Walkthroughs

Can anyone explain exactly what goes on during a walkthrough. Marshall Faulk will go to his grave believing the Pats filmed their walkthrough prior to the SB. which is why, in his mind, they lost, and I've always wondered what huge secrets could be let out if someone spied another's walkthrough. It's not a practice, because it isn't called practice. So what do they do, how do you walk through your plays? Are the players in uniform, or sweats w/helmet and Pats shirts? Do they run plays O vs D in any way or is it Offense goes over things on one side of the field and D does the same on the other?

I just really have no idea what takes place as simple as it may sound

Thanks

Day Before the Game
The day before the game, teams at all levels will hold a practice called a walk-through. In this type of practice, players wear shorts and T-shirts and there is no contact. The practice is held in the stadium and players will walk through the majority of the plays that they will try to execute. This practice will last no longer than 45 minutes and is designed to get players used to their surroundings.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/457203-how-long-do-football-
players-have-to-practice-a-day/

rfh said:

Can anyone explain exactly what goes on during a walkthrough. Marshall Faulk will go to his grave believing the Pats filmed their walkthrough prior to the SB.

Click to expand...

The "filmed practice" rumor was one of many crazy rumors that was investigated, but proven to be false by the NFL.

After the Jets whined about the Pats taping signals in week one of 2007 (ironically, after the Pats had whined about the Jets taping them the year before, although not to the same degree), the media began to create all kinds of unsubstantiated rumors that took place over the next 3-4 days after that first Sunday in Sept. 2007. This was one of them.

Some believe that the rumor actually started due to the Patriots spotting someone watching their practice in the Rams SB, and much like a bad game of "telephone," the specifics became blurred due to the breaking stories re: Spygate. I know that there have been many stories reported that Patriots personnel swear they spotted someone with binoculars watching their practice. To this day, Belichick is very careful with where they practice, which is one of the reasons why they suddenly up and changed their location on the SD trip last week.

As you know, they also came out to practice without anyone wearing numbers on their jerseys, so that the players were unidentifiable. Belichick is obviously very paranoid for a reason, and my assumption is that if they decided to foot the bill for the U of SD field/accommodation prep last week without even showing up, if was for damn good reason.

Marshall Faulk has had his depends in a bunch since 2001... maybe it was from the beating he took that day caused brain damage..

"When you lose you say nothing, when you win you say less"... Paul Brown.

The walk through is basically for things like:
let the QB know where to look up and find the 40 second clock
what sideline, tunnel to use
teams will line up and maybe run some standard plays, half speed, just so the QB can see where the clocks are, and stuff like that.
No game plans are installed, discussed or anything like that.
teams that script their first 15 plays, might walk through those plays

Having a tape of any teams walkthrough would give you absolutely nothing! What did the Pats do the Rams? They hit Faulk on every play, they didn't let him run, and they didn't let him get off the line of scrimmage, they interrupted all his pass routes. Did anyone need secret information that the key to stopping those Rams was to stop Faulk? I think not!

The Pats two TDs, one was a pick 6 by Ty Law off an underthrown ball because Vrabel was sacking Warner, the other was set up off a fumble after a completed pass. The Pats won that game, because they had a superior secondary, that hit the Rams receivers on pretty much every play. Other than that, the Pats ran the ball, they didn't score off some miraculous play where they knew what the Rams were doing. They weren't calling out the rams offensive plays at the line of scrimmage, they simple beat them, by being more physical.

Faulk's brain damage must have made him forget that their walkthrough before that Super Bowl was, as confirmed by Kurt Warner, their goal line offense. The Rams only got to use that offense once during the game - and they scored.

There was an article by John Czarnecki from 2008 that offered some insight on the walk through story. The original link to the article no longer works, but this site has a portion of it. Some key parts:

"The Rams were in their game uniforms, running around and generally relaxing waiting to take their team photo for the Super Bowl. There were wooden risers on the field. There were times when I was on the field actually talking to Kurt Warner and other players and some of the teams' executives that I have known for more than 20 years.

If there was a walk-through that day, it was the most disorganized one ever assembled. Many of the players were there to simply unwind and relax and test out the carpet."

If you listen to Faulk and the walk through tape truthers, they believe that Mike Martz introduced a package of new plays at the walk through and the team mastered them during that session. All that happened the day before the game, after the game plan was finalized and the team had gone through all of their normal practices.

I really wish someone would ask Faulk specifically what these new plays were and why his coach would risk making changes and confusing his team on such short notice.

To build off of Koma and Supafly's points, walkthroughs vary by team. Belichick of course is very secretive. On the other hand, you have the Dallas Cowboys - where I attended their Saturday walkthrough for this game as a benefit of touring Jerry World: http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/20100...gameinfo|contentId:09000d5d81ac28ba&tab=recap

Besides the usual stretching, basically all that happened was that the skill position players jogged their routes with Romo throwing a few soft tosses their way, the lines lined up in the formations they wanted to use, and the running backs practiced receiving the handoffs. I broke more of a sweat trying to fight my way through the crowd to watch.