Read This, Be Smarter: Hey, The Trash Can Is KILLING Us!

[pbmax]

Al Davis and his offensive legacy, explained with trash cans. Some good Sid Gillman stuff in here too along with a cameo by Bill Walsh; by everyone's favorite smartfootball.com blogger, Chris Brown.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7088690/al-davis-strategic-legacy

[Upnorth]

Davis tÉaching walsh? I always thought most of the west coast theory traced back to Paul Brown. Unless Gilman was a co-ordinator for Brown and I just forgot.
Love the stretch route tree explanation, but it still suprises me with Davis having that much influance.

[NewsBruin]

So, how long before Nicholas Cage plays the lead in the Al Davis biopic?

[KYPack]

These articles fail to trace the roots back to the ground. Sid Gilman's father ran movie theatres. Gilman pieced together a film of the sophisticated pass routes run in the NFL of his youth. Principal among these were film of the passing game of the Green Bay Packers.

Gilman and Paul Brown watched and learned from watching the film on Don Hutson of the Lambeau Packers to get their ideas for the modern pass offense.

[Upnorth]

These articles fail to trace the roots back to the ground. Sid Gilman's father ran movie theatres. Gilman pieced together a film of the sophisticated pass routes run in the NFL of his youth. Principal among these were film of the passing game of the Green Bay Packers.

Gilman and Paul Brown watched and learned from watching the film on Don Hutson of the Lambeau Packers to get their ideas for the modern pass offense.

Mr KYPack, you sir are a genius!

[pbmax]

Davis tÉaching walsh? I always thought most of the west coast theory traced back to Paul Brown. Unless Gilman was a co-ordinator for Brown and I just forgot.
Love the stretch route tree explanation, but it still suprises me with Davis having that much influance.

Well, that's the part that has caused a lot of confusion before. Walsh spent one year with Al in Oakland as a running backs coach. Walsh also spent one year as Offensive Coordinator at San Diego. But he worked for Tommy Prothro, not with Gillman or Coryell.

He spent the intervening 8 years at Cincinnati with Brown. As Al's running backs coach, like his quote in the article states, he would have learned how Al used the RBs (and TEs in Walsh's account) in his pass offense. And he would have had to pick up the terminology. My suspicion is that little of it survived intact in a transition to Brown's coaching staff, which would have been dominated by Brown's own offense. But Walsh has stated he retooled it for a new QB (Virgil Carter) after they lost strong armed Greg Cook.

What is very unclear is how much Walsh inherited from Brown and how much he was allowed to design himself. Even his position with the Bengals is simply listed as Offensive Assistant in several places. Walsh doesn't touch on this subject much except that the switch to Carter necessitated a change in passing focus. Likely, parts of both offenses were used.

I have gone through this material before trying to trace back what Walsh used and he leaves a lot unsaid. He was mad at Brown for what Walsh considered obstacles erected to keep Walsh from getting jobs elsewhere in the NFL while they were both in Cincinnati. When he failed to get the HC job when Brown kicked himself upstairs, he finally left.