A rare opportunity

[patfanken]

I was thinking the other day about the fact that this year, for less than the cost of a single ticket, we will have available the coaches tape. The tape that will give us a view of the full 22 players on every play. Believe me this is the most exciting innovation for football fans since the instant replay. And for reasons that will become apparent, its an opportunity that I think won't be around for more than a season or two. Here's what I propose.

In the past there have been several fans who have given us partial breakdowns of what went on in the most recent Pats games. Fans who painstakingly broke down the network feed and gave us a breakdown of a quarter or two of a Pats game. Most of us really appreciated the detail, effort and information and insights they provided. Now we can take it up a notch. In fact several notches

This is based on the assumption that many of us will opt to get the all 22 feed. At that point we are in the position to breakdown the game in as detailed a way as most coaching staffs. We have a lot of fans here who could do a great job of it.

What I'm thinking is that since we have so many people here who would be willing to do a break down, we can assign certain people to do a portion of the work, because alone it would take HOURS, and HOURS. Different people could take different tasks. For example one person break down the OL, for the 1st quarter, another for the 2nd, etc. One person could do just the receivers, while another the RBs. The defense could be broken down the same way.

Each person would file his own report based on what he or she found. Then all the reports would be submitted at the same time under different headings to the benefit of the entire board.

Prior to the season the people who would do this could get together in some chat room to discuss creating unified format. In other words how we'd call the formations, and defenses. Perhaps creating a form where down and distance would be noted, and how the play would be described, and then the results

I mean now my mind is on fire. Think about it. There could be some of us who could be assigned to follow some or all of our opponents. There is the potential for someone who, before the first Jets game, has the data to break down the Jets first 6 games and can tell us what to expect better and in more detail, and more REALITY than we've ever had before

15 or 20 odd people working together can put together some amazing insights to the game that's being played and the what to expect in the future. Giving us the all 22 feed is like allowing us to look behind the curtain. It really does.....AND for that reason, I doubt the league will allow it to continue for the long haul. Too much information is out there for the general public.

But in the meantime it would be a tragic waste to let this opportunity slip by without maximizing the wealth of information that will be available. And the best way to do that is to organize.

I'm just doing some off the cuff, disorganized brainstorming here. Let me know what you think here or in a PM and we can start putting it together, First putting together the group who would commit to the task, Then how it would be organized and what the assignments are, Then create the common semantics (language),and format

Then we could use the preseason games to smooth out the bugs, and be ready for the season. If we ever pulled this off we would offer a wealth of great information, insight and opinion to all Pats fans.

 

[A.C Vegas]

This all 22 is going to kill this board after losses people are going to rip every tiny detail and it's going to make this place hell

 

[Ring 6]

This all 22 is going to kill this board after losses people are going to rip every tiny detail and it's going to make this place hell

I think that you raise a good point. People looking at a view they have never seen before will tend to see what they wish to see.
Seeing the secondary will lead to more excuses that receivers were covered and more blame that they weren't. Just as seeing patterns develop without knowing progressions will lead to someone decreeing on every pass play that the QB missed someone.
It should be interesting.

 

[Raymond]

This all 22 is going to kill this board after losses people are going to rip every tiny detail and it's going to make this place hell

That's my fear. By Tuesday am there will be 75 people that know more than BB because they have the same all 22 game tape.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Guys like Mike Lombardi and Matt Bowen among others have been writing for the last week or so about the pitfalls of many fans belief that the All 22 will finally give them the means to legitimately critique plays and players. It takes a while, sometimes a couple of years for guys at their level to grasp what they are seeing on that film to the point they can truly break it down. And even then their breakdowns remain limited because they don't know the play call or the assignments or the adjustments. Their critique is based on who appeared to do what absent information about who was supposed to do what. And hereabouts, in the land of the complex offense and multiple (and disguised) defensive schemes that information will remain about as valid as what we've always had...

 

[BTTA]

Ken, this is a creative and generous idea. (Why can't it just be received that way?).

I don't have the football knowledge to be one of the film junkies but I will gladly buy a six pack for someone who is.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

I think that you raise a good point. People looking at a view they have never seen before will tend to see what they wish to see.
Seeing the secondary will lead to more excuses that receivers were covered and more blame that they weren't. Just as seeing patterns develop without knowing progressions will lead to someone decreeing on every pass play that the QB missed someone.
It should be interesting.

Bill Barnwell at Grantland covered the difficulty of drawing conclusions from All-22 film. Here's an excerpt:

It's extremely, extremely difficult for the layperson to break down the All-22 film without making mistakes. The intricacies of pre-snap adjustments and the many avenues to change a route or a coverage on the fly on both sides of the ball make it extremely difficult to accurately gauge what a player's genuine responsibilities are on a particular play.

As an example, consider a center on a typical running play. His job, per the playbook, might be to chip the defensive tackle and assist the right guard in temporarily occupying him before getting to the second level and blocking the middle linebacker, creating a lane for his running back to go through. If all goes well, it's easy to see that the center did a fantastic job. In real life, though, the defensive tackle might do a great job of occupying the two linemen, the center might never get to the second level to perform his second assignment, and the middle linebacker might shoot the gap to make a play behind the line of scrimmage for a loss. If you don't know the playcall, how can you know whether the center's job was to get to the second level and block the middle linebacker or whether it was simply to double-team the defensive tackle? I know of one NFL team that wanted to grade every offensive lineman in football before free agency by having its personnel break down every play and grade the offensive linemen on their performance. What they found, though, was that even trained football eyes are unable to reliably break down what each lineman was supposed to do on every single play without guessing far too frequently, as they would have to do on the play above. They abandoned the project.

Regards,
Chris

 

[patsfan13]

It would be very tough for fans to grade plays, however it is an excellent opportunity for fans to learn the game, seeing what sorts of D we play, 2 gap , q gap, hybrid, zone man type of zone ect.

Same with the O pass blocking back protect release into the flat. How receivers adjust.

This will be fun.

 

[cmasspatsfan]

It would be very tough for fans to grade plays, however it is an excellent opportunity for fans to learn the game, seeing what sorts of D we play, 2 gap , q gap, hybrid, zone man type of zone ect.

Same with the O pass blocking back protect release into the flat. How receivers adjust.

This will be fun.

It would be great to see more of whats going on and learn a little more of the gamebut very hard for even the smartest on this board to break it down like the coaches can, Id love to read some opinions nonetheless.

 

[nashvillepatsfan]

No offense to my fellow posters, but there's only about 5 posters on here, that i would trust to break down plays. Although I like Kens idea, it could only work with the right posters. You certainly don't want me breaking down film
Besides, without knowing the play call, and assignments, isnt it all just guessing? Either way, I'll read the breakdowns for the fun of it.

May I vote for 'unoriginal' to do the O-line breakdowns?

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

It would be very tough for fans to grade plays, however it is an excellent opportunity for fans to learn the game, seeing what sorts of D we play, 2 gap , q gap, hybrid, zone man type of zone ect.

Same with the O pass blocking back protect release into the flat. How receivers adjust.

This will be fun.

This....... Great way for the average fan like many of us to learn more about the game, but hard to really grade out individual plays.

 

[DarrylS]

Sounds like a good idea, but to assume that looking at a coaches tape and coming up with the same conclusions that coaches do is folly.

If we do not know the pass routes, the play, blocking or coverage assignments, how do we know it they did what they are supposed to do???

 

[Salva135]

Many of us won't have access to this footage, so I assume a lot of work will still have to be done to post screen shots, but I appreciate anyone who puts in this time to do such yeoman's work and helps teach some of us all something new.

I actually wonder how many of us will be actually satisfied watching live games with normal cam views once we get access to this tape. No other sport's coverage leaves so much action unavailable during a telecast. I could potentially envision a backlash by tv viewers demanding that footage on TV live on a separate channel.

 

[FredFromDartmouth]

This will cause a lot of divorces...

 

[DaBronxPats14]

Good Points!
It definitely will make us fans more knowledgable and a better insight on how things pan out. Again people will make their own judgements even though it's as clear as day but everyone interprets things differently. Either way it will be more to comment about and different views/comments always make for convo'.

 

[patsfan13]

The other fun part is taking looking at the coaches tape of the opponent the week they are playing the pats. I DVR the opponent the week before they play the pats to get a sense of their team.

This service will enhance this great stuff. I now have an excuse to miss most college football games to focus on the Pats game the day before the game...:rocker:

 

[WhiZa]

Anyone that watches coaches tape will probably be smart enough to know that they do not know as much as the actual coaches. If they think they do then they will be criticized accordingly. It will be a lesson learned for all.

 

[Patjew]

This all 22 is going to kill this board after losses people are going to rip every tiny detail and it's going to make this place hell

There's an easy solution to prevent that from happening.

 

[Dragda]

If I subscribe to this AND if I have time, I will break down DL play as that is an area of personal interest for me. I have read super dry coaching books on DL technique and fronts just so I could understand it better. I'm no expert, but I think it will be fun.

 

[patfanken]

Let me make a few things clear about this proposal:

1. The object was to provide a more detailed and more definitive assessment of Pats games than we've had before for the greater enjoyment of the fans of this board. Definitive simply because we'd have more information than before.

2. OF COURSE this would be simply an amateur's offerings, since we still wouldn't know critical data like the play called and the LOS adjustments on both sides of the ball. THAT'S NOT THE POINT - The point was to provide something better than we've had in the past

3. What I found most ironic was the criticism that as just fans we aren't qualified to make judgments on the success or failure of player on a particular play. Isn't THAT what we do here on a daily basis? Isn't that the PURPOSE of this board in the first place? The only difference is that NOW we'd make those speculative judgments with more information. It goes without saying that anything we put together would be amateur "uninformed" judgments, but they'd be LESS uninformed than before!

4. I have to admit I am a bit surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for this idea, flawed though it be. I would have thought there would be many here who would have flocked to the idea, especially people who could have improved on the concept. I can only conclude that the great majority here would rather make their "judgments" in the dark, or prefer to "play" alone. Well never mind I guess. It was just a thought