| |  West Coast offense still in vogue
By John Clayton
ESPN.com
New Redskins coach Steve Spurrier might be a little shocked as he watches the NFL divisional playoffs this weekend.
He'll be trying to size up how his "Fun 'N Gun" type offense would look in the NFL, but he'll come to a startling conclusion. Offensively, things will look a little different than the college game he's coached at Florida. In college, players are more important than the schemes. Spurrier will see this weekend that NFL offenses are more scheme than athletic ability.
Half of the eight teams run variations of the West Coast offense. The Patriots, Bears and Steelers run controlled passing games that take a lot of pressure off the quarterbacks by minimizing high-risk throws. Only the Rams, with their complex update of Don Coryell's old Chargers offense, throw caution to the wind and fire those high-risk, downfield strikes.
Watching these offenses face each other in the playoffs will be interesting.
"I think that there are a lot of coaches familiar with one another," Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said. "In the playoffs, you will see a lot of them taking base plays that everyone else runs and add new wrinkles off that."
Holmgren tutored five of the head coaches that began the playoffs, so he knows their mindsets. Mike Sherman of the Packers knows Andy Reid of the Eagles. Andy Reid of the Eagles knows Jon Gruden of the Raiders. Brian Billick of the Ravens knows the rest of the competition.
Their knowledge of each other's system creates interesting chess games. Gruden's Raiders, for example, increased the tempo of their West Coast offense by mixing in no-huddle plays and throwing more intermediate routes in beating the Jets 38-24 last Saturday.
"You'll also see a tendency for everyone to over-analyze each other," Holmgren continued. "They'll get into their meetings and tinker a little bit. Sometimes, that may be unnecessary. They'll think, 'I know he knows I'm going to do this, but I know he knows that, so I better not do this.' It will be interesting to see."
Actually, it's been interesting all season watching the West Coast offense, devised and mastered by former 49ers coach Bill Walsh, have its influence on football. Walsh designed the system to use the passing offense like the ground game. Routes had to be adjusted to how the defense responded to them on plays.
Because Walsh's offense is a system of adjustments during games, the offense has continued to grow and evolve through the years. Walsh never wanted his quarterback to work out of the shotgun formation. Most West Coast offense coaches use the shotgun now. Walsh rarely used four-receiver sets. Now, West Coast offense coaches empty the backfield and send five pass-catchers into routes.
Others, like the 49ers and Raiders, have built more power-running offensive plays into the offense, though the Raiders tried to focus more on Rich Gannon's passing than the run this season.
"I don't know what the West Coast offense really is," Gruden said. "It has certain principles maybe. The concepts are very similar. But it's something that is constantly changing."
Virtually half of the NFL teams used forms of the West Coast offense. Others used short-passing games that caused a significant statistical change.
The average completion was 11.5 yards an attempt, lowest in more than 25 years. Over the past four seasons, the average length of a completion has dropped because of the increased use of the short-passing schemes. It's gone from 12.1 in 1998 to 11.8 in 1999 to 11.6 in 2000 to 11.5 this season.
The good news it that the completion percentage was 59 percent, meaning that average yards per attempt rose from 5.8 last year to 5.9 this season.
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I don't know what the West Coast offense really is. It has certain principles maybe. The concepts are very similar. But it's something that is constantly changing. ” |
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— Jon Gruden, Raiders head coach |
"You know we have a good bit of what they do in the West Coast offense in our offense," Rams coach Mike Martz said. "I think we utilize it depending on the structure of defense that we see that week. I just don't feel like we want to limit ourselves to that type of philosophy, although it is a very good one. We have got the people that can get down the field to stretch things out pretty good. It's part of the mix of what we do and it has its place, but, you know, we (are) different in that approach. I think we are more pragmatic about what we do."
Which may be the reasons that the Rams produce more touchdown drives than their counterparts. The Rams, who had their third consecutive season of 500-plus points, generated a league-high 57 offensive touchdown drives. They settled for only 29 field-goal attempts.
Compare that to the four West Coast offense teams remaining in the playoffs. The Packers had 44 touchdown drives and 31 field-goal attempts. The Raiders had 41 touchdown drives and 32 field-goal attempts, but struggled in the final month of the season to get more than one touchdown drive a game. The Eagles had 33 touchdown drives and 31 field-goal attempts. The Ravens had only 29 touchdown drives and 35 field-goal attempts.
The short passing offense worked in making Kordell Stewart a more consistent passer, but the Steelers still had only 33 touchdown drives and 44 field-goal attempts.
"It's the personnel and the matches," Martz said. "I'm not sure if it makes any difference what you do on offense, to be honest with you. I think it really always goes back to players and being able to get guys who can make plays. I think that's the key obviously."
Holmgren suggests that schemes will be more important during these playoffs.
"I'm going to be interested to see how the coaches handle things," Holmgren said. "Cadences of the quarterbacks could change. Audible systems could change because everyone knows each other so well. You've got to be careful with that stuff. You always want to use the stuff that got you to the dance, but what I see happening is guys are very familiar with what each other does. More than in playoffs of the past, this one will be more about the schemes. Schemes will be very important not just who has the best players."
John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.
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