Small Analysis/Prediction: The Return of the Wishbone Formation

[JayNM]

I appreciate the idea, but it takes too many of our best players off the field. No wide receivers on the field is too much. Edelman or Cooks should be on the field.

We would do better with a two TE, 1 WR, and Devlin and Burkhead. That leaves us the option of spreading them out with legit pass catchers, but also can do run from a heavy set. Or a two tailback set with 2 TE, 1 WR, Lewis and Burkhead. Five guys who can legit catch it, and also have lots of running plays from a heavy formation

A lot of this comes back to the ability to go up tempo, which they did last year less than I thought. That's the true magic of these versatile players, that you can run 4 or 5 wide and then the next play go heavy set power running with no timeout, no substitutions, and no break for the defense to catch their breath or substitute personnel.

I'm definitely not advocating for us to use it prominently.

But I wouldn't be shocked if they used this formation once or twice, specially because we can turn a theoretically run only package into a pretty good pass situation, thanks to the capabilities of our running bad.

Again, we've seen this happen in "I formation", so maybe it could happen with the Wishbone

 

[Dagg]

I loooove the old option WB offenses of the early mid 80s with OU, NEB and Colorado being the ones I remember clearly. We used to play on the street with 8 or 10 of us all WB and run run run. I still get a kick out of watching AF (and to some extent GT) play.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Gronk and really all of our backs being outside receiving threats mean no teams can ever stack against the run or we can just inside-out them and kill them down the field.

That's the type of deception we will use. Stack against the run? Burn you downfield. Go small? Gash you up the middle.

We have some very versatile personnel groupings.

 

[Wheelssps]

I'm definitely not advocating for us to use it prominently.

But I wouldn't be shocked if they used this formation once or twice, specially because we can turn a theoretically run only package into a pretty good pass situation, thanks to the capabilities of our running bad.

Again, we've seen this happen in "I formation", so maybe it could happen with the Wishbone

Completely fair. It's also one of those formations that the Pats might run early in the season for a couple of plays just to make the other teams waste practice hours going over something so archaic.