Monday, October 6, 2008

Wildcat

This is a great development in Professional football: doing away with the notion that you need to have a single play calling focal point in an offense. Ronnie Brown taking direct snaps a sizable portion of the time forces reevaluation of the schemes used by defenses. Players who were previously content with playing defensive defense, dropping into a short zone to read the QB, indecisively reacting to play actions, &c, are now being called upon to react in time with the offense. Every offensive player has a role that can account for every defensive player, up to and including the back responsible for beating one man.

Base conceptual changes are rarely successfully executed and thus rarely tried, but the proliferation of deep backfields suddenly offers a chance to wreak incredible change upon defenses.

Imagine a league where Jerious Norwood and Michael Turner line up on the FAstlanta turf with the singular goal of beating one or two men. I mean you would Vick back! And Ldt, a known aficionado of the thrown ball, lining up with Sproles at his flank. The list goes on and on, and, fundamentally, there is no reason that a team should artificially sequester its top talent solely by convention.

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