What's the argument for going to the West Coast offense?

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by boriken_9er:
Not that I am against but everybody is talking about going back to the WCO because that is what we used to do. This team has become a perennial loser because of poor management, poor coaching and lack of talent (at least at certain points), not because they stopped using the WCO.
Again, if it works fine, but I am looking for valid football reasons, after all if I am not mistaken Tampa Bay was the last team to win it all with the WCO back in 2002.

You mean the West Coast Offense or the Bill Walsh offense?

Even though people use those terms interchangeably ad nausem, they are not the same thing! Walsh even asked the media to stop calling the 49ers offense the WCO, because it wasn't. The WCO is the Coryell digit system (a version of which we already run).

Yes, we all know what the West Coast Offense originally meant. However everyone still associates that term with Bill Walsh and that's not going to change anytime soon.

You're just going to have to learn to deal with it.

The great thing about the WCO is that it isn't an offense based in beating another system or in beating certain coverages necessarily. It's about getting athletes in space and forcing the defense to respect certain elements to open up others while attacking the defense's players.

Explanation: A lot of the plays and concepts are half field reads for the QB, it makes the Qb's life easier on a lot of plays as they only have to read half the field or sometimes just one player. Plays will be run forcing a linebacker to choose which guy he'll cover and the Qb just had to read him. Walsh was one of the first to run flood routes in which you run 4 receivers into a side of the field being covered by 3 defenders... nuff said.
A great example of this is a playbook session Matt Hasselback did with Wilcotts a couple years ago explaining a classic WC play. It's a PA with two outside streak routes, the PA forces the MLB to drop short, the read is on the SS, which one does he cover? Simple, one player reads.
By being able to attack the seems and hooks in a defense through half field reads it makes it harder to run zone schemes. Zone schemes are generally more effective against the run as defenders don't have to take their eyes off the backfield and it's easier to bring an 8th element into the box. If teams go to a man coverage it opens up the run. Hence what Bill Walsh was saying, "throw to open up the run".

Originally posted by jonnydellfan:
The great thing about the WCO is that it isn't an offense based in beating another system or in beating certain coverages necessarily. It's about getting athletes in space and forcing the defense to respect certain elements to open up others while attacking the defense's players.

Explanation: A lot of the plays and concepts are half field reads for the QB, it makes the Qb's life easier on a lot of plays as they only have to read half the field or sometimes just one player. Plays will be run forcing a linebacker to choose which guy he'll cover and the Qb just had to read him. Walsh was one of the first to run flood routes in which you run 4 receivers into a side of the field being covered by 3 defenders... nuff said.
A great example of this is a playbook session Matt Hasselback did with Wilcotts a couple years ago explaining a classic WC play. It's a PA with two outside streak routes, the PA forces the MLB to drop short, the read is on the SS, which one does he cover? Simple, one player reads.
By being able to attack the seems and hooks in a defense through half field reads it makes it harder to run zone schemes. Zone schemes are generally more effective against the run as defenders don't have to take their eyes off the backfield and it's easier to bring an 8th element into the box. If teams go to a man coverage it opens up the run. Hence what Bill Walsh was saying, "throw to open up the run".

Nicely stated, thanks!

Originally posted by GhostofJimmyDean:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by boriken_9er:
Not that I am against but everybody is talking about going back to the WCO because that is what we used to do. This team has become a perennial loser because of poor management, poor coaching and lack of talent (at least at certain points), not because they stopped using the WCO.
Again, if it works fine, but I am looking for valid football reasons, after all if I am not mistaken Tampa Bay was the last team to win it all with the WCO back in 2002.

You mean the West Coast Offense or the Bill Walsh offense?

Even though people use those terms interchangeably ad nausem, they are not the same thing! Walsh even asked the media to stop calling the 49ers offense the WCO, because it wasn't. The WCO is the Coryell digit system (a version of which we already run).

Yes, we all know what the West Coast Offense originally meant. However everyone still associates that term with Bill Walsh and that's not going to change anytime soon.

You're just going to have to learn to deal with it.

I don't think we all do know. I know some people know, but I'm pretty sure they are the minority.

ever since the niners left the west coast offense they've struggled big time, they need to return to their roots. Even Steve Young commented on KNBR the other day about the niners returning to their identity. They need to return to the west coast offense system.

return to the WCO because of what it stands for. an offense that by design changes to best beat a defense, in other words when ran by a competent OC/HC its highly successful.

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by HessianDud:

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by Joecool:
It's all about the play caller during the game and how he practices the players during the week.

It's not about the WCO anymore. Watch the 92 cowboys in the second half versus us, Aikman was spreading the ball all over the field and Norv had them looking more balanced than us.

Get the right HC and an OC who knows how to set up the defense, use each and every play with a purpose even if the play doesn't bet gains and make not only halftime adjustments but in drive adjustments along with creating a new play on the fly.

You get this type of OC and it won't matter what offense we run. I don't think what Steve Yug said solves anything Bill Walsh was not about tradition. He was about innovation and outthinking opponents. If he was about tradition, Montana Craig and Lott would have ended their careers here.

Norv uses alot of WCO in his own system.

like what?

Quote:
Still, in a poll of coaches and personnel directors, Holmgren was frequently cited as one of the guys who adheres most closely to the West Coast primer as authored by Walsh and who best understands its principles. Norv Turner, Zampese, Brian Billick and Mike Martz were also named quite often.

http://assets.espn.go.com/nfl/s/westcoast/history.html

WOW nothing about Sid Gillman,,,interesting since he was basically the creator of it. OK I didnt read the link so Im not sure...

I'm not sure its the offensive SYSTEM (WCO vs Digit, etc) as much as its about the STRATEGY/PHILOSOPHY. Yes, Walsh used his WCO offense system, but what he really brought to the forefront was a mentality of how to attack a defense by dictating match-ups and defensive reactions he wanted to exploit.

The root of this game planning plan can be seen scripting of 15-25 plays. These plays do three things:
1. Verify personnel match-up issues expected in the game planning.
2. They allow you to veryify your game planning assumptions about how you expected the opponent to play against you - and if the opponent was doing something different than you expected it could be revealed and adjusted to EARLY in the game.
3. It allows the offense to set up the expectations of the defense - basically, getting the defense to start playing one way, so that those tendencies can be exploited later in the game.

The whole point of this process was to give the offense the advantage of dictating the evolution of the game -- what in military planning is sometimes referred to as "reflexive control." Offensively, take control by presenting your opponent with
situations that give him a limited set of options of how to respond - for example, he can defend by doing "A" or "B". Once you have identified his preference, your next play attacks that choice. Its a very systematic plan that keeps the initiative with the offense. And why some many coaches found the Walsh system so confounding and aggravating back in the day.

This became the core of the WCO philosophy that flowed through his coaching tree.

In contrast to this philosophy, you can see how the alternate commonly referred to philosophies would be less effective.
1. Philosophy 1 - enter the game with a game plan that is purely situational -- in down and distance situations you will call plays from a certain menu given the defensive tendencies expected. This is a more randomized process and doesn't give an offense the ability to have a unified vision and goal for the game. And to some extent it cedes the initiative to the defense to dictate your play choices.
2. Philosophy 2 - you strengths only game plan (Singletary Philosophy) -- you run plays that are your strengths in predictabe down and distance, with maybe a few gimmicks. Again, the defense knows whats coming and is ceded the initiative.

The other core tenant of the WCO is precision and timing. So defenses began to disrupt the WCO system and philosophy with a key adaption in the mid-1990s -- unpredictability. The Dick LeBeau (sp?) and Don Capers zone-splitz schemes key ingredient was to deny an offense the ability to rely on WCO principles of setting up the game plan and using precision and timing to dismantle a defense. They did this by blitzing from unpredictable places and dropping into unexpected zone coverages that denied a quarterback (and OC) the ability to read and exploit easily. The WCO has adapted to the new defensive complexity with a lot of site adjustments at the line of scrimmage between the QB and receivers.

The WCO has undergone an evolution in terms of play design. So it is very hard to say who is truly running a pure WCO anymore.

What I think we all miss in SF is that offense that attacks and systematically dismantles defenses with the precision we saw under Walsh and Siefert years. Those long, efficient, dominating offensive drives where every play seems to work. I don't care how we get that back, WCO or Digit, but that offensive mindset of dictating to the defense needs to return.

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by Joecool:
It's all about the play caller during the game and how he practices the players during the week.

It's not about the WCO anymore. Watch the 92 cowboys in the second half versus us, Aikman was spreading the ball all over the field and Norv had them looking more balanced than us.

Get the right HC and an OC who knows how to set up the defense, use each and every play with a purpose even if the play doesn't bet gains and make not only halftime adjustments but in drive adjustments along with creating a new play on the fly.

You get this type of OC and it won't matter what offense we run. I don't think what Steve Yug said solves anything Bill Walsh was not about tradition. He was about innovation and outthinking opponents. If he was about tradition, Montana Craig and Lott would have ended their careers here.

Norv uses alot of WCO in his own system.

Norv runs the Coryell offense so yes, technically he runs the WCO. Just not the Bill Walsh WCO you are implying.

Um, that would be incorrect. The so-called "digit" system that was run by Coryell/Zampese/Turner/Martz etc, etc, is NOT the WCO.

They share many qualities, but they are NOT the same offense.

Bill Walsh actually created the WCO in CLEVELAND. THATS why he had a problem with the name.

As for the thread question...

As Steve Young said in one of his radio interviews, its about identity. A team needs to have an identity. Its hard enough to find one when you don't have one, but its even harder to change one one you have an established identity.

Pittsburg? Tough D and a run game. Its been that way for 40 years.
Chicago? Same
SF? Its about the WCO. Walsh created it in Cleveland, but this is where it became prominent.

Every team in the NFL uses elements of it, but the wealth of information to be tapped (ex-player, film, etc) is just too big not to "Take Us Home" so to speak.

Personally, I think we should hire a creative HC who runs some offshoot of the WCO and then make one FINAL switch back and get the players into the system for the long haul.

We actually have the perfect personell for Harbaugh. His Stanford Offense was dependant on his MAMMOTH O-Line, tough RBs, and multiple TE formations...to THROW to those TEs. It sounds to me like the 49ers personel is already just a QB away from having the personel he needs.

Originally posted by Marvin49:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by Joecool:
It's all about the play caller during the game and how he practices the players during the week.

It's not about the WCO anymore. Watch the 92 cowboys in the second half versus us, Aikman was spreading the ball all over the field and Norv had them looking more balanced than us.

Get the right HC and an OC who knows how to set up the defense, use each and every play with a purpose even if the play doesn't bet gains and make not only halftime adjustments but in drive adjustments along with creating a new play on the fly.

You get this type of OC and it won't matter what offense we run. I don't think what Steve Yug said solves anything Bill Walsh was not about tradition. He was about innovation and outthinking opponents. If he was about tradition, Montana Craig and Lott would have ended their careers here.

Norv uses alot of WCO in his own system.

Norv runs the Coryell offense so yes, technically he runs the WCO. Just not the Bill Walsh WCO you are implying.

Um, that would be incorrect. The so-called "digit" system that was run by Coryell/Zampese/Turner/Martz etc, etc, is NOT the WCO.

They share many qualities, but they are NOT the same offense.

Bill Walsh actually created the WCO in CLEVELAND. THATS why he had a problem with the name.

No, you're wrong. The West Coast Offense IS the Coryell offense. The first person to dub the Walsh offense the WCO was Bill Parcells in 1985 after the 9ers beat the Giants in the playoffs. The Coryell offense was known as the West Coast Offense well before that.

P.S. No one is saying they are the same thing.

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by Marvin49:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by Joecool:
It's all about the play caller during the game and how he practices the players during the week.

It's not about the WCO anymore. Watch the 92 cowboys in the second half versus us, Aikman was spreading the ball all over the field and Norv had them looking more balanced than us.

Get the right HC and an OC who knows how to set up the defense, use each and every play with a purpose even if the play doesn't bet gains and make not only halftime adjustments but in drive adjustments along with creating a new play on the fly.

You get this type of OC and it won't matter what offense we run. I don't think what Steve Yug said solves anything Bill Walsh was not about tradition. He was about innovation and outthinking opponents. If he was about tradition, Montana Craig and Lott would have ended their careers here.

Norv uses alot of WCO in his own system.

Norv runs the Coryell offense so yes, technically he runs the WCO. Just not the Bill Walsh WCO you are implying.

Um, that would be incorrect. The so-called "digit" system that was run by Coryell/Zampese/Turner/Martz etc, etc, is NOT the WCO.

They share many qualities, but they are NOT the same offense.

Bill Walsh actually created the WCO in CLEVELAND. THATS why he had a problem with the name.

No, you're wrong. The West Coast Offense IS the Coryell offense. The first person to dub the Walsh offense the WCO was Bill Parcells in 1985 after the 9ers beat the Giants in the playoffs. The Coryell offense was known as the West Coast Offense well before that.

P.S. No one is saying they are the same thing.

OK, now your just arguing semantics.

Don Coryell did run the O is San Diego long before Walsh in SF, but the Walsh offense is now the WCO. It really doesn't matter what anyone called an O beforehand. When someone say the WCO, they are talking about Walsh. Period.

BTW, I've always heard the San Diego offense referred to as Air Coryell and not the WCO.

As a quick follow-up to the earlier post on Strategy -- I've seen in a couple of specials/interviews on Walsh and the WCO a key reason this game planning system worked.

Walsh would often devise a few special plays for a game - they would call them Touchdown Plays. They would hold these plays in reserve - not run them - until critical points in the game. I have discussed this with friends, who have been a bit incredulous that a team would hold a play in reserve if they were so sure it would work.

But that misses the point. The certainty that the play(s) would work comes from the very fact that the balance of the game plan has laid the ground work for this play working. The other plays have conditioned the defense to play/react/expect certain things during the game. These reserve plays would capitalize on that, and identified weaknesses in the opposing defense, exploit those weaknesses at a critical time.

As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly, the final TD play against the Bengals in the Superbowl -- Montana to Taylor -- was just such a play.

That was the genius of Walsh.

(PS - The grand irony of that Superbowl play was that Walsh later realized/acknowledged, that despite all his game planning and precision, the play was actually run incorrectly. But alas, players like Montana and Taylor can make even a mistake be magical!!)

Originally posted by boriken_9er:
Not that I am against but everybody is talking about going back to the WCO because that is what we used to do. This team has become a perennial loser because of poor management, poor coaching and lack of talent (at least at certain points), not because they stopped using the WCO.
Again, if it works fine, but I am looking for valid football reasons, after all if I am not mistaken Tampa Bay was the last team to win it all with the WCO back in 2002.

The individual is always more important than the style - Bruce Lee

With this in mind, Bill Walsh, and those who really learned from him (Holmgren, Shanahan) are what made the Walsh Offense successful. They, like Walsh, were forward thinkers. Also, just because someone did come from the Holmgren line, it doesn't automatically make them fit to install, and run the offense properly (see the dude in Buffalo during Gregg Williams' first year). It takes an exceptional individual to be a gifted game planner, strategist, and motivator to have the offense firing on all cylinders.

I'm 25% through The Score Will Take Care of Itself, and what I've read so far has taught me it does take a visionary to really make the offense work because it was beyond play design, and stepped into overall preparation. He had created a culture of his Standard of Performance - and it was this, more than anything that made his Offense what it was, and his forward thinking enabled him to be steps ahead of his competition.

Originally posted by billbird2111:

Originally posted by boriken_9er:
Not that I am against but everybody is talking about going back to the WCO because that is what we used to do. This team has become a perennial loser because of poor management, poor coaching and lack of talent (at least at certain points), not because they stopped using the WCO.
Again, if it works fine, but I am looking for valid football reasons, after all if I am not mistaken Tampa Bay was the last team to win it all with the WCO back in 2002.

HOW ABOUT FIVE FREAKIN' TROPHIES AT 4949494949494949 CENTRAL?

THAT ENOUGH?

He is right bill, we didn't start sucking because of the system of offense we ran, it was because management purged the roster and didn't replace it with viable players. Then we started hiring coached that didn't know how to build winners. Now is the time to break that cycle and get some football people in here that know what the hell they are doing. What system we run isn't as important as who we get to run it.