Excellent Article On The Patriots And Erhardt-Perkins

[BTTA]

It's a real shame that we are inundated with all the crap football articles when stuff like this exists out there. .

So you are against the suggested merge of this thread with the Jets Sukk thread?

 

[NormZauchin]

Excellent article.
Raises the question though why we have a hard time developing receivers if this system is easier to learn.

I suspect that while easier, the system may not be easy, and that other critical components of a receiver's skill set, such as being on the same page as TB in reading and responding to the defense's alignment, or crisp and consistant route running, have led to the demise of the Ochocincos and Chad Jacksons.

 

[Bella*chick]

I suspect that while easier, the system may not be easy, and that other critical components of a receiver's skill set, such as being on the same page as TB in reading and responding to the defense's alignment, or crisp and consistant route running, have led to the demise of the Ochocincos and Chad Jacksons.

It sure as hell didn't sound easy reading it.

 

[Shockt327]

Chris Brown is the man, always has been. Not surprised at the quality of this article. It should be made a sticky somewhere in this forum.

Absolutely. This guy is the best writer on the game itself. His Smart Football blog is a must-read.

 

[PP2]

Excellent article.
Raises the question though why we have a hard time developing receivers if this system is easier to learn.

If I understood this excellent article correctly, it isn't that it's easier for receivers to learn but that it's easier for the quarterback. In a sense a more complex terminology spells things out for the receiver in more detail (like having a full address and a street directory).

Because while the root system comes out of the play calls, the resultant routes after the stems are, for the most part, coverage-dictated. That is, they are based on what coverage the receivers and Brady sees (i.e., you nest when you find yourself in zone coverage).

That is why Welker is so invaluable. He is as good as Brady is in reading and interpreting coverages, and why Ocho could barely keep up.

 

[PYPER]

Best sports article I've ever read.

It makes one wonder...Why is there is such a void of this type of insight from sportswriters. This is what we want!

 

[pdangle]

Excellent article.
Raises the question though why we have a hard time developing receivers if this system is easier to learn.

The system only allows for better categorizing and calling of complex plays quickly and more assuredly as there is a single easy remembered phrase for each of the "concepts" going on in a particular play. The actual tactics, reads and responsibilities for each player under each concept is what I'm sure would the tougher of the two to grasp for most players.

From what I got from it that is.

 

[ivanvamp]

Great Article on the Patriots' Offensive Concept

Here: How the terminology of the Erhardt-Perkins system has helped maintain the dominance of Tom Brady and the Patriots - Grantland

Very interesting stuff. Looks like BB is ahead of the curve (again), but that we can probably expect the rest of the league to catch up. By then, the Pats will be on something else, most likely.

 

[PP2]

Best sports article I've ever read.

It makes one wonder...Why is there is such a void of this type of insight from sportswriters. This is what we want!

It is out there.. it's hard to find but there are good writers. Chris Brown is at the top. His website is here:

Smart Football

As for the rest, unfortunately, drama is a easier subject to discuss because it doesn't take much IQ to comprehend drama. This is why trash like Shaughnessy can stick around for so long while offering absolutely nothing in the way of intelligence or insight.

I think the same is true for this forum for the most part. There are posters here who know the game inside out but unfortunately post very rarely. There used to be some wonderful breakdowns posted, but the responses to those can be pretty tepid.

 

[Section103]

Loved this article. One of the best I have read. Thank you for posting!

 

[Funktopus]

I'll have to get this book. Whenever I learn more about the game and understand it better, I enjoy it more. I can't be the only one like this.

If someone were to apply the ideas from the book referenced in this thread (or anywhere knowledgable, really) to the all-22 recordings each week, I would be elated. Couldn't someone make a living doing this?

For example,
- Monday: Complete all-22 breakdown of first half
- Tuesday: Complete all-22 breakdown of 2nd half
- Wednesday: Teaching - apply the ideas/concepts/strategy/tactics (whatever you call it) in Sunday's game that appeared in the Monday and Tuesday edition with similar plays from other games in NFL or college.
- Thursday: Analyze some all-22 plays from the upcoming opponent's previous games.
- Friday: Propose offensive ideas that we might see in the upcoming game
- Saturday: Propose defenive ideas that we might see in the upcoming game

Is it too much work? Does the audience for this not exist? I don't understand the economics of advertising. Is that the problem? Does the NFL prohibit its use?

There is some stuff out there I enjoy reading already, Bedard, Yates, Rodak, Chatham, Bowen at NFP. There are great posts here from some of the board members. I like AWTE's breakdowns over at the planet (whenever he gets the inspiration to do it). Still, it all seems like the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more content that could be created on a weekly basis.

Meanwhile, there's somehow an audience for Felger, Mazz, CHB, Borges and other cartoon characters like a murder's row of **** Tracy villans hatching plots to make smart people dumber.

 

[DocHoliday]

From what I got from the article it's easier on Tom since he essentially has seen all the concepts and has been here forever but for a new receiver catching up to what Tom sees is difficult.

 

[PP2]

I'll have to get this book. Whenever I learn more about the game and understand it better, I enjoy it more. I can't be the only one like this.

If someone were to apply the ideas from the book referenced in this thread (or anywhere knowledgable, really) to the all-22 recordings each week, I would be elated. Couldn't someone make a living doing this?

For example,
- Monday: Complete all-22 breakdown of first half
- Tuesday: Complete all-22 breakdown of 2nd half
- Wednesday: Teaching - apply the ideas/concepts/strategy/tactics (whatever you call it) in Sunday's game that appeared in the Monday and Tuesday edition with similar plays from other games in NFL or college.
- Thursday: Analyze some all-22 plays from the upcoming opponent's previous games.
- Friday: Propose offensive ideas that we might see in the upcoming game
- Saturday: Propose defenive ideas that we might see in the upcoming game

Is it too much work? Does the audience for this not exist? I don't understand the economics of advertising. Is that the problem? Does the NFL prohibit its use?

There is some stuff out there I enjoy reading already, Bedard, Yates, Rodak, Chatham, Bowen at NFP. There are great posts here from some of the board members. I like AWTE's breakdowns over at the planet (whenever he gets the inspiration to do it). Still, it all seems like the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more content that could be created on a weekly basis.

Meanwhile, there's somehow an audience for Felger, Mazz, CHB, Borges and other cartoon characters like a murder's row of **** Tracy villans hatching plots to make smart people dumber.

I think an easier way to go about it would be to have four posters from this board each do one quarter breakdown of each game per week. Would love for that to happen. You may want to PM a few posters and see if they're up for it, I'd recommend Unoriginal, Shockt327, jays52 (although I haven't seen him in a long time; BOR as well, and I know pats1 can't post here anymore because of a conflict of interest). I'd be up for doing one quarter.

 

[Funktopus]

I think an easier way to go about it would be to have four posters from this board each do one quarter breakdown of each game per week. Would love for that to happen. You may want to PM a few posters and see if they're up for it, I'd recommend Unoriginal, Shockt327, jays52 (although I haven't seen him in a long time; BOR as well, and I know pats1 can't post here anymore because of a conflict of interest). I'd be up for doing one quarter.

The thing that I'm so puzzled by is the lack of in-depth analysis since the NFL has made the all-22 available. It would seem to me that a full time Media position could exist for someone to do this.

I enjoyed those breakdowns though the camera angle limits what can be analyzed using the regular broadcast. Still, even those breakdowns seem like the tip of the iceberg.

 

[lamafist]

I'll have to get this book. Whenever I learn more about the game and understand it better, I enjoy it more. I can't be the only one like this.

If someone were to apply the ideas from the book referenced in this thread (or anywhere knowledgable, really) to the all-22 recordings each week, I would be elated. Couldn't someone make a living doing this?

For example,
- Monday: Complete all-22 breakdown of first half
- Tuesday: Complete all-22 breakdown of 2nd half
- Wednesday: Teaching - apply the ideas/concepts/strategy/tactics (whatever you call it) in Sunday's game that appeared in the Monday and Tuesday edition with similar plays from other games in NFL or college.
- Thursday: Analyze some all-22 plays from the upcoming opponent's previous games.
- Friday: Propose offensive ideas that we might see in the upcoming game
- Saturday: Propose defenive ideas that we might see in the upcoming game

Is it too much work? Does the audience for this not exist? I don't understand the economics of advertising. Is that the problem? Does the NFL prohibit its use?

There is some stuff out there I enjoy reading already, Bedard, Yates, Rodak, Chatham, Bowen at NFP. There are great posts here from some of the board members. I like AWTE's breakdowns over at the planet (whenever he gets the inspiration to do it). Still, it all seems like the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more content that could be created on a weekly basis.

Meanwhile, there's somehow an audience for Felger, Mazz, CHB, Borges and other cartoon characters like a murder's row of **** Tracy villans hatching plots to make smart people dumber.

The main obstacle, as I see it, is that labor-intensive content is inherently less efficient in terms of generating page-views.

Even assuming the market for hardcore in-depth analysis is the same as the storyline-based crap the predominates -- which it's probably not -- you're still faced with the fact that a feature article of the former takes 10 times as much work and time as a feature article of the latter. A publisher can't afford to pay that much more for a feature that's not going to make them any more money. And the writer can't afford to work ten times as hard for a story as he needs to, if he wants to make a living writing about football.

One of my favorite sources for NFL analysis is a website called FootballOutsiders.com. I've exchanged a few emails with him about the troubles he faces when he tries to expand his coverage. He can't afford to bring on additional staff because he already has a hard enough time paying his current bunch of writers a competitive wage. As it is, they usually jump ship to a higher paying gig after a couple of years. He gets some volunteer work from readers doing game-charting work, but since they do it in their spare time, it's not timely or reliable enough for in-season analysis.

His site does have some pay content, but he doesn't want to put too much of the site behind a paywall, because when you go primarily subscription-based, you really pare down the size of your audience, which means a significant loss of ad revenue.

My thought has always been that the problem is going at it from a national point of view -- as much as people like the NFL in general, what fans are truly passionate about is their team. It would probably be easy to leverage fandom for team-specific sites than a general one. Furthermore, some fanbases are more activated than others; at this point, given our team's protracted run of success, Pats fans probably represent far more than 1/32nd of the people who'd be interested in donating/subscribing for higher-quality content. And between team message boards, tailgating groups, out-of-town meetups at sports bars, a specific team's fanbase is readily marketed to.

Suddenly a business plan is starting to form...

 

[40yrpatsfan]

Great piece, but I'd like to know how he got diagrams from the Pats playbook

 

[PP2]

The thing that I'm so puzzled by is the lack of in-depth analysis since the NFL has made the all-22 available. It would seem to me that a full time Media position could exist for someone to do this.

I enjoyed those breakdowns though the camera angle limits what can be analyzed using the regular broadcast. Still, even those breakdowns seem like the tip of the iceberg.

I understand.. just saying this is something we could have on this forum. God knows there are many posters here that are smarter than most sportswriters out there.

 

[DocHoliday]

You gotta understand the ratio of who people who understand football's intricacies to people consuming content is vanishingly small.

I'd wager that less than a quarter of people who read ESPN columns can name the roster of their entire team, much less understand what "5 technique" means.

 

[Anteros]

What I didn't get from that article, though, is how do they know where to line up on any given play? "Ghost/tosser," for example, tells them what routes—but there were four different patterns they should, with differing groupings of who is on which side of the QB. How does Brady direct that part of the system?

While I'm sure that most of us would love a full technical readout of our favorite teams offensive specifications I don't think the Patriots would be willing to comply.

Great article, thanks for posting.

 

[SONS_OF_BELICHICK]

I am sure those are just 2 common plays out of ...what 500 to 1000 possible plays.....and from there TB can change it up to almost any combination. They could only use this name in the huddle...