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Meant to post this earlier. It's an interesting tidbit from a TMQ article (though the first half of the article drives me crazy):
Indianapolis Colts vs New Orleans Saints would be a wonderful Super Bowl - ESPN
I'm wondering if Maroney might benefit from this approach. It'd definitely give him more space to work with, and fewer holes to choose from, so less dancing on his part. And with Moss and Welker spread out, with maybe Watson to help stretch the field, the defense has to be thinking pass.
The Pats are in shotgun almost half the time, but it's usually a pass. I can't find numbers on it, but I seem to recall Maroney running out of the shotgun with success in 2007. There have been a few attempts this season, but not many that I can recall.
It'd also keep the defense honest on the pass out of the shotgun. I hate to see the Pats go with an empty backfield. I mean, everyone knows it will probably be a pass when the Pats go shotgun. But at least give them a split second of hesitation with a back there.
I'm sure this topic has been brought up in the past. And I'm not suggesting we fit the offense to Maroney. But I wouldn't mind seeing it a bit more.
Indianapolis Colts vs New Orleans Saints would be a wonderful Super Bowl - ESPN
In other football news, it would be weird to wake up and find your team has the league's leading rusher, plus the No. 1 rushing attack in terms of average gain -- a spectacular 5.5 yards per carry -- yet also find your team is 1-6. That's how the Tennessee Titans find themselves after hosting the Jacksonville Jaguars in a game that produced a combined 522 yards rushing and 238 yards passing. It would be weird to wake up and realize you had rushed for 177 yards on just eight carries Sunday, yet only touched the ball once in the fourth quarter. That's how Maurice Jones-Drew finds himself right now.
Those 522 combined rushing yards did not come from power sets; on nearly every big run in the Jax-Flaming Thumbtacks contest, the offense was in a spread formation and the action was a draw play. Good blocking and sloppy tackling were the reasons for rushes of 89, 80, 79 and 52 yards. But tactical evolution was a reason, too. Not long ago, many coaches would have said the reason quarterbacks aren't always in the shotgun -- it's easier to throw if you're scanning the field from the snap rather than wasting time dropping back -- is that teams can't run from a shotgun formation. Increasingly the reverse is true -- teams run better from the shotgun than from conventional sets. Linemen have gotten so much bigger that there simply isn't room to run from a conventional set against a defense putting seven players in the box. Spread formations make it impossible to load seven defenders into the box, thereby creating running room. They also distract the defense into worrying so much about the pass that the rush becomes an afterthought. Chris Johnson's 89-yard touchdown run came on third-and-4, with the defense expecting a pass; Johnson was just 15 yards downfield when he'd already gotten by all but one Jacksonville defender! Sunday's Jacksonville at Tennessee game meant nothing to the standings, but may have been a preview of the next big fad in football: the rush-oriented spread offense.
I'm wondering if Maroney might benefit from this approach. It'd definitely give him more space to work with, and fewer holes to choose from, so less dancing on his part. And with Moss and Welker spread out, with maybe Watson to help stretch the field, the defense has to be thinking pass.
The Pats are in shotgun almost half the time, but it's usually a pass. I can't find numbers on it, but I seem to recall Maroney running out of the shotgun with success in 2007. There have been a few attempts this season, but not many that I can recall.
It'd also keep the defense honest on the pass out of the shotgun. I hate to see the Pats go with an empty backfield. I mean, everyone knows it will probably be a pass when the Pats go shotgun. But at least give them a split second of hesitation with a back there.
I'm sure this topic has been brought up in the past. And I'm not suggesting we fit the offense to Maroney. But I wouldn't mind seeing it a bit more.