Aaron Rodgers now..

[bobblehead]

So you want to go back to split backs?

No, just the Non-Verticle WCO.

Personally, I'm okay with the Verticle WCO. AR is one of the most accurate long ball passers in the league, if not the best. His accuracy along the sidelines is ridiculous good. He certainly throws the ball well for having so few long INTs. And that's why I'm okay with it. It's because it's a talent. Why not capitalize on it?

Air Coryell? Like what Martz runs?

I could be wrong but I thought the whole Martz philosophy was to throw the ball BEFORE a reciever makes his breaks so a DBack never has a chance to defend it. The long catches were more a result of guys breaking off the defense and being gone before anyone knew what happened.

And Martz got it from Coryell, who learned it from Gillman.

Timing passing.

Yea, as I read on I realized your main point was timing, not necessarily HOW they used it and it made more sense to me.

[Smidgeon]

Bobble, most times Favre throws it deep he put it away from the safety and where his guy can make a play. To me that's exactly what you want.

And most of the time his guys have to adjust to it because it isn't very accurate.

At least McCarthy rejuvenated that part of his game.

His deep ball '05 to '06 was an absolute joke, he couldn't hid the broadside of a barn more than 20 yards down the sideline. Even in '07, when he did make big deep throws to the edge, they weren't very accurate. I'm pretty sure that he threw more int's than completions 20+ outside the #'s in '07.

Aaron's WR's put out their arms while running and it just drops right in there.

Well, I hope he keeps doing exactly what he's doing. You can have style points. Keep it away from the safety over the top and continue to rack up the big gains.

Brett has been a career underthrower. The S isn't the problem, it is the fact that his underthrow goes right to the beaten CB, and not the WR, who has to stop and turn around.

I have no idea what you are talking about. He has NOT been primarily underthrowing receivers. You been watching the games? I've seen every play. He's been shading it off to the side more often than not.

Maybe I can assist. Please see the bolded portion.

[Waldo]

Bobble, most times Favre throws it deep he put it away from the safety and where his guy can make a play. To me that's exactly what you want.

And most of the time his guys have to adjust to it because it isn't very accurate.

At least McCarthy rejuvenated that part of his game.

His deep ball '05 to '06 was an absolute joke, he couldn't hid the broadside of a barn more than 20 yards down the sideline. Even in '07, when he did make big deep throws to the edge, they weren't very accurate. I'm pretty sure that he threw more int's than completions 20+ outside the #'s in '07.

Aaron's WR's put out their arms while running and it just drops right in there.

Well, I hope he keeps doing exactly what he's doing. You can have style points. Keep it away from the safety over the top and continue to rack up the big gains.

Brett has been a career underthrower. The S isn't the problem, it is the fact that his underthrow goes right to the beaten CB, and not the WR, who has to stop and turn around.

I have no idea what you are talking about. He has NOT been primarily underthrowing receivers. You been watching the games? I've seen every play. He's been shading it off to the side more often than not.

That is what is different about him this year. He has been missing short deep for a good 10 years prior to this year.

Maybe Mn's WR's can't run very fast?

[Rastak]

Edit: Berrian is hurt, Harvin is slot, Rice isn't a burner but has great hands and is starting to shine with the rest of his game.


double edit: I wouldn't feel better if Willie Gault was lining up. I like what they have.

[RashanGary]

This article is a few years old, but here's an analysis by Football Outsiders saying that sacks have more to do with who the QB is than the OL he's playing behind-

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/sta...-sacks-part-ii

Don't let PB read this. He's convinced AR is 25% responsible for the sacks he takes and nothing will get him off that ledge.


AR learned his lesson though. So did MM. I have a hunch AR will never have more than 35 sacks in an entire season again. I think they all realize the pitfalls of not getting rid of the ball quickly now.

[pbmax]

Walsh learned from Gillman when Gillman hired him with the Oakland Raiders.

Gillman never hired Walsh. Gillman never worked for the Raiders.

Sid Gillman
1955-1959..... NFL Los Angeles Rams
1960............. AFL Los Angeles Chargers
1961-1969..... AFL San Diego Chargers
1970-1971..... NFL San Diego Chargers
1973-1974..... NFL Houston Oilers

Bill Walsh
Oakland Raiders (1966) (Running back coach)
Cincinnati Bengals (1968–1975) (Assistant coach)
San Diego Chargers (1976) (Offensive coordinator)
Stanford Cardinal (1977–1978) (Head Coach)
San Francisco 49ers (1979–1988) (Head coach)

One thing I did not notice, Walsh was offensive coordinator for the Chargers in '76. SD head coach? Tommy Prothro.

Prothro learned the Single Wing offense from Red Sanders at Vanderbilt and UCLA.

[pbmax]

The time Walsh spent with Cincinnati Bengals seemingly gave Walsh a chance to develop his own coaching philosophy and to put them into practical application. At the time, Cincinnati was an expansion team that had Virgil Carter as its quarterback. Virgil Carter was a quarterback who had a great collegiate career at Brigham Young. Virgil Carter was only six feet tall and without a throwing arm, but he was a good runner. Back in those days from film I have seen, the Bengal’s weren't strong enough on the offensive line to be able to run the ball well, Walsh decided that the best chance to win football games was to somehow control the ball. As a result, Walsh devised a ball-control passing game

1968 Bengals QBs
John Stofa 7 starts
Dewey Warren 4 starts
Sam Wyche 3 starts

1969 Bengals QBs
Greg Cook 11 starts
Sam Wyche 3 starts

Virgil Carter did not start a game (or exist on the roster) until Walsh's third season with the Bengals. In 1970 he started 11 games, in 1971 Carter started 10 games while Ken Anderson started 4. Carter was the backup by 1972.

[pbmax]

And I am not so sure about the running game. The Bengals were an expansion team, old school, meaning they stunk. But in two of their first four years, they were in the top half of the league in rushing yards. Doesn't mean they were very good, but they weren't awful every year.

[Bossman641]

This article is a few years old, but here's an analysis by Football Outsiders saying that sacks have more to do with who the QB is than the OL he's playing behind-

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/sta...-sacks-part-ii

Don't let PB read this. He's convinced AR is 25% responsible for the sacks he takes and nothing will get him off that ledge.


AR learned his lesson though. So did MM. I have a hunch AR will never have more than 35 sacks in an entire season again. I think they all realize the pitfalls of not getting rid of the ball quickly now.

Honestly JH, how can you be so sure you are right and anyone disagreeing is wrong. I put up a post a few weeks ago detailing how long Rodgers held the ball on every pass. About 1/3 of them turned out to be Rodgers' fault.

[get louder at lambeau]

This article is a few years old, but here's an analysis by Football Outsiders saying that sacks have more to do with who the QB is than the OL he's playing behind-

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/sta...-sacks-part-ii

Don't let PB read this. He's convinced AR is 25% responsible for the sacks he takes and nothing will get him off that ledge.


AR learned his lesson though. So did MM. I have a hunch AR will never have more than 35 sacks in an entire season again. I think they all realize the pitfalls of not getting rid of the ball quickly now.

Honestly JH, how can you be so sure you are right and anyone disagreeing is wrong. I put up a post a few weeks ago detailing how long Rodgers held the ball on every pass. About 1/3 of them turned out to be Rodgers' fault.

I think the main problem here is that everyone is trying to quantify something that isn't definitively quantifiable. Almost no sacks are 100% on one guy. Even when Barbre whiffs like a retard swinging a stick at a pinata, Rodgers may or may not get rid of the ball before he gets hit. There is no way to put an absolute and accurate percentage on blame. 80% on Barbre? 95%? No one can really say, but one player can often make up for the shortcomings of another.

[pbmax]

Contrary to popular belief, Bill Walsh’s offensive genius did not begin in San Francisco. Despite the fact that Paul Brown was the offensive coordinator, he tasked his young wide receivers coach, Bill Walsh, with designing the team’s offense. Walsh had just finished his time with Al Davis’ coaching regime in Oakland (yes, 49er fans, our savior did work for the Dark Lord himself) and was well versed in the long-ball approach preferred by Davis. So naturally Walsh took the challenge and developed an offense that made St. Louis’ “Greatest Show on Turf” look like midgets attempting to high jump.

In 1969, with quarterback Greg Cook at the helm, Walsh’s offense was almost unstoppable. Three tight ends on the team averaged over 20 yards per reception. Cook averaged 17.5 yards per completion. How does that compare to current quarterbacks? Peyton Manning, in his record breaking 2004 campaign where he churned out touchdowns like P.Diddy does mediocre bands, only averaged 13.5 yards per completion.

Yards Per Completion Year by Year Highs
1969 ..........Greg Cook (23)..........17.5..........CIN
..................Craig Morton (26).......16.2..........DAL
1968 ..........Marlin Briscoe (23).....17.1..........DEN
..................Earl Morrall (34).......16.0..........BAL
1967 ..........Bart Starr+ (33)........15.9..........GNB
..................Jack Kemp (32)..........15.5..........BUF
..................Joe Namath+ (24)........15.5..........NYJ
..................John Hadl (27)..........15.5..........SDG
1966 ..........Tom Flores (29).........17.5..........OAK
..................Don Meredith (28).......15.8..........DAL
1965 ..........Don Meredith (27).......17.1..........DAL
..................John Hadl (25)..........16.1..........SDG
1964 ..........Jack Kemp (29)..........19.2..........BUF
..................Johnny Unitas+ (31).....17.9..........BAL
1963 ..........Tom Flores (26).........18.6..........OAK
..................Ed Brown (35)...........17.8..........PIT
1962 ..........Sonny Jurgensen+ (28)...16.6..........PHI
..................Cotton Davidson (31)....16.6..........OAK
1961 ..........George Blanda+ (34).....17.8..........HOU
..................John Brodie (26)........16.7..........SFO
1960 ..........Bobby Layne+ (34).......17.6..........PIT
..................Jack Kemp (25)..........14.3..........LAC
..................George Blanda+ (33).....14.3..........HOU
1959 ..........Charlie Conerly (38)....15.1..........NYG
1958 ..........Bobby Layne+ (32).......17.6..........PIT
1957 ..........Lamar McHan (25)........18.0..........CRD
1956 ..........Ed Brown (28)...........17.4..........CHI
1955 ..........Otto Graham+ (34).......17.6..........CLE
1954 ..........Norm Van Brocklin+ (28).19.0..........RAM
1953 ..........Bobby Layne+ (27).......16.7..........DET
1952 ..........Babe Parilli (22).......18.4..........GNB
1951 ..........Bob Waterfield+ (31)....17.8..........RAM
1950 ..........Norm Van Brocklin+ (24).16.2..........RAM
1949 ..........Otto Graham+ (28).......17.3..........CLE
..................Johnny Lujack (24)......16.4..........CHI
1948 ..........Otto Graham+ (27).......15.7..........CLE
..................Y.A. Tittle+ (22).......15.7..........BCL
..................Bob Waterfield+ (28)....15.6..........RAM
1947 ..........Boley Dancewicz (23)....18.2..........BOS
..................Otto Graham+ (26).......16.9..........CLE

A plus 15 yards per completion average was not unusual for QBs in the 40s, 50s and 60s and was not simply a hallmark of Gillman. Brown, Halas, Lombardi, Landry have QBs on this list in addition to Al Davis and Sid Gillman. Also, Walsh had rocket armed Cook for one season. He had John Stofa for his first year.

Now, having to radically alter an offense with Carter at the helm is perfectly reasonable. But by the time Carter arrives in Cincinnati, Walsh had spent no time with Gillman, one year with Al Davis and two with Paul Brown. And Paul Brown was the Head Coach when that QB arrived for all of 2 years.

As for crediting coaches, Walsh and Brown had a famous falling out after he left the Bengals when Paul Brown kicked himself upstairs. He maintains that after he was hired by the Chargers and Prothro, he found out that Brown had kept possible HC jobs hidden from him and had made calls to league members recommending that he not be hired when he had decided to leave the Bengals.

[pbmax]

And Walsh himself, from Sports Illustrated 1999

How did the term[West Coast Offense] get its name? From Bernie Kosar, when he was a backup quarterback with Dallas in '93. I was doing a piece on the Cowboys. I asked him what the offense was like.

"Oh, you know, the West Coast Offense," he said. "Turner and Zampese and Don Coryell and Sid Gillman. That thing." (Bernie obviously had a good knowledge of NFL history).

I used the quote. It was picked up by a West Coast wire reporter, except that he got it screwed up and he attached it to the San Francisco attack that Bill Walsh had used in San Francisco's Super Bowl run of the '80s. What the hell -- San Diego, L.A., San Francisco -- it's all West Coast, isn't it? And that's where it stuck.

At first Walsh was quite upset by the misnomer. "Call it the Walsh Offense, or the Cincinnati Offense," he said, "but not the West Coast Offense. That's something completely different."

[Waldo]

Every history of the WCO that I have ever read links the early Walsh offense to what became known as the Coryell offense. That Walsh's started as a variant of it and further evolved from there. That aside from the route depth and play calling (means of attack), that the plays were at one time extremely similar. You are the first person I've ever heard dispute that.

[Rastak]

Every history of the WCO that I have ever read links the early Walsh offense to what became known as the Coryell offense. That Walsh's started as a variant of it and further evolved from there. That aside from the route depth and play calling (means of attack), that the plays were at one time extremely similar. You are the first person I've ever heard dispute that.

And he appears to be right.

[Waldo]

Every history of the WCO that I have ever read links the early Walsh offense to what became known as the Coryell offense. That Walsh's started as a variant of it and further evolved from there. That aside from the route depth and play calling (means of attack), that the plays were at one time extremely similar. You are the first person I've ever heard dispute that.

And he appears to be right.

If you go hunting, you can find A LOT of material that states exactly what I have.

Like the two articles I posted.

Or this one:

http://chi.scout.com/2/641292.html