Simple offense instead of Complex or Dumbed-down offense?

[folz]

I was listening to the Lee Evans radio interview

http://www.wedg.com/goout.asp?u=/article.asp?id=1843584

and they asked how Chan Gailey's offense was different from last year's offense and his response was:

 

"I don't want to call his (Gailey's) offense simple, but its, you know, he has the ability to get guys in different places and you know, still stay with the same play. It's not an offense where you have, you know, you go into a game with two or three hundred plays. He has the base package of things he likes to run and they can mix up formations and personnel and do the same thing, so, I think that's good cause the plays that will be run will be plays that you've run over and over and over and over again. You know them like the back of your hand; and that's the kind of sense I'm getting from it and I think that will help, you know, even when guys come in they'll know what they're doing and I think that's a big key going into the season or down the road."

 

So it seems like Gailey's system means learn a smaller number of plays really well and then disguise them with formations and personnel. That kind of reminded me of the 90s Bills offense. I'm not saying Gailey will have that type of success by any means, but it sounded similar in that the players become experts at a handful of plays---like the couter trey, etc. back in the day---so execution is always at a high level.

 

And as Lee said, with fewer plays but ones that have been run over and over, if you have to play 2nd or 3rd stringers due to injury or whatever, their heads aren't swimming because they haven't had any reps in half the plays in the playbook for that game...they can come in and execute at least at their own top level because they're confident in their knowledge of the plays.

 

 

It also made me think that last season, with Jauron and Schonert, maybe it wasn't one of them being right and one wrong, maybe they were both wrong. (I'm reading between the lines here, so I could be off, but...) If Turk was coming in with 200-300 plays per game and the guys couldn't get them down, remember them, or whatever, then maybe Jauron was right in telling him he had to scale it back. But the problem with Jauron's scaling back was that with fewer plays, they didn't know how to disguise them, so other teams knew what was coming when they saw the Bills line up.

 

Could that have been our problem last year?

[milehiLou]

it seemed to me that last season teams had the ability to sniff out Bills plays.. packages would telegraph play selection.. play action was all but nonexistant in last seasons offense.....the slant pattern was used very sparingly....tight end talent was exposed early and forgotten...lee evans was flanked by a primadonna overthe hill big name with nothing to prove who basically just showed up for work and collected nearly 7mil and had drops on third down on more than one occasion....

 

spiller is dynamic and will dominate in 3wr sets vs nickel and dime defenses.

[Skoobydum]

it seemed to me that last season teams had the ability to sniff out Bills plays.. packages would telegraph play selection.. play action was all but nonexistant in last seasons offense.....the slant pattern was used very sparingly....tight end talent was exposed early and forgotten...lee evans was flanked by a primadonna overthe hill big name with nothing to prove who basically just showed up for work and collected nearly 7mil and had drops on third down on more than one occasion....

 

spiller is dynamic and will dominate in 3wr sets vs nickel and dime defenses.

 

Man I hope you're right.

[Hossage]

Everybody knew what the Bills were going to do last year. I'm a moron who isnt often sober, and I knew.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

There were two things I thought of when reading the original post.

 

The Bills used very little motion last year.

 

This is the first year of this offense so as time (seasons, hopefully successful ones) goes by, more levels of complexity will be added to the offense.

[MarkAF43]

Everybody knew what the Bills were going to do last year. I'm a moron who isnt often sober, and I knew.

 

 

Glad to see you finally admit it.... admitting it is the first step to getting help!

[buffalopdc]

Everybody knew what the Bills were going to do last year. I'm a moron who isnt often sober, and I knew.

 

Excellent!!!

[JohnC]

There were two things I thought of when reading the original post.

 

The Bills used very little motion last year.

 

This is the first year of this offense so as time (seasons, hopefully successful ones) goes by, more levels of complexity will be added to the offense.

 

On at least three times last year after a game an opposing player commented on how the defense knew what the upcoming play was going to be. There is a limit to the basic run plays teams run. Being able to disguise which play you are going to run is what keeps the defense off balance and not overloading or lean the defense to stop a particular play.

 

The difference in running a successful play or having that play be stymied is very small. Under the Jauron offense the opposition defense had a leg up in diagnosing a play and being able to stop it. Hopefully, Gailey and his staff will be able to regain some of the advantage the offense should have or looking at it from another perspective be able to take away the advantage that the defense gained by knowing what was coming.

[Beerball]

simple, but complex

 

Simple from the perspective of our players, complex enough so that the opposing defense doesn't know what's coming (along with everyone watching the game). Find what you do well and build off of it. I can see lots of 2 back sets with Jackson, Spiller and Lynch motioning Spiller or Jackson wide, keeping 2 in the backfield.

 

RB is a strength and Gailey likes to move the ball on the ground. If we get decent line play it could be interesting.