OT: NFL increasing moving to 11 personnel (3 WR)
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2019/2018-offensive-personnel-analysis
The so-called "pro set" is not really a pro(fessional) set any more. It doesn't really matter much if college is changing the pros or the pros are trickling down to college, but today's offenses run with 3 WR. Speed in space indeed.
Now if they'd only let defensive backs be physical again...
*Fantasy player clutches his pearly white smartphone in shock upon hearing this suggestion*
While a linebacker, this guy agrees...
Water is wet
The sky is blue
The Earth is flat
/not Kyrie Irving
The idea that the NFL lags college is very strange.
Football scheme is basically trickle up from HS to College to Pro with Pros being slow to going away from pro style offense to college scheme. I know that HS coaches have little use for offensive coaching clinics and instead, they tend to gravitate towards defensive coaching clinics to pick up on defensive scheme to combat against innovative schemes.
That's because college schemes that rely on exploiting favorable matchups and advantages in speed aren't as effective in the pros, where talent differences are much smaller. Add to that the fact that in the NFL, there are no restrictions on practice time to prepare for gimmicky offenses. That's why offensive schemes that rely on running 4 and 5 WRs all the time, or on running QBs, don't succeed in the pros, at least not for long.
The best offense in the league are the ones who are running college schemes and concepts. Look at KC, their offense is Air-Raid offense and they're the best offense in the league.
College scheme isn't gimmicky offense like you think it is. The problem with the pros is they have limited roster spots as opposed to college where they have a much larger roster spot. NFL still had a lot of trouble defending college scheme.
In college, it's not gimmicky. In the NFL it is.
Name one NFL team that has been successful for more than a few years with an "air raid" offense, or one that depended heavily on a running QB. You can make a gimmicky offense work for maybe 2 or 3 years in the NFL until defenses figure you out or your QB gets beat up. Then you're back to looking for a real QB that can run a consistently successful offense.
I mean, you have the entire history of football to prove that the NFL has always lagged college. High School/Lower Division college football are the great incubators where basically every major innovation in football has come from first, with major college football being the place where it usually gets stress tested on a big scale first before finally filtering up to the NFL.
It's not really surprising either, you've only got 32 NFL teams, and you used to have fewer. There's only so much innovation that can happen from such a small pool. HS/College also have huge talent mismatches that don't exist in the NFL, which presents a problem that has to be solved for coaches who then start looking outside the box and voila you have a T Formation or a spread offense or a timing based deep passing attack.
Looks a though we are heading toward a more 00 set...and Michigan might do this with McCaffrey. "McCaffrey is in the shotgun. Black, Collins and Sainristil are split wide right in a triple set with DPJ wide left and Jackson in the slot. Jackson comes in motion to the right...". Tell me the defense is not in a panic and the fans are not on the edge of their seats! You go Gattis!!!
With the WR talent Michigan has, not to mention what should be strong quarterbacking and Oline play, there's no earthly reason we shouldn't be running 3 and 4 WR sets pretty much all the time. Whether we will or not remains to be seen. I still think Harbaugh wants to run first, and pass only when he has to.
its because they are catering to the fans, who prefer to see high scoring action, over 3 yards and a cloud of dust.
The fans prefer to see wins in big games. A slow, plodding, predictable run-first offense is not the way to get them.
Why did Harbaugh's slower offense work so well at Stanford and SanFran? Better QB play?
How well did it work at Stanford? He had one good season, and never even won a conference championship.
Offensive line play and bruising RBs.
If running the ball 40 times a game is the mission then the OL has to grind the DL into dust.
Stanford had a great OL in a conference with weak DLs. They could push the PAC around. Luck was part of the equation but Shaw has made that offense work with far less talented QBs.
SF had great OL play and Frank Gore. They also had a very talented group of WRs/TEs who could stretch the field
The Big Ten has 3-4 great defensive teams with deep DLs and we didn’t have OL play or a RB who could grind out games against them
Wrong, it's because analytics favors passing over running. Passing is like shooting 3 pointers while running is like shooting mid-range jumpers.
SPEED in SPACE
Here is another way of looking at the 3wr sets plus a TE. It's becoming less football, in the traditional sense. Meaning my era of football was, as posted, Jack Lambert trying to prevent teams from establishing the run. It was the era of Csonka and Kick and Morris and Harris and Bleier. Throw in Payton.
Not complaining but that seemed like football and then Marino came along and started slinging it big time. Teams saw how effective and explosive throwing the football could be. Walsh and Montana. In fact, it was Paul Brown who pushed the innovation on the offensive side with Walsh with Kenny Anderson.
I digress. My point is that the NFL has morphed from football/rugby to some sort of game of track and field football game. It's like they don't even need helmets anymore which is probably what they want anyways. A mediocre analogy would be like traditional boxing going to UFC.