NFL borrows prep, college playbooks
— -- Want to know what trends will dominate the NFL in five years? Attend a high school or small-college football game. Because tactics on display during the NFL's opening weekend were high school and small college all the way.
The big ideas on offense in the NFL in recent seasons -- the zone-read rush, the spread-option action, the quick-snap no-huddle -- come from prep or college play. Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly's Blur Offense, which scored 34 unanswered points in its Sunday comeback, owes more to high school theory than NFL experience. The Seattle Seahawks' zone-read, which just helped them win the Super Bowl, owes more to college play than pro results.
Here's the story. Multiple-receiver sets, which trace at least back to TCU in the late 1940s, were well-established in the NFL a quarter century ago. They've been nearly humdrum since before many current NFL players were born.
The very fast pace, on the other hand, was tried by Buffalo during the 1991 and 1992 seasons, then dropped. About 15 years ago, high school coaches began to revive the idea -- especially coaches with skinny players who couldn't execute a traditional high school power-I. Art Briles, later RG III's coach at Baylor, instituted a very-quick-snap offense at Stephenville High in Texas. It clicked. A man named Tony Franklin began selling a package of playbooks and practice manuals called the Franklin System to prep coaches, who used it to install hurry-up offenses that exhaust opponents.
Pro coaches, including Bill Belichick, the winningest active NFL coach, noticed that hurry-up football was working below the pro level -- including at Troy University, where Franklin's system converted a perennial also-ran into a conference contender. Belichick was attracted to no-huddle tactics because they usually increase the number of snaps a team gets. More snaps, more yards gained. By 2013, the Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, San Diego Chargers, Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers and other NFL teams were quick-snap.
Around the same time, prep and small-college coaches were developing the zone-read. Success has many fathers: The zone-read's parentage is disputed. Just one example: Appalachian State employed the zone-read en route to an FCS title three-peat from 2005 to 2007, and perhaps you've heard about the game the Mountaineers played in 2007 at Michigan. At Florida with Tim Tebow, Urban Meyer merged zone-read rushing and multiple-receiver sets into the spread-option. NFL coaches noticed.
Fast forward to the 2014 NFL. Opening day pitted defending champion Seattle's zone-read against Green Bay's very-quick-snap no-huddle. The Seahawks also showed the "fly sweep," a trendy play in the NCAA. The Miami Dolphins defeated the favored Patriots partly by faking a zone-read rush one way, then throwing the other way for a touchdown. (New England fears this action because the Dolphins' 2008 use of the Wildcat formation, which involves a zone-read between the tackles, led to a memorable Miami win.) The Buffalo Bills' first touchdown in its upset of the Bears came when the Bills faked a zone-read right, then their quarterback bootlegged left. Consecutive zone-read runs in the final minute of the first half had the San Francisco 49ers ahead 28-3 at the intermission in Dallas. Derek Sherrod, a 2011 first-round draft selection, has struggled in the pros -- he's never started a game, despite Green Bay's offensive line woes. Sherrod entered the season opener at Seattle to replace an injured Packer. Not long after coming in, he gave up a sack on fourth-and-5; on the Packers' next snap, he gave up a safety. Ye gods. In Sherrod's defense, everyone knows he has been struggling, so why didn't the Packers alter their protection to slide him some help?
Next Week: Godzilla makes the Cowboys' practice squad, is told he needs to get bigger.
