This is where I get confused. Can someone who knows football clarify for me what the difference is between the game plan Xs and Os guy (Steve) and the Coordinator (Jerod)?
So Steve is drawing up who goes where on the field and dictates who is responsible for defending which player from the offense?
What does Jerod do as the coordinator? Decides which players are the starters and backups and who goes in when? Fire them up?
Let me try to give you the basics of what happens when you draw up a game plan in preparation for a game. First understand that whatever I say here is more complex at the pro level, simply because you have many more people working on it.
1. So first you look at you opponent. You have data that has been compiled on what the opponent has done THIS year. You have data on what the opponent had done over the last few years (assuming the coach has been around that long.) If we are talking about the defense, say, you will have data on what the HC and OC have historically liked to do in certain situations. THEN you will have massive data on the personnel of the other team. Who's good, Who's weak. Who may give a hint of what's coming by a lean, or how they set, or line up. THEN you need to go over what teams tend to do from each formation or motion combination. You study what teams are doing based of personnel groupings and down and distance tendencies. THEN you start to put that info together and try and determine what the offense will try and do to OUR defense, based on what they've done in the past when they play the Pats. In other words, how are going to attack what WE like to do on defense and how they might attack certain looks and personnel packages WE put out there. You know they are working with the same amount of data that we have.
2. Now you take what you have found FROM that data and start to organize a game plan that you HOPE can hold your opponent under 20 points that game. You start to create line ups and defensive looks that YOU think will create the best chance at stopping the opponent. What do you want to do in all the different SITUATIONS that will occur during the game based on all the info you gathered. Who do you want in the game on likely running plays, and what defense you want to run. The same goes for obvious passing downs. You do the same things based on what you now expect in certain down and distance situations, and what they like to do when they have certain players on the field. What blitz packages you think will be effective. What tendencies you've found. How much zone. How much man, etc
3. Now after you have done all of that, the next and perhaps the HARDEST task is how you are going to distill this MASSIVE amount of information into a game plan that your players can understand, AND do it simply enough so you don't induce paralysis by analysis. You have to decide just how much info your players need to know to be their most effective, AND the best way to pass on that info.
4 Now that you have take all that information and the basic game plan in mind, you have to plan your practice schedule for the week. You have to determine what specific drills you want to run during group practice and what individual activities you want to do in individual drills. Then during team work you have to prepare all the cards you need to use to run a scout team and who are the guys who are going to be on that teams and prepare THEM to be able to give good looks to the D You have to break down EVERY individual period and what you hope to accomplish during that hour and half to 2 hours of work. THEN you have to decide what film you want each individual group to see that week and what are the key elements each coach will want to point out,
5. Now that you have have the data and the player side taken care of by Tuesday, the coaches will spend the rest of the week determining how they want to call that game. What they want to do on all the different down and distance situations, etc and they have to figure out who they want on the field for each situation, and prepare those players to be ready.
In today's game one of the evolutions I've seen is all the situational substitutions you see. So many players coming on and off the field each down it almost looks like a hockey game. Preparing players to get on and off the field must be a difficult task that we fans take for granted, but I bet a LOT of work goes into this part of the game behind the scenes
I think the guy in charge of this vast operation is Jerad Mayo and Steve is the best guy they have to communicate to they green dot guys what they want to do on an individual play based on the down and distance, what was determined fits the game plan that was developed, and his general feel for the flow of the game
6. I forgot to add that a significant part of the game plan is PLAN B. All game plans do not work at times, so you have to have PREPARED a back up plan if the offense shows you something new. You also have to prepare how and what you are going to do at half time. You have to have organized how you are going to take what you learned in the first half and how you are going to adjust. By the time you arrive in the locker room you have to know what EACH coach is going to say to his group and how they are going to present it. Of course you don't know what you are going to say in that situation, but the organization and coordination of the flow of new information that you want to present has to be done by prior planning.
Understand, Mike, that this is just off the top of my head based on the experience of putting together defensive game plans on the HS level with just 4 guys helping. But the basic PROCESS is the same on every level. We lived by the 5 P:s (prior preparation prevents piss poor performance.) What you have in the pro game is the amount of info you have at hand is infinitely more than what I had to deal with AND the amount of people you have to develop that info is also much greater. We created weekly game plans as a group every Sunday at 6, in a meeting that could last past midnight sometimes, but from it would come the basic plan for the week. Hard work but it was a SO much simpler operation than what happens in Foxboro each week.
Hope that helps.
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