pro style offense

[zazie]

I alowyas hear that this school or that school plays a pro style offense.

 

What do the others play? What is the distinction exactly?

[FluffHead]

pro set, i-form, shotgun, traditional offensive sets.

 

An example of a non-pro style offense would be something like the spread or the option (florida, texas tech, georgia tech, etc)

[The Senator]

pro set, i-form, shotgun, traditional offensive sets.

 

An example of a non-pro style offense would be something like the spread or the option (florida, texas tech, georgia tech, New England Patriots*, etc)

fixed

[H2o]

fixed

Senator, do you think Leach's offense could be as successful on the NFL level?

[Phlegm Alley]

Senator, do you think Leach's offense could be as successful on the NFL level?

 

 

I think its only a matter of time before they do and as The Senator already mentioned, the Pats run a spread offense.

 

If you look at Gruden, he said that he wanted to take this year off and do MNF, but to also study the spread offense in college FB and how it could be used in the NFL.

[vincec]

I think its only a matter of time before they do and as The Senator already mentioned, the Pats run a spread offense.

 

If you look at Gruden, he said that he wanted to take this year off and do MNF, but to also study the spread offense in college FB and how it could be used in the NFL.

Why do people think it's such a big leap from the "spread offense" to other traditional pro offenses? The Pats don't run the spread option. It's just a multi-receiver set like most teams have. They just use it more often (although not exclusively). That's probably because they have Tom Brady, Wes Welker and Randy Moss. In the NFL, teams use pieces of whatever works for their personnel in a mish-mash of offensive plays and concepts. They key is to adjust your philosophy and play calling to your personnel.

 

Football is about physically imposing your will on your opponent. If you can do that, you will be successful no matter what offense or defensive system you run.

[H2o]

I think its only a matter of time before they do and as The Senator already mentioned, the Pats run a spread offense.

 

If you look at Gruden, he said that he wanted to take this year off and do MNF, but to also study the spread offense in college FB and how it could be used in the NFL.

It's similar to the old "Run & Shoot" offense that Moon used to run in Houston. I just don't know with todays athletes in the NFL, versus the college game, if someone can succeed without a more balanced attack. I like Leach and think he could be successful anywhere, just not sure it would be in the same manner as he's done things at TTU.

[The Senator]

Why do people think it's such a big leap from the "spread offense" to other traditional pro offenses? The Pats don't run the spread option. It's just a multi-receiver set like most teams have. They just use it more often (although not exclusively). That's probably because they have Tom Brady, Wes Welker and Randy Moss. In the NFL, teams use pieces of whatever works for their personnel in a mish-mash of offensive plays and concepts. They key is to adjust your philosophy and play calling to your personnel.

 

Football is about physically imposing your will on your opponent. If you can do that, you will be successful no matter what offense or defensive system you run.

If only Dick Jauron could figure that out!

 

But Bill Belicheat* does a run college-style 'spread' offense, and used it to put up 59 points against Tennessee in snowy Foxboro. And you're right - he uses it because he has the personnel that can execute it; Brady's extremely accurate, works well from the shotgun, makes good decisions and makes them quickly, while Wes Welker was coached by...

 

Mike Leach

 

"Right now, we've been contacted by a minimum of three NFL teams who want to implement a spread element," Urban Meyer said last month. "They're going to do it."

 

"It's already here," said Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski, head coach at Boston College the last two seasons. "A lot of teams have it."

 

Maybe more need to, given what the New England Patriots have done with the spread passing game since Bill Belichick began making annual off-season treks to Gainesville (and Meyer to Foxboro, Mass.) the last three years.

 

And it's probably safe to say more will use it, considering all the Sunday cameos of the so-called "Wildcat" formation — with the same base power off-tackle play Tim Tebow runs so magnificently — made around the league last season, especially with the Miami Dolphins.

 

"Everyone knows how I feel about Bill Belichick," Meyer said. "How is it that Tom Brady and this guy (Matt Cassell) who never even started a game in college can make it work? Because Bill Belichick adapts. ... And the Miami Dolphins were 0-and-whatever (in 2007) and they adapted to what they had. All of a sudden, the running back was taking snaps and they were winning games."

 

Link - NFL teams eyeing spread offense

 

Link - The Spread Offense: Coming to an NFL Franchise Near You?

[Got_Wood]

Why do people think it's such a big leap from the "spread offense" to other traditional pro offenses? The Pats don't run the spread option. It's just a multi-receiver set like most teams have. They just use it more often (although not exclusively). That's probably because they have Tom Brady, Wes Welker and Randy Moss. In the NFL, teams use pieces of whatever works for their personnel in a mish-mash of offensive plays and concepts. They key is to adjust your philosophy and play calling to your personnel.

 

Football is about physically imposing your will on your opponent. If you can do that, you will be successful no matter what offense or defensive system you run.

 

I agree, and conversely teams need to build their personnel based on schemes they would like to run. Using New England as an example once again, they have an intelligent QB in Brady, some excellent wide outs in Moss and Welker, and Faulk and Watson have good pass catching ability as well. These guys aren't known for their running game. They use lots of short passes to supplant the running game. It is absolutely a spread offense, and Belichick took the time to sit down with Leach and Meyer and learn the intricacies of this offense to bring it to the NFL. This game is evolving every year, and the Bills are slow to catch on. We tried the west coast offense, but that didn't work for us. And it needs to be built around a high quality QB.

 

The Bills need to figure out their identity on offense. Are we a power running team, or are we a passing oriented team? Well, we have Lynch and Jackson at the RB position and we have Evans and Owens at the WR position. And we don't have a dominant QB. It looks to me like we're confused. We have big time threats in the backfield, but no line to block for them and no creative plays to get these guys in the endzone. We have big time WR's, but no big armed QB to get them the ball. We either need to find ourselves a big time QB and develop a passing game with our big threats or we need to trade away a guy like Owens or Evans and develop the running game.

 

I think it all starts with a coach that has a plan and philosophy in mind, and develops his team and his plays around it. If we get that coach in here, we can start to evolve.

[Mr. WEO]

Senator, do you think Leach's offense could be as successful on the NFL level?

Leach's offense doesn't even work in Div I----unless he's playing cupcakes.

[BUFFALOTONE]

There is a difference. Pitt and NE run the spread. The college team runs the spread option, where it gives the QB the choice to run depending on the look. That will never make it in the NFL. QBs get paid too much and defenses are waaaay to fast. Spurrier had it right just never had the personnel to execute it.

[The Senator]

Senator, do you think Leach's offense could be as successful on the NFL level?

Water, I think Leach would tailor and adapt his offense to suit the situation and the personnel - but I have no doubt the he'd do that and whatever else it takes to succeed. Kind of like what he did at Texas Tech..

 

Mike Leach saw when he came to Texas Tech, that there was no way he would ever be able to match up with Texas, Oklahoma, A&M and the big boys by doing more of what they were doing. He was always going to have to settle for the second and third tier players. He focused on bringing in fast, smart kids that were maybe a bit undersized or odd shaped, kids that maybe didn't look like football players.

 

How do you win with talent like this? He widened the offensive line splits, so his diminutive quarterbacks would have lanes they could see and throw through as well as to make the edges so far outside that his quarterbacks would have more time against the incredible athleticism many Big 12 Defensive Ends have. Over the course of a game those long pass rushes tire out these monstrous defensive ends so by the fourth quarter his quarterbacks have all day to throw. The offensive line splits vary dramatically from 3 to 9 feet. This also gave his smaller offensive linemen nice angles for those big defensive linemen aligned in the gaps.

 

He committed to passing the ball first, with most seasons averaging over 55 throws per game. He committed to throwing the ball with just a few concepts, All Curl, 4 Verticals, Y-Stick, Shallow, Bubble Screens and Mesh, The laminated play card for his quarterback had just 26 offensive plays on it for the Texas Game. Coach Leach does NOT have a huge play card filled with hundreds of plays and down and distance material, he has a simple piece of non laminated paper usually folded up into fourths, like some kind of crumpled up crib sheet, with about 30 plays on it. He committed to running those few concepts out of many formations and looks. So while Leach may be called the "Mad Scientist", his playbook is relatively simple.

 

Link - Youth Football the Texas Tech Mike Leach Way

 

I kind of think of him as Belichick*-like, only with a personality and a sense of humor. Believe it or not, their philosophies are quite similar...

 

"Ken was really smart," Belichick says [of his mentor Kenn Shipp]. "He had an answer to everything. No matter what the situation was, no matter what the defense did, or we'd see something on film. The offense was very thorough. It was very simple, but there were a lot of variations. Similar to the run-and-shoot, where they didn't have that many pass plays but they had adjustments on every pattern based on coverage."

 

Sounds remarkably similar to...

 

"There's two ways to make it more complex for the defense," Leach says. "One is to have a whole bunch of different plays, but that's no good because then the offense experiences as much complexity as the defense. Another is a small number of plays and run it out of lots of different formations." Leach prefers new formations. "That way, you don't have to teach a guy a new thing to do," he says. "You just have to teach him new places to stand." Texas Tech's offense has no playbook; Cody Hodges's wrist and Mike Leach's back pocket hold the only formal written records of what is widely regarded as one of the most intricate offenses ever to take a football field. The plays change too often, in response to the defense and the talents of the players on hand, to bother recording them.

 

(Interestingly, Leach has no offensive coordinator - he calls the plays himself, and gives the QB the option to change them based on what he sees across the LOS.)

 

That lesson -- the theory of constantly adjusting while keeping schemes relatively simple -- stayed with Belichick. At various times as the Cleveland Browns' head coach, Belichick called the offensive plays. And that's the side of the ball with which he's been heavily involved in New England.

 

Link - Shipp shaped Belichick's thinking: Pats' coach credits NFL offensive guru who 'had an answer for everything'

 

Link - Coach Leach Goes Deep, Very Deep

 

 

So yeah, I do think Leach's offense, whatever scheme he comes up with, will be successful in the NFL - mainly because Leach is a very smart guy who knows how to adapt to his personnel, who knows that is all starts with the offensive line, and who is extremely committed to perfect execution from all his players, but particularly his QBs and WRs.

[Got_Wood]

There is a difference. Pitt and NE run the spread. The college team runs the spread option, where it gives the QB the choice to run depending on the look. That will never make it in the NFL. QBs get paid too much and defenses are waaaay to fast. Spurrier had it right just never had the personnel to execute it.

 

This is true, unless this position evolves in the NFL as well. If a guy like Tebow or Locker (who are both great runners) come into the league, I think you can use the option. There have been guys in the past that could run like Steve Young, Randall Cunningham, John Elway, Michael Vick, and Steve McNair (in his earlier days). I think it's a possibility. QB's don't HAVE TO be slow and fragile. This is just the type of guy teams are recruiting in this NFL era... the pocket passer QB.

I hate the fact that money has changed the game so much. You can barely touch the QB anymore without drawing a penalty or getting a big fine from the league. You also don't see guys like Hester or McGee returning kickoffs as much because they are "paid too much" to do that. That's weak. Just play football.

[IHFO]

Water, I think Leach would tailor and adapt his offense to suit the situation and the personnel - but I have no doubt the he'd do that and whatever else it takes to succeed. Kind of like what he did at Texas Tech..

 

Mike Leach saw when he came to Texas Tech, that there was no way he would ever be able to match up with Texas, Oklahoma, A&M and the big boys by doing more of what they were doing. He was always going to have to settle for the second and third tier players. He focused on bringing in fast, smart kids that were maybe a bit undersized or odd shaped, kids that maybe didn't look like football players.

 

How do you win with talent like this? He widened the offensive line splits, so his diminutive quarterbacks would have lanes they could see and throw through as well as to make the edges so far outside that his quarterbacks would have more time against the incredible athleticism many Big 12 Defensive Ends have. Over the course of a game those long pass rushes tire out these monstrous defensive ends so by the fourth quarter his quarterbacks have all day to throw. The offensive line splits vary dramatically from 3 to 9 feet. This also gave his smaller offensive linemen nice angles for those big defensive linemen aligned in the gaps.

 

He committed to passing the ball first, with most seasons averaging over 55 throws per game. He committed to throwing the ball with just a few concepts, All Curl, 4 Verticals, Y-Stick, Shallow, Bubble Screens and Mesh, The laminated play card for his quarterback had just 26 offensive plays on it for the Texas Game. Coach Leach does NOT have a huge play card filled with hundreds of plays and down and distance material, he has a simple piece of non laminated paper usually folded up into fourths, like some kind of crumpled up crib sheet, with about 30 plays on it. He committed to running those few concepts out of many formations and looks. So while Leach may be called the "Mad Scientist", his playbook is relatively simple.

 

Link - Youth Football the Texas Tech Mike Leach Way

 

I kind of think of him as Belichick*-like, only with a personality and a sense of humor. Believe it or not, their philosophies are quite similar...

 

"Ken was really smart," Belichick says [of his mentor Kenn Shipp]. "He had an answer to everything. No matter what the situation was, no matter what the defense did, or we'd see something on film. The offense was very thorough. It was very simple, but there were a lot of variations. Similar to the run-and-shoot, where they didn't have that many pass plays but they had adjustments on every pattern based on coverage."

 

Sounds remarkably similar to...

 

"There's two ways to make it more complex for the defense," Leach says. "One is to have a whole bunch of different plays, but that's no good because then the offense experiences as much complexity as the defense. Another is a small number of plays and run it out of lots of different formations." Leach prefers new formations. "That way, you don't have to teach a guy a new thing to do," he says. "You just have to teach him new places to stand." Texas Tech's offense has no playbook; Cody Hodges's wrist and Mike Leach's back pocket hold the only formal written records of what is widely regarded as one of the most intricate offenses ever to take a football field. The plays change too often, in response to the defense and the talents of the players on hand, to bother recording them.

 

(Interestingly, Leach has no offensive coordinator - he calls the plays himself, and gives the QB the option to change them based on what he sees across the LOS.)

 

That lesson -- the theory of constantly adjusting while keeping schemes relatively simple -- stayed with Belichick. At various times as the Cleveland Browns' head coach, Belichick called the offensive plays. And that's the side of the ball with which he's been heavily involved in New England.

 

Link - Shipp shaped Belichick's thinking: Pats' coach credits NFL offensive guru who 'had an answer for everything'

 

Link - Coach Leach Goes Deep, Very Deep

 

 

So yeah, I do think Leach's offense, whatever scheme he comes up with, will be successful in the NFL - mainly because Leach is a very smart guy who knows how to adapt to his personnel, who knows that is all starts with the offensive line, and who is extremely committed to perfect execution from all his players, but particularly his QBs and WRs.

after reading that i would be 100% on board with him being the next head coach of the bills...too bad it'll never happen

[billfan63]

Leach's offense doesn't even work in Div I----unless he's playing cupcakes.

Not really, in the last three years that offense has beaten a #1, #3 and two weeks ago

a #15 Nebraska. If your talking about the front end of Leach's schedule I agree there are alot of

cupcakes, but the offense has proven that it can beat quality teams also

[IHFO]

Not really, in the last three years that offense has beaten a #1, #3 and two weeks ago

a #15 Nebraska. If your talking about the front end of Leach's schedule I agree there are alot of

cupcakes, but the offense has proven that it can beat quality teams also

why bring facts and reason into an argument...when you are trying to make a point based on your own opinions

[Mr. WEO]

Not really, in the last three years that offense has beaten a #1, #3 and two weeks ago

a #15 Nebraska. If your talking about the front end of Leach's schedule I agree there are alot of

cupcakes, but the offense has proven that it can beat quality teams also

The point being argued is whether Leach's TT offense would be useful (or whether HE would be useful) in the NFL. There is no evidence of this. I have stated that his pas only offense works well against the mediocre to bad defenses that he faces the majority of the time. Beating a ranked team every now and then is not a great feat for such a "genius" (Nebraska's loss permanently vanished them from the top 25, by the way), is it?

 

The Senator has boasted of Leach's prowess with caoching QBs in this "system", yet none of Leach's QB products has made a dent in the NFL--none can play in the League.

 

He also says that Leach "adapts to his personnel". He absolutely does not. His personnel adapts to his monolithic offense. His team has lead the Div I in passing 5 of the last 6 seasons (they were 2nd once).

 

It's nonsense.

 

Who really thinks that Leach could have this kind of success with this team if he was in the SEC, or the PAC 10?

[Cynical]

The point being argued is whether Leach's TT offense would be useful (or whether HE would be useful) in the NFL. There is no evidence of this. I have stated that his pas only offense works well against the mediocre to bad defenses that he faces the majority of the time. Beating a ranked team every now and then is not a great feat for such a "genius" (Nebraska's loss permanently vanished them from the top 25, by the way), is it?

 

The Senator has boasted of Leach's prowess with caoching QBs in this "system", yet none of Leach's QB products has made a dent in the NFL--none can play in the League.

 

He also says that Leach "adapts to his personnel". He absolutely does not. His personnel adapts to his monolithic offense. His team has lead the Div I in passing 5 of the last 6 seasons (they were 2nd once).

 

It's nonsense.

 

Who really thinks that Leach could have this kind of success with this team if he was in the SEC, or the PAC 10?

 

IDK. I hear a certain team in Florida from the SEC runs this contraption called a spread option. Been pretty successful too.

 

And, no, I still am not in favor of Leach becoming the next HC of the Bills.

[billfan63]

The point being argued is whether Leach's TT offense would be useful (or whether HE would be useful) in the NFL.

Leach's offense doesn't even work in Div I----unless he's playing cupcakes.

 

Well thats as clear as mud

[The Senator]

IDK. I hear a certain team in Florida from the SEC runs this contraption called a spread option. Been pretty successful too.

 

And, no, I still am not in favor of Leach becoming the next HC of the Bills.

Precisely - and Bill Belicheat* and WEO's Cheatriettes* have been 'going to school' on and implementing more of that offense every year.

 

I'll stand by my belief that Leach will adapt his offensive scheme to the talents of his personnel, whether in the Big 12, PAC 10, SEC, or NFL...

 

At least one N.F.L. head coach had taken a special interest in the Texas Tech offense and had been ordering its game tapes on Monday mornings. At least one N.F.L. defensive coordinator, Jim Schwartz of the Tennessee Titans, had stumbled upon Texas Tech accidentally and said, "Oh, my." The surprise runner-up in the search earlier this year for a new San Francisco 49ers head coach, Schwartz had scrambled to answer a question: if he got the 49ers job, whom should he hire?

 

The 49ers had not bothered to interview college coaches for the head-coaching job in part because its front-office analysis found that most of the college coaches hired in the past 20 years to run N.F.L. teams had failed. But in Schwartz's view, college coaches tended to fail in the N.F.L. mainly because the pros hired the famous coaches from the old-money schools, on the premise that those who won the most games were the best coaches. But was this smart? Notre Dame might have a good football team, but how much of its success came from the desire of every Catholic in the country to play for Notre Dame?

 

Looking for fresh coaching talent, Schwartz analyzed the offensive and defensive statistics of what he called the "midlevel schools" in search of any that had enjoyed success out of proportion to their stature. On offense, Texas Tech's numbers leapt out as positively freakish: a midlevel school, playing against the toughest football schools in the country, with the nation's highest scoring offense. Mike Leach had become the Texas Tech head coach before the 2000 season, and from that moment its quarterbacks were transformed into superstars. Whoever played quarterback for the Texas Tech Red Raiders was sure to create so much offense that he couldn't be ignored.

 

Schwartz had an N.F.L. coach's perspective on talent, and from his point of view, the players Leach was using to rack up points and yards were no talent at all. None of them had been identified by N.F.L. scouts or even college recruiters as first-rate material. Coming out of high school, most of them had only one or two offers from midrange schools. Either the market for quarterbacks was screwy - that is, the schools with the recruiting edge, and N.F.L. scouts, were missing big talent - or (much more likely, in Schwartz's view) Leach was finding new and better ways to extract value from his players. "They weren't scoring all these touchdowns because they had the best players," Schwartz told me recently. "They were doing it because they were smarter. Leach had found a way to make it work."

 

Link - NY TIMES MAGAZINE

 

 

Leach will eventually get an NFL gig. I hope it's with the Bills because, to paraphrase one of Marv's and Leach's favorite quotes, "Those who do not learn from WEO's mistakes, are condemned to repeat them."

Link - Mr. WEO