X's & O's The Patriots and the Erhardt-Perkins Offense

[Rob0729]

They literally ran Erhardt-Perkins back then. Ron Erhardt was here. The plays are in the playbook.

I get that Erhardt and Perkins both coached here and ran their offense. I am saying McDaniels is not running the offense the way they did. There are so many routes a receiver can run. Just because Diggs or Boutte runs a route that Stanley Morgan might have ran back in the day doesn’t mean they are running the same exact offense.

 

[patfanken]

This. Ive had pats hater fans tell me deflate-gate was upheld by a court proving they did it. But what was actually decided by yhe court was that Goodell can do wtf he wants regatdless of proof because thats what the cba says.

Actually, a court found that the so called "evidence" the NFL used to punish Brady and the Pats WASN'T good enough to do it. We all thought that was the end of it. Then it was an APPEALS court, who found 2-1 that it didn't matter about the evidence being right or wrong, Goodel had the right to rule however he wants regardless of the facts of the case, according to that CBA.

 

[signbabybrady]

There some slants, but Pop and Diggs are not being used that way. Pop gets a lot of down field throws.

And Stevenson was also used more down field.

It isn’t the same offense.

Drake and McDaniels say otherwise. There's some great info in this thread you should probably go back and check out that playbook.

 

[Vindicate]

Chris Brown, who is in his own league as a football writer, wrote the best article on the EP offense and nothing else comes remotely as close.

» Speak My Language

grantland.com

Just bumping this because it was a fantastic read. Every question posed here so far has an answer in this article. Thanks, @PP2

 

[Rob0729]

Drake and McDaniels say otherwise. There's some great info in this thread you should probably go back and check out that playbook.

Except they don’t. They say the principles are the same which I say too. They don’t say that it is the same exact offense. The offense has morphed because of the personnel. It always does. But Maye’s playing style has made the offense significantly different even if the principles of the offense are the same.

 

[Vindicate]

Drake and McDaniels say otherwise. There's some great info in this thread you should probably go back and check out that playbook.

Check out the article PP2 posted.

One of the core qualities in the EP is its ability to change according to need. It started as a conservative system and unfurled into as many as 4/5 different iterations during Brady's time.

It is different now, but that flexibility is due to EP as a whole.

 

[40yrpatsfan]

Although the core principles of the Erhardt-Perkins system is in the current offense, it really isn’t the Erhardt-Perkins offense anymore. McDaniels is still using the idea of concepts of routes rather than designated routes for each play, but the original Erhardt-Perkins offense and what was used during the Brady years was based on a the short quick passing game.

McDaniels has adopted the system to fit Maye’s style. That means more down field passing and designing roll outs to give Maye more time. This was never really part of the original system.

I think you missed a big point. The EP "system" is a terminology system. The plays and routes are the same as WC, but they are identified very differently which enables the same route combinations to be run from many different formations. While there may occasionally be some new route combination invented that nobody's ever thought of before, that's rare. Josh isn't making up new pass routes.

 

[Rob0729]

I think you missed a big point. The EP "system" is a terminology system. The plays and routes are the same as WC, but they are identified very differently which enables the same route combinations to be run from many different formations. While there may occasionally be some new route combination invented that nobody's ever thought of before, that's rare. Josh isn't making up new pass routes.

I am not missing the point. I think people are not getting mine. I said the core is there. They still use routes as concepts rather than assigned routes per play.

I am saying they are executing much differently than it is usually done. But the EP was the ground and pound offense. It relies on a strong running with a short quick passing game. Most of the key routes were screens and quick slants. McDaniels has totally revised that to play to Mayes strengths of the deep ball and his athleticism. That is my point.

But it also means it really isn't a true Erhadt-Perkins offense. It is an offshoot of it which makes it something else.

 

[Wozzy]

It’s complicated because it’s complicated to defend.

 

[signbabybrady]

Except they don’t. They say the principles are the same which I say too. They don’t say that it is the same exact offense. The offense has morphed because of the personnel. It always does. But Maye’s playing style has made the offense significantly different even if the principles of the offense are the same.

I provided a quote of Drake stating he running the same plays Brady did.

 

[signbabybrady]

I am not missing the point. I think people are not getting mine. I said the core is there. They still use routes as concepts rather than assigned routes per play.

I am saying they are executing much differently than it is usually done. But the EP was the ground and pound offense. It relies on a strong running with a short quick passing game. Most of the key routes were screens and quick slants. McDaniels has totally revised that to play to Mayes strengths of the deep ball and his athleticism. That is my point.

But it also means it really isn't a true Erhadt-Perkins offense. It is an offshoot of it which makes it something else.

The system was designed to be able to easily evolve. BoB did things Josh didn't, Josh did things Charlie didn't, it's the beauty of the system. It's why it was dumb for people to insist we get rid of it when it's already so deep and flexible to begin with.

 

[PlainOldEd]

I am not missing the point. I think people are not getting mine. I said the core is there. They still use routes as concepts rather than assigned routes per play.

I am saying they are executing much differently than it is usually done. But the EP was the ground and pound offense. It relies on a strong running with a short quick passing game. Most of the key routes were screens and quick slants. McDaniels has totally revised that to play to Mayes strengths of the deep ball and his athleticism. That is my point.

But it also means it really isn't a true Erhadt-Perkins offense. It is an offshoot of it which makes it something else.

it's semantics. Am I the same person I was 10 years ago? Yes.... but also I have grown older and hopefully wiser (probably not), so in a way, I am a different person.

 

[Rob0729]

I provided a quote of Drake stating he running the same plays Brady did.

I saw the quote. Yes, a lot of the plays are the same. The core concept hasn't changed. It is how it is implemented. It totally different.

 

[Rob0729]

it's semantics. Am I the same person I was 10 years ago? Yes.... but also I have grown older and hopefully wiser (probably not), so in a way, I am a different person.

If it is semantics, why would anyone argue with me pointing out how it is different. Whether or not you agree with me saying it is a different offense or not, my underlying point is exactly what you are saying.

 

[PlainOldEd]

If it is semantics, why would anyone argue with me pointing out how it is different. Whether or not you agree with me saying it is a different offense or not, my underlying point is exactly what you are say

I don't think anyone is saying that it hasn't evolved, but every time you add a new play, does it become a new system?

 

[Rob0729]

I don't think anyone is saying that it hasn't evolved, but every time you add a new play, does it become a new system?

I said the core concepts is there, but the way they are executing it is very different for Maye than they did in the past You seem to agree with me. If you are hung up on "a new system", I will say it isn't a new system.

 

[40yrpatsfan]

I am not missing the point. I think people are not getting mine. I said the core is there. They still use routes as concepts rather than assigned routes per play.

I am saying they are executing much differently than it is usually done. But the EP was the ground and pound offense. It relies on a strong running with a short quick passing game. Most of the key routes were screens and quick slants. McDaniels has totally revised that to play to Mayes strengths of the deep ball and his athleticism. That is my point.

But it also means it really isn't a true Erhadt-Perkins offense. It is an offshoot of it which makes it something else.

Go back and read some of the links. EP is a naming system, not a set of routes. Its genius is it separates the route from the formation, so for example the same route can be run by either a RB (in motion) or a wideout, via the same simple call. What makes that so effective is the defense gets many of its keys from the formation, and they can't rely on that as much versus an EP system.

I think you're saying that Josh is adding new routes or new wrinkles to existing routes. I don't know if that's true or not, but there's such a vast inventory of existing route combinations that I doubt much of that is going on. If you're seeing a difference in the routes being run this year vs. 2018, he's just calling different existing route combinations now, not making up new ones.

 

[slam]

We are SO close to a Ship of Theseus reference, and I'm here for it.

 

[PlainOldEd]

I said the core concepts is there, but the way they are executing it is very different for Maye than they did in the past You seem to agree with me. If you are hung up on "a new system", I will say it isn't a new system.

honestly, I'm not hung up on it. I was just trying to help resolve the dispute.

 

[PP2]

I think you missed a big point. The EP "system" is a terminology system. The plays and routes are the same as WC, but they are identified very differently which enables the same route combinations to be run from many different formations. While there may occasionally be some new route combination invented that nobody's ever thought of before, that's rare. Josh isn't making up new pass routes.

These routes are not so much identified differently as they are packaged into one-word concepts for what happens on one half of the field, offense-wise, on the philosophy that a concept is easier to visualize or understand. Here is a great breakdown of the most famous concept in the EP offense. You have an inside, middle, and outside receiver each of who runs a particular route according to the concept being called, no matter what the personnel or formation is.

BB's genius was to turn the EP from an offense into a system of concepts, i.e., everything is organized by concepts. In other words, it became philosophically neutral. It was neither a ground or pound, air attack, or anything else, only what was required for the upcoming game, or suited to match the talent on offense (i.e., the WR group of the '07 team, or the 2 TE of the 2010's).

Concepts gives you the freedom to use any formation with any personnel group without getting bogged down in nomeclature (imagine blurting out a paragraph with the clock running out) because as long as you understood a concept, the only important thing was to know the personnel call and where you had to line up (the formation being called) and understand what the defense was giving you (man or zone, and if man, how your man was leveraged to you, which was what Brady would also see, and what Maye will hopefully someday see), hence it's moniker as the "amoeba offense." With this simple concepts system, the terminology used to identify personnel, formation, and concept all remain under 100 names for each, as opposed to the usual 500+ for a standard WC offense, and a total mathematical possibility of 60,000 variations which, as Brown points out, is beyond stupid and useless.