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Post by Richie3Jack on Jan 18, 2013 12:17:16 GMT -5
The route patterns and responsibilities are simpler in the hurry up.
Syracuse implemented this as well and I would be willing to bet the Bills will implement it in 2013 since Marrone is their new head coach.
You don't have to worry about cadence issues as well which can cause missed assignments and such.
I thought it was ironic that Brandon Ayanbadejo (sp?) said that football should be 'mano a mano', but the hurry up is really the essence of straight up football since the offense doesn't really motion to create mismatches or to see what the defense is doing and the defnese can't shift and disguise coverages, blitzes and stunts.
No NFL team executes the hurry up outside of the Pats.
But, teams that have gone to the hurry up have had success, like the Raiders. They are just too traditional in their thinking to continue it. Belichick got it from the Raiders and was smart enough to delve into the possibility of running it full time. The Raiders didn't have the vision to see it.
I think teams will catch on to the no huddle and I think the next step will be the team that utilizes a 4-down offense instead of a tradition 3-down offense. You're increasing your amount of plays ran and you reducing the amount of yardage needed per play to get a first down.
I think somebody who develops something like the graph, but includes time and score components to it, will have a massive advantage in this league, even if their talent is inferior.
3JACK
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Post by cwdlaw223 on Jan 18, 2013 12:33:18 GMT -5
I think the hurry up stresses an opposing defense which is what you want as a team. No stress = lower chances to score.
What about the effect on your defense if you score too quickly?
I wouldn't be surprised if every NFL team has a couple guys number crunching everything. It's so hard to get an edge in the NFL because of the parity (unless you draft a HOF QB and then you really have an edge IMO). (Skins now have a shot - RGIII ins't a HOF QB, but he definitely has potential).
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Post by Richie3Jack on Jan 18, 2013 13:23:16 GMT -5
Having played football myself and examining it from a stat point of view, time of possession is a bit overrated in how it affects the defense's stamina.
The number of plays are far more important.
More plays wears down a defense than time consuming drives. Essentially the traditional offenses waste so much time pre-snap.
Now with these pass happy offenses they run so few plays each drive and often score so quickly that a run based offensive opponent can wear down their defense.
Also, in the NFL the statistics show that defensive players are more than TWICE as likely to get injured as offensive players. So, if the defense is out there for more plays, they are more likely to accumulate injuries.
That's why Belichick's old scheme coincided with awful defenses. Come the playoffs his defense was out there for the entire season for a lot of plays and too many guys would get injured.
The hurry up gives the best of both worlds. It runs up a lot of plays without taking too much time off the clock.
It really doesn't score too quickly either.
Let's say your typical 80-yard TD drive takes 4 minutes 30 seconds long. It can very well take that long in the hurry up. The difference is it may take 6 plays in a traditional huddle offense and 10 plays in a hurry up offense.
The impact it had on Syracuse's offensive production, when SU does not have superior offensive talent, was tremendous.
Some teams have guys number crunching. I know the Pats do. Andy Reid did have people helping out. Jason Garrett hired somebody. There was a bit MIT conference last year that a bunch of NFL people attended to.
I know that Jerry Jones recently stated he had a problem with the Cowboys offense only having the lead 23% of the time since Garrett became the O-Coordinator in 2007...which is solely off a Moneyball type of approach to the game (and one of my statistical complaints about the Cowboys offense, super slow starts to each game).
The problem is that these organizations and coaches have money tied up into their success of their teams. So a radical approach supported by statistics is tough to swallow. A team that loses all of the time because they punt away on 4th and 3 at the 50-yard line can be accepted by fans rather than the team that wins 70% of the time because they go for it on 4th and 3, but they can't win the Super Bowl because of a lack of talent.
The other part is that too many teams in sports don't understand statistics even when they actually apply them.
Moneyball is the perfect example.
The A's applied Moneyball and it was coined that because all it was doing was:
1) Giving a more accurate projection of future events. 2) More accurately projecting value on a player.
Those allowed the A's to find undervalued players which they needed to have because their payroll was so low.
The problem the powerhouse teams had is that they didn't quite understand that typically the best players in the league had the metrics that were consistent with what SABERmetrics favored.
Ted Williams hit it great, but he also had a stupendous On Base Percentage because he walked a lot. And he had a great slugging percentage. Same with Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial and the greats of today.
So, if you were a team like the Red Sox or the Yankees, Moneyball didn't really apply to you. Their job should be more along the lines of finding the best possible team and not being afraid to overpay for the best possible players because they can afford to do so.
Instead, teams like the Yankees and Red Sox tried to apply the Moneyball principles too much. It doesn't matter if David Ortiz is valued at $15 million a year and is asking for $20 million a year. Either team could afford it and he was statistically the best at his position.
That's what the Dodgers are trying to do. They have the money and winning a World Series means more than saving $30 million on payroll because it doesn't quite jive with the projected value. Get the best players at any cost since you can afford it.
The other teams didn't understand Moneyball either. They didn't understand that Moneyball was really about finding undervalued players.
That's what Billy Beane has grasped. He understood that since teams started to look at high On Base Percentage and low WHIP players, they were no longer undervalued.
So Moneyball wasn't about OBP or WHIP...it was about finding undervalued players so the A's could sign them and field the best team they could possibly find.
Now Billy Beane has gone against traditional Moneyball principles as far as acquiring players because those players which were once overvalued are now...undervalued. So now they look for high school players and Cuban players. If they like what they see, they are now incredibly undervalued and sign them and save themselves money in the long run. While teams like the Twins are still applying old Moneyball principles and trying to get players who are no longer undervalued.
3JACK
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Post by cwdlaw223 on Jan 18, 2013 13:39:44 GMT -5
I would prefer that you coach the Eagles than Chip Kelly! I'm just not sold a college coach with NO NFL experience can win a SuperBowl. I suspect the Steve Superior experiment happens once every 10 years and owners forget how different the NFL is compared to the NCAA. Massive talent differences in the NCAA.
BTW - The best team every in college football would get beat by over 21 points by the worst team in NFL history (excluding replacement players). Grown men against college players? The worst NFL team could blitz every play and the corners could still hold against college receivers. Also, the O-line would blow the college kids off the ball almost every play. I'm sure a couple guys (5-10 in total) on the offense and defense for the college team could hang with the pros, but not all 11 and definitely not a full game.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Jan 18, 2013 14:42:35 GMT -5
The difference from Kelly and Spurrier is that he's a relatively inexperienced college coach. He's not Nick Saban or a Spurrier who had been deeply entrenched in the college game, tried to go to the pros and got killed. Remember, Tom Coughlin was the head coach at Boston College before he became the HC at the Jaguars. He did have NFL experience, though.
I'm 50/50 on Kelly. I would be bothered about his complete inexperience on the pro level. I think the only real successful college coach with no NFL experience was Jimmy Johnson. But, Jimmy was a motivational genius who had good ties with reliable college scouts and coaches and was smart enough to stockpile draft picks. The biggest misconception about the 90's Cowboys is that they were built thru Free Agency because of no salary cap. They were a team built thru the draft and stockpiling picks at a record rate. And they missed on a ton of those picks, but when you have so many you're going to land on some picks. And Jimmy was smart enough to know that you can continue to stockpile picks and it keeps the veterans motivated.
Kelly seems to be very analytical, it will be interesting if it extends to some off the field aspects of the league.
3JACK
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Post by cwdlaw223 on Jan 20, 2013 21:35:56 GMT -5
Ravens are playing downhill on defense and man handling the Patriots. What hitting! I wonder if the Harbaugh brothers will fight at a press conference. Going to be an interesting SB with the Ravens D this stout and punishing.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Jan 20, 2013 21:59:54 GMT -5
I think it's part of how teams need to change their defense. They need good, hard, sure tackling from the DB's. That's what Seattle does. It stops the big play because you have guys that don't allow a catch to get big YAC. And if you hit these guys hard enough, they'll think twice.
Please remind me why Belichick is a genius, again?
Like Bart Scott said, his defense couldn't stop a nose bleed. And it's been this way since 2007. Simply put, he gets carried by Brady. And when the wind picks up, like it did in their Cleveland loss last year, they are in trouble.
3JACK
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Post by cwdlaw223 on Jan 20, 2013 22:19:31 GMT -5
He hasn't been to the SB since cheater gate!
The guy still wins. 7 AFC Championship games!
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Post by Richie3Jack on Jan 20, 2013 23:11:19 GMT -5
I think it's Brady that wins.
It was windy today and Brady (and Flacco) had a hard time throwing passes. The Pats don't run it that well and they needed their defense to close the game out and failed again. There's a reason why he's below .500 w/o Brady.
3JACK
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Post by Richie3Jack on Jan 21, 2013 8:45:29 GMT -5
Here's the NFL Films piece on 'never punting.'
The professor is actually stating that you CAN punt and it can work in your favor.
But, teams would be better off never punting than punting as much as they do today.
3JACK
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Post by kamandi on Jan 21, 2013 8:55:38 GMT -5
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can you believe it? A Super Bowl who's 2 teams are head coached by brothers!
I never understood all the criticisms with Flacco; not only last years AFCCG, but in multiple games as well, he's shown the ability to carry the team with his arm. The main difference this time was that the surrounding players didn't botch things up.
Phil Simms has always been high on Flacco, but as he said, the Ravens haven't had a QB friendly system for him; they usually give him the hard throws ... not surprising, since Cam Cameron favors the vertical attack, being a Norv disciple . This AFCCG, with their new coordinator Caldwell, they started the 3rd quarter with all passes, mostly underneath, and Flacco delivered.
The Ravens brought in Caldwell to give Flacco easier throws ... you know, the kind consistent QBs like Brady and Manning have. Great and risky move by Harbaugh, firing replacing his OC, even though the season was almost over.
I always thought that the Ravens were using Ray Rice as a crutch ... he's so good, that it's hard to argue not using him, but in order for the Ravens to take the next step, they had to commit to the passing game, and they did.
On the other side, how about that Collin Kaepernick, ey? Harbaugh really knows his QBs, and he is a QB whisper .... Luck, Alex Smith, and now Kaepernick ... out of nowhere, in the 2nd round of the draft.
Not to take away from the Falcons. Matt Ryan has been a different QB this season .... he's developed that killer instinct with Dirk Koeter as his OC. The Falcons are very aggressive with their passing attack, while under Mularkey, they were more ball control and less risks.
The Falcons' defense ultimately did them in. The Ravens defense made the Pats pay for every underneath catch they had.
Really, 4 excellent teams, and 4 great head coaches.
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Post by cwdlaw223 on Jan 21, 2013 10:20:22 GMT -5
I think the key to go for it on fourth down is not being predictable. For example, fourth and one and most teams sell out for the run. Perfect time to pass!!!! It takes guts to go for it. It's so hard to score in the NFL so I understand why you take the given 3 instead of going for it on fourth and whatever on (let's say) your opponent's 20 yard line.
More of an art than a science IMO.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Jan 21, 2013 11:11:00 GMT -5
I think the key is that the playcaller has to get their mind focused on the fact that they have 4 downs to work with.
Get a 3rd and 8 should not always mean you have to pass the ball. Catch the defense in a dime package, run the ball for 5 yards, and now you have 4th and 3. If you run a hurry up, you can keep the dime package on the field and run it again for first down.
I think in the end, it makes it very difficult for opposing defensive coordinators. They can no longer assume that because it's 3rd and 5, you're going to pass so they'll throw some sort of nickel or dime package and either blitz the QB or fake the blitz and drop 8 in coverage. They can't put the QB in disadvantageous situations nearly as much.
I think the coach that really embraces and understands that will not only put his team at an advantage because the numbers say to go for it, but will create a much more productive QB because they are making their job easier.
3JACK
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Post by cwdlaw223 on Jan 21, 2013 11:22:08 GMT -5
Stress the defense. That's how you score when the talent is relatively equal.
I like that Bill O'Brien at PSU was forced this year to go for it more often than normal because the kicking game was so bad (but really turned around at the end of the year). I want my team to go down swinging rather than playing that prevent defense. I understand why the prevent defense is used, I just don't like loosing the momentum that happens in a prevent defense.
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Post by kamandi on Jan 22, 2013 8:31:18 GMT -5
Thinking of a possession as 4 offensive downs to get a 1st down may look good for a highschool football team, but not in college or the NFL.
Teams adjust, and when defenses are used to seeing offenses playing all 4 downs instead of 3, there will be diminishing returns on the success of the 4th downs. The only difference is, teams who could have scored a FG, would then effectively have -3 points, and teams who failed on 4th downs near their own endzone give the opponent anywhere from +3 to +7 points.
In the end, the only really advantageous position to go for it on 4th downs will still be the same ... when an offense is in no man's land, neither near enough for a FG, nor far enough to pin an opponent near the endzone.
The way the NFL is set up right now, some teams can already score a ton of points, using only 3 downs; there is no need for the extra risk on a consistent basis.
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