-ups now are benefitting from playing against mustangs instead of F-350s.
For example, Georgia Tech like mentioned above. But, also note that they struggle when they play a team coming off a bye week or having time to prepare for bowl games - they are beating quality teams who only have one week to prepare. THAT mirrors an impact that the spread teams of the 90's had on college football. The D coords, and certainly the players didn't really understand all the option routes, or even not used to the erratic timing of no-huddle and quick release passes paired with more conventional timing plays and sets. They didn't have the depth in the secondary to play vs 4 wides all game long - remember our cramps vs Jenkins' UH cougars?
THOSE advantages are gone - now, as said above, it's all on execution...... which we are seeing often really drops off if the starting QB goes down or if the receivers are not yet on the same page with their options/reads as the QB whether it's them or the QB. Major kudos to OU on having Sam ready to go when he was a frosh and Landry playing really well.
I don't think it's too far a reach to couple the emergence of the spread or pass oriented offenses with the reduction of scholarships. The "little guys" started getting more quality athletes - really noticeable in the OL, the big guys were not able to just dominate both LOS as often - the offense rule changes like using hands to block and in college blocking while the pass is behind the LOS - and the rule changes on the defense like no contact after 5 yards, tight roughing the passer calls, throw aways outside of the tackle-box.....all helped pass oriented offenses.
There are a lot of factors (like 7-on7s) that have propelled the spread(s) to dominance, Pinkel is saying SOME of those factors aren't the factor they were a decade or more ago....
I agree.
Hpslugga
2,500+ Posts
Huge necro-bump.
I’d been saving this thread’s URL since we were all in on this discussion. I wanted to give it ample time to breathe in and out the collective insanity by a few so that ultimately I’d be able to crow about what I had known going back 15 years:
Regarding his enthusiasm for the Wildcat, THAT was what I found to be a fad that would die soon, and die it has. That fad came and passed when the Dolphins tried it for a few seasons and never really amounted to much of anything as the Patriots have absolutely owned that division for the past 15 seasons (more on them later) regardless of any gimmicky ******** those clowns in South Florida were trying to pull to become vaguely relevant.
Anyways, the spread absolutely owns the sport of football. Absolutely.Owns.It. There has never been a period where the upper echelons of HS ball, College ball, and Pro ball had a flourishing fetish for a personnel and formation grouping like today with the spread. The wishbone was really a college thing, the WCO was a pro thing, and the veer was a HS thing.
In HS, the 10 dominant programs around the country are, in no particular order:
-Bishop Gorman of Nevada (they line up in the gun every play)
-St. John Bosco of California (they go no-huddle and really only “tighten up” to 11 personnel in short yardage situations, otherwise they’re a 4-wide offense that has a lot of inside options and PA off of same)
-The IMG Academy of Florida (gun, spread, no-huddle, dual threat QB, and they like to go deep…a lot)
-Mater Dei of California (gun, spread, lot of RPO’s)
-Grayson of Georgia (multiple formations, always in the gun, never in a huddle, use a lot of motion and not at all shy about throwing deep)
-DeSoto of Texas (multiple formations, always in the gun, never in a huddle)
-Lake Travis of Texas (gun, spread, no-huddle)
-Centennial Corona of California (gun, spread, no-huddle. They’re pretty much exclusive 4WR and they use Leach-like line splits)
-St. Thomas Aquinas of Florida (gun, spread, no-huddle)
-Chandler of Arizona (gun, spread, hurry-up no-huddle)
8 of 10 go without a huddle, all are either balanced or pass-first and everyone goes from the gun full-time.
And of course if there’s one program in the whole country that none of those 10 want to schedule (fear of the unknown) is the Pulaski Academy of Arkansas. This would be the team that never punts, always kicks onside, blitzes the **** out of you on defense and goes at a nitro tempo in their no-huddle spread offense that has a lot of pre-snap AND post-snap reads in the passing game.
Anyways, the spread enjoys a total monopoly of the upper echelons of HS ball. Is it solely because of choice of formations? No, it's that coaches understand that you have to work toward that direction and build a foundation that will make it work.
In college, far apart from the fact that the spread/no-huddle runs rampant among the Top 25, the last 3 years have featured CFP “tournaments” that are absolutely dominated by this offensive mentality
2014: Oregon, Ohio State, Bama, Florida State. Ok, FSU doesn’t go exclusively no-huddle and Bama very frequently goes two-tight end, but FSU is mostly 11 and 10 personnel and Bama’s been doing the no-huddle business ever since Saban figured out that Bielema’s crusade against it was utter nonsense that was never going to fly. Oregon and Ohio State were (and still are) jet tempo spread offenses.
2015: Bama, Clemson, OUsux, Michigan State. Only Michigan State represented a significant departure from the other 3, and they were absolutely destroyed in the round of 4 by a total of 38-0 by an Alabama offense that nearly doubled Sparty’s offensive yardage output.
2016: Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, Washington. 3 teams without even a pretense of a huddle and Washington does that sugar huddle thing where the OL huddle and the QB gives them a quick call before they quickly break and get to the line.
In fact, if you look at the 3 champions of those “tournaments,” you cannot escape the fact that these are huge offensive teams with a proclivity to spreading **** out and putting the pedal to the metal.
Average offensive rank: 22nd (only because Alabama was 45th in 2015. Ohio State and Clemson both finished in the Top 12)
Average offensive yardage: 480 yards per game (again, only because Bama brings it down. Ohio State and Clemson were both hitting 500+ per game)
Average scoring: 40 points per game
These are not 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-********* offenses. These are teams that average 10 points per quarter. That’s what it takes to win a championship these days when those CFP Final runners-up are averaging 30 points per game. Let me repeat that: the losing team averages 30 points per game in a CFP final.
In the NFL, the Patriots have won 2 out of 3 Super Bowls. Since we discussed this topic, they participated in a 4th (and lost to a Giants team that was OC’ed by Kevin Gilbride), the Packers won in a throw-down with the Steelers, and Peyton Manning ended his career with a ring.
The Patriots are a particularly instructive example because in those two wins, Tom Brady actually broke the record for completions in a Super Bowl in both games. They go to 10,11, and 005 personnel around 70% of the time. They have the ability to line up a bunch of TE’s and run the ball, but their modus operandi is to spread out a bunch of small WR’s like Edelman, Hogan, Amendola, et al, and sling the ball around about 50%+ of the time.
Regarding the NFL in general, it’s instructive to note the progressive increase of the shotgun formation over the last 20 years:
In 1996, the average utilization of the gun was 7% with the lead team being the Jets.
In 2006, that average increased to 19% with Miami leading the way at 44%.
In 2011, the average increased again to 44% with Detroit peaking at 68%.
This past season, the gun was used nearly 70% of the time. That is to say that an NFL team will line up in the gun 7 times on every 10 plays. The leader of course was the 49ers with, I’m not kidding, 99% of their plays coming out of the gun. In fact they ran a grand total of 10 under center plays. Now of course San Francisco was ******* terrible, but the point is that league-wide, that usage is going way up and there’s no sign that it’s going to stop. I’m more than certain similar increases have graced HS and CFB as well, but we’ve no concrete statistics to back the claim unless someone here is willing to watch film of…well basically everyone over the last 20 years.
As I said, coachkiss isn’t the first person to utter that line. It’s been predicted by quite a few, including quite a few posters here, and it’s been routinely met with round-the-clock smacks of reality. The proliferation of the spread is not a fad. This is a nascent tyranny, and it was inevitable. You should have seen it coming beginning in 1999 when the Rams won the Super Bowl, Florida State won the MNC, and Texas High School Football was being taken over by the likes of Ennis, Stephenville and Denton Ryan. We reached the point of no return in 2014 when Allen, TX and Bishop Gorman, NV topped the HS polls, when the CFP saw that monopoly playoff that concluded with an Urban Meyer offense setting the world on fire with 40+ ppg with a 3rd team QB in winning the inaugural CFP Championship, and when Tom Brady won his 4th ring. As that season ended, so too did the “debate.”
The spread isn’t becoming “passe” any time soon and good luck to the countless poor souls who fancy themselves the men who are going to bring it down. My absolute favorite moment of that season was when Ohio State, needing an impressive win to leap over TCU and Baylor, went all William Tecumseh Sherman on poor little Wisconsin, who was actually favored (making it the largest margin of victory by an underdog in NCAA history). It wasn’t that they prison-raped them 59-0, and it wasn’t even that they outgained them by 300 yards. It was that they outrushed this supposed “vaunted ground attack” by 230 yards on essentially the same number of carries. Poor little Melvin Gordon never had a chance.
I’d been saving this thread’s URL since we were all in on this discussion. I wanted to give it ample time to breathe in and out the collective insanity by a few so that ultimately I’d be able to crow about what I had known going back 15 years:
Coachkiss wasn’t the first to express this hip and trendy little line, but it isn’t uttered anymore because time proved it to be utter nonsense.
Regarding his enthusiasm for the Wildcat, THAT was what I found to be a fad that would die soon, and die it has. That fad came and passed when the Dolphins tried it for a few seasons and never really amounted to much of anything as the Patriots have absolutely owned that division for the past 15 seasons (more on them later) regardless of any gimmicky ******** those clowns in South Florida were trying to pull to become vaguely relevant.
Anyways, the spread absolutely owns the sport of football. Absolutely.Owns.It. There has never been a period where the upper echelons of HS ball, College ball, and Pro ball had a flourishing fetish for a personnel and formation grouping like today with the spread. The wishbone was really a college thing, the WCO was a pro thing, and the veer was a HS thing.
In HS, the 10 dominant programs around the country are, in no particular order:
-Bishop Gorman of Nevada (they line up in the gun every play)
-St. John Bosco of California (they go no-huddle and really only “tighten up” to 11 personnel in short yardage situations, otherwise they’re a 4-wide offense that has a lot of inside options and PA off of same)
-The IMG Academy of Florida (gun, spread, no-huddle, dual threat QB, and they like to go deep…a lot)
-Mater Dei of California (gun, spread, lot of RPO’s)
-Grayson of Georgia (multiple formations, always in the gun, never in a huddle, use a lot of motion and not at all shy about throwing deep)
-DeSoto of Texas (multiple formations, always in the gun, never in a huddle)
-Lake Travis of Texas (gun, spread, no-huddle)
-Centennial Corona of California (gun, spread, no-huddle. They’re pretty much exclusive 4WR and they use Leach-like line splits)
-St. Thomas Aquinas of Florida (gun, spread, no-huddle)
-Chandler of Arizona (gun, spread, hurry-up no-huddle)
8 of 10 go without a huddle, all are either balanced or pass-first and everyone goes from the gun full-time.
And of course if there’s one program in the whole country that none of those 10 want to schedule (fear of the unknown) is the Pulaski Academy of Arkansas. This would be the team that never punts, always kicks onside, blitzes the **** out of you on defense and goes at a nitro tempo in their no-huddle spread offense that has a lot of pre-snap AND post-snap reads in the passing game.
Anyways, the spread enjoys a total monopoly of the upper echelons of HS ball. Is it solely because of choice of formations? No, it's that coaches understand that you have to work toward that direction and build a foundation that will make it work.
In college, far apart from the fact that the spread/no-huddle runs rampant among the Top 25, the last 3 years have featured CFP “tournaments” that are absolutely dominated by this offensive mentality
2014: Oregon, Ohio State, Bama, Florida State. Ok, FSU doesn’t go exclusively no-huddle and Bama very frequently goes two-tight end, but FSU is mostly 11 and 10 personnel and Bama’s been doing the no-huddle business ever since Saban figured out that Bielema’s crusade against it was utter nonsense that was never going to fly. Oregon and Ohio State were (and still are) jet tempo spread offenses.
2015: Bama, Clemson, OUsux, Michigan State. Only Michigan State represented a significant departure from the other 3, and they were absolutely destroyed in the round of 4 by a total of 38-0 by an Alabama offense that nearly doubled Sparty’s offensive yardage output.
2016: Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, Washington. 3 teams without even a pretense of a huddle and Washington does that sugar huddle thing where the OL huddle and the QB gives them a quick call before they quickly break and get to the line.
In fact, if you look at the 3 champions of those “tournaments,” you cannot escape the fact that these are huge offensive teams with a proclivity to spreading **** out and putting the pedal to the metal.
Average offensive rank: 22nd (only because Alabama was 45th in 2015. Ohio State and Clemson both finished in the Top 12)
Average offensive yardage: 480 yards per game (again, only because Bama brings it down. Ohio State and Clemson were both hitting 500+ per game)
Average scoring: 40 points per game
These are not 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-********* offenses. These are teams that average 10 points per quarter. That’s what it takes to win a championship these days when those CFP Final runners-up are averaging 30 points per game. Let me repeat that: the losing team averages 30 points per game in a CFP final.
In the NFL, the Patriots have won 2 out of 3 Super Bowls. Since we discussed this topic, they participated in a 4th (and lost to a Giants team that was OC’ed by Kevin Gilbride), the Packers won in a throw-down with the Steelers, and Peyton Manning ended his career with a ring.
The Patriots are a particularly instructive example because in those two wins, Tom Brady actually broke the record for completions in a Super Bowl in both games. They go to 10,11, and 005 personnel around 70% of the time. They have the ability to line up a bunch of TE’s and run the ball, but their modus operandi is to spread out a bunch of small WR’s like Edelman, Hogan, Amendola, et al, and sling the ball around about 50%+ of the time.
Regarding the NFL in general, it’s instructive to note the progressive increase of the shotgun formation over the last 20 years:
In 1996, the average utilization of the gun was 7% with the lead team being the Jets.
In 2006, that average increased to 19% with Miami leading the way at 44%.
In 2011, the average increased again to 44% with Detroit peaking at 68%.
This past season, the gun was used nearly 70% of the time. That is to say that an NFL team will line up in the gun 7 times on every 10 plays. The leader of course was the 49ers with, I’m not kidding, 99% of their plays coming out of the gun. In fact they ran a grand total of 10 under center plays. Now of course San Francisco was ******* terrible, but the point is that league-wide, that usage is going way up and there’s no sign that it’s going to stop. I’m more than certain similar increases have graced HS and CFB as well, but we’ve no concrete statistics to back the claim unless someone here is willing to watch film of…well basically everyone over the last 20 years.
As I said, coachkiss isn’t the first person to utter that line. It’s been predicted by quite a few, including quite a few posters here, and it’s been routinely met with round-the-clock smacks of reality. The proliferation of the spread is not a fad. This is a nascent tyranny, and it was inevitable. You should have seen it coming beginning in 1999 when the Rams won the Super Bowl, Florida State won the MNC, and Texas High School Football was being taken over by the likes of Ennis, Stephenville and Denton Ryan. We reached the point of no return in 2014 when Allen, TX and Bishop Gorman, NV topped the HS polls, when the CFP saw that monopoly playoff that concluded with an Urban Meyer offense setting the world on fire with 40+ ppg with a 3rd team QB in winning the inaugural CFP Championship, and when Tom Brady won his 4th ring. As that season ended, so too did the “debate.”
The spread isn’t becoming “passe” any time soon and good luck to the countless poor souls who fancy themselves the men who are going to bring it down. My absolute favorite moment of that season was when Ohio State, needing an impressive win to leap over TCU and Baylor, went all William Tecumseh Sherman on poor little Wisconsin, who was actually favored (making it the largest margin of victory by an underdog in NCAA history). It wasn’t that they prison-raped them 59-0, and it wasn’t even that they outgained them by 300 yards. It was that they outrushed this supposed “vaunted ground attack” by 230 yards on essentially the same number of carries. Poor little Melvin Gordon never had a chance.
That was an interesting dream. For those who are into that kind of thing, that’s the kind of thing they’re into. “Outmoded” my ***.
LousianaHorn
Kabong
HP I agree 100% but just to show that the old school ways are still relevant I present John Curtis High near New Orleans (BTW they should have been on your list).......they have been running the veer option since 1975 and at last count had won 26 state titles (five straight from 04 to 08) and one Natty in 2012 (consensus in 5 of 7 polls).
ProdigalHorn
10,000+ Posts
The flaw in that play was always that it depended on an RB being willing to occasionally hand the ball to someone else instead of keeping it. I don't know how many times Jonathan Gray ran that formation at Texas, but I know the number of times he handed off.
Hpslugga
2,500+ Posts
Not only that but you also know how many times he threw it, and that's the fatal flaw of the Wildcat as a base operation. It's true that it is based on the Single Wing, but Doak Walker's corpse could throw the ball better than Ronnie Brown or Jonathan Gray or Darren McFadden or whoever else you've seen in that silliness. In Walker's time, those trigger-men were exactly what the name implied. They were basically running a shotgun offense with motion, which wasn't all that different from that Spread stuff that Dutch Meyer was running and writing books about at TCU back in the 1930's. Today? It's a gimmick that only permits you to run a handful of plays and it has no passing game to speak of. In the NFL especially, if you can't pass the ball, you ain't winnin' ****.
Well I've never contended that they aren't. In fact, the Spread is very much an old school way, whether you believe it started with Dutch Meyer or Tiger Ellison (it was definitely no later than the latter, and that was almost 60 years ago). What I object to was this notion that the spread was some fad that would fade to obscurity very quickly, which is what people were predicting here going as far back as 2002. My only point in that long-winded post is that those predictions, made by people who wanted it to be true and couldn't for the life of them understand why it was (and still is) not, were about as useful as an ******* on an elbow.
Welcome back, slugga.
A simple, "told ya so" would have sufficed.
Hpslugga
2,500+ Posts
Nah. The people I was describing constitute a rather weaselly lot and if you leave it at that, they'd probably come back with something cheap and tawdry like "omglol the Seahawks beat the Broncos one time!!!" and that apparently is sufficient to prove everything.
Galvestonhorn
250+ Posts
I've always loved the spread. But if the various rule changes hadn't been made I don't believe there would be any healthy QB's or WR's around.
Like Ray Lewis said after watching Manning and Denver wear out a team on Thursday night a few years ago..."it's not a fair fight".
Like Ray Lewis said after watching Manning and Denver wear out a team on Thursday night a few years ago..."it's not a fair fight".
Hpslugga
2,500+ Posts
I'm sorry but I don't respect Lewis' view. I really don't. Defensive players have been bitching about those rule changes for quite some time, but what they conveniently leave out is how tilted the rules had been against offenses if you look at them comprehensively.
-The offense is the one that always has to have 7 guys on the line of scrimmage exactly. Why? That rule has never made any sense to me.
-The offense can only throw the ball to 5 of the 10 possible people. Why? Why can it not be all 10?
-The offense is the one that does not permit for 2 of those 7 people to be eligible receivers both lined up on the LOS and on the same side of the formation (this is commonly referred to as "covering up"). Why does no one question this? If an offense wants to line up with a WR and a TE both on the LOS and on one side of the formation, why shouldn't they be allowed to?
-The offense is the one that has to be perfectly still prior to the snap, sans one guy going in motion either parallel or away from the LOS, while the defense gets to move all about in any which way it wants, sans of course being across the LOS at the snap and/or penetrating the NZ in a manner that influences an offensive player to move.
-The offense is the one that has to keep the OL behind the LOS if a pass is thrown across the LOS. Again, why is this even a rule? Ok so in the pre-5 yard cushion days, a DB could basically abuse a WR prior to the pass getting to him, but it's not right for an OL to pancake his *** to clear way for the WR? Why doesn't anyone ever question this?
-The offense cannot send any eligible receivers towards the LOS prior to the snap unless they come to rest for a second. The Arena and Canadian leagues don't even respect this. They send slot WR's on a full speed course prior to the snap and they time it to where they snap the ball right when they're approaching the LOS area. Defenses can send safeties full speed on a blitz and no one questions it. Why doesn't anyone ever question this?
So Ray is pissed that you can't target receivers and that you can't dive at QB's legs to sack him. Fine, I'll offer him and the rest of those defensive whiners this: we'll let you target WR's, headslap OL and dive at QB's again if we can send OL across the LOS on an across-the-LOS pass, set picks, and send at least 5 receivers up the field Canadian-style prior to snapping the ball.
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Hpslugga
2,500+ Posts
Even if what you're saying is right, it's not relevant. The only thing that's relevant is "were Gary Pinkel and the posters here who predicted the imminent demise of the spread correct or not?" If the answer is "no," what difference does my apparent "sensitivity to disagreement" make? As far as any perceived "authority," that's illusory.
Galvestonhorn
250+ Posts
All I said was had the rules not been changed you wouldn't have any healthy QB's or WR's; which is exactly the reason you didn't see many spread offensives up until that occurred. And for good reason.
And I'm not defending either side of it because I don't really give a sheet. But for the record, Seattle destroyed Denvers spread in that SB and had the Pats spread defeated the next year until Pete had a brain freeze and decided to throw it instead of handing the ball to the baddest running back on the planet (at that time ) 4 straight times, if needed.
And I'm not defending either side of it because I don't really give a sheet. But for the record, Seattle destroyed Denvers spread in that SB and had the Pats spread defeated the next year until Pete had a brain freeze and decided to throw it instead of handing the ball to the baddest running back on the planet (at that time ) 4 straight times, if needed.
Hpslugga
2,500+ Posts
That's speculative, and that's besides the point. Again, if you make the aforementioned changes I suggested, you'd see even more of it and for good reason: because while what you said about QB's and WR's is 100% accurate, the values placed on those positions would be considerably lessened. With OL and WR clearing out defenders, a QB's accuracy is much less important as is the precision route-running of the WR's.
We can what-if that New England game to death, but that misses the point entirely. The point isn't who's winning anecdotal games or even championships, it's that the spread has been delivering a categorical and comprehensive ***-kicking upon the game and there's a snowball's chance in Hell that it's going to go the way of the Wishbone, certainly in our lifetimes.
Horns11
10,000+ Posts
I'm not sure why this even needs to be defended. Pinkel was probably the least deserving guy with the title of "Head Coach" for at least a decade. As slugga rightly said, this isn't a matter of "once-in-a-lifetime defense beat the spread one time." This is how the game is going to be played.
With the way that athletes are "bred" from a young age now, there isn't going to be a need to find the 210-pound LBs and 260-pound DTs because those kids are going to be like Malik Jefferson sized and still run fast enough to cover spread stuff.
With the way that athletes are "bred" from a young age now, there isn't going to be a need to find the 210-pound LBs and 260-pound DTs because those kids are going to be like Malik Jefferson sized and still run fast enough to cover spread stuff.
Galvestonhorn
250+ Posts
Like I said , I'm not defending anything one way or another and couldn't give a sheet. And I know Ray Lewis doesn't know much (along w countless other players and coaches that "whine" and say the exact same thing).
But, my only advice is that anybody that's been following a thread for 8 years really needs to find himself a woman...mate.
But, my only advice is that anybody that's been following a thread for 8 years really needs to find himself a woman...mate.
Seriously, HP were you ever in a debate club?
No...seriously?
No...seriously?
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