Originally posted by Niners816:
Originally posted by Jd925:
Great to hear. Yeah most modern offenses incorporate many elements of the WCO. I think at the very broadest level it's more a philosophy of using the entire field (horizontally) and finding space between defenders in the shorter/medium pass game to efficiently move the ball... Then there are the schemes/concepts/routes/play-calling to accomplish that... and then the rhythm/execution/timing...... so a lot of the concepts you mention came out of trying to accomplish an efficient pass-control offense.
McCarthy's offense is rooted in the WCO, but it's probably a very modern version because he seems to attack a lot deeper.. I should analyze their offense some day.. the passes to the running back are more like checkdowns and screens (I have Lacy on my FF League so I recall some plays) and I like watching Aaron Rodgers play. Shanahan's WCO also attacked deeper when Walsh left.
I don't think Harbaugh understands the WCO or the philosophy. He may use some route combinations that are similar, but his & Roman's whole system is anti-WCO so I think Harbaugh fell far from the Walsh tree. HaRoman have done well with unique run game concepts with the read-option and that was the main part of success the last couple years.
Walsh's WCO really used the HB/FB as receivers.
Yeah Walsh never used the shotgun.. because I think it was prone to too many errors on the snap, but modern offenses have been pretty efficient...however you also lose the consistency of ball placement in the QB's hands and I think even that makes a difference in creating a very precise and efficient system.
BTW thanks for introducing these concepts... I remember the chart you showed me on that 'other' thread. I like looking them up to understand them... so the Spot concept was a staple of Walsh, but I rarely see it used these days the way Walsh did. I see the guy Jim Light describe it in his blog when I google 'spot concept'. He explains how Brady & Manning used it, but those are terrible examples. The Manning toss is just a basic pick play, and the Brady toss didn't involve any read to the concept side. Is every triangular read or route design called spot these days? That differs from how I see the WCO diagrams. The Snag route is also a triangular read anyways.... Walsh's diagrams for spot plays I've seen are tosses to the HB with two reads. (He may have used the term for other plays..dunno.. this is new to me.)
Spot/Snag/Y-Stick: Walsh's Pass Game to HB/FB (These are all out of 20 Personnel groupings)
The way I see Walsh's WCO is that the primary reads on spot plays are always the HB/FB toss. The second read by the split-end is a 5yd shallow cross and a turn-in... the corner route is the Alert route (not a read, but can take it when defense gives it)...It's an extremely simple two-read design you can pretty much use over and over again. Mostly it would go to the HB, and secondly the split end for the 5 yder...
A snag concept would be a similar to the spot with the HB running a flat with a 10yd corner route from the slot receiver to keep a high-low concept against the corner. Primary read again is the HB and second is the slot receiver on the corner and the snag route (5yd slant) is the 3rd.
The Y-Stick is a primary read to the FB who motions to an empty backfield behind the slot receiver and runs a flat..the slot has a 5yd corner. It's basically 2 reads between the full back flat route and 5yd corner route from slot receiver. The flanker is option 3 with a 6-8yd slant in the middle of the field...sometimes the HB is split out as a WR to run a clear out to the concept side.
I rarely see HB/FB tosses as primary reads in any modern offense... that's why we rarely see what Roger Craig did with 1000yds Rushing/1000yds Receiving and usually getting 400-600+ yds Receiving per season. Even Rathman consistently had 300+ receiving yds and had 600+ one year.
Spot/Snag/Y-Stick
http://saturdaynitelites.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/snag-spot-and-y-stick/
I don't see why you can't try these Walsh concepts in the modern NFL....what is old can become new again right?
The reason why Walsh's pass game involved the backs so much was because we used so much 21 personnel (2backs, 1TE). Backs in the 80s and early 90s had a speed ad advatage vs the LBers that usually guarded them. So in the dynasty days, the spot concept for example usually involved the TE on the corner, back to the flAt and flanker running the curl if ran out of a normal formation. Now in a twins form the concepts was usually the slot wr running the corner, back to the flat and other WR running the curl. In the spot/snag concepts the flat is a primary so thats why backs got a bunch of catches when using 21 personnel, the flat route was the backs.
Since spot concept can involve any combination of 3 Elgible receivers performing that combo of routes (flat, corner, curl/whip), it lends itself nicely to be run from bunch sets. When ran from a compressed bunch form, the flat that was formerly a back route in the dynasty days is now a slot WR attacking it. Multi WR sets is also the main reason for a decrease in backs as primaries. When you go multiple, you don't need the back to run a 3 man route combo.
This is the main differnce between now and then - personnel grouping and the more prevalence use of multi WR sets. All the core WCO concepts can be ran in pretty much any personnel grouping. That's why the offenses look differnt but are still using the same concepts.
Harbaugh's biggest difference from a traditional WCO is currently we run to setup the pass---walsh and all the guys on the tree passed to set up the run. The most basic definition of a WCO is an offense that passes to set up the run with a timing based passing attack that attaches the qb's feet to the routes the WR are running (primary, secondary, checkdown).
Yeah that makes sense. I remember mainly 21 personnel and that was probably the standard. I just wrote 20 personnel because the diagrams indicated so, but you can change out the slot receiver with TE and it's the same thing.
The main thing with the Spot is that at least with Walsh the primary was the flat.. that should be where most of the plays go. If you use multiple and have a WR instead of a HB the defense will automatically read pass. At least with a halfback you aren't tipping the defense. The beauty of Roger Craig is that out of the same formation they could run him in between the tackles or just hit the flat route hard and make some good yds and keep alternating between the two. It's hard to defend and I'm trying to figure out why teams don't do that as much these days. Even on check downs the back is often the one open in a variety of other play designs. The key is to use the same formations to run distinctly different plays. A run between the tackles or pass catch on a flat route is using the opposite edges of space available to use on any given play and stretches the boundaries of coverage for the defenders. Run vs. Pass is the first big uncertainty you want to create for defenders. A second big factor is spacing. Alternating a play in the middle of the field vs. the edges keeps defenders on their heels. Once a defense is utterly confused on Run vs. Pass, Middle vs. Edges, You throw in a long bomb to knock them out. That's using the entire field and I think that's what Walsh was going for when I analyze the designs.
As for HaRoman their specialty has always been in the Run game: Smash mouth football out of Counter, Wham, Trap, Jumbo plays.. and mixed in Read-option to stretch the field of potential attacks..... They probably used some Zone blocking schemes too. Funny thing is Pep Hamilton, formerly under HaRoman at Stanford, used the same run schemes game against us when the Colts gave us the biggest whipping last year: 27-7 on our home turf. It also gives a very good overview of the types of run plays we use. So why did the 49ers get away from this? They totally went away from what they were good at and started using multiple WR sets with a bunch of deep routes (the antithesis of WCO)
http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/10/4/4800856/indianapolis-colts-2013-nfl-season-pep-hamilton-offense-andrew-luck-trent-richardson
Finally I like your definition of the WCO of pass plays setting up the run and the timing of the QB's feet to the WR's routes.... that is a succinct way of describing the Bill Walsh WCO.... it's a lot different with the modern WCO practitioners though although there are some elements there in all the good passing offenses.
