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Clockwork Orange
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« on: September 06, 2011, 06:22:15 EDT » |
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Naturally one doesn't want to show everything he's got in the playbook in an opener against Montana, but it's interesting to note what we did show. We didn't show many pass routes, we didn't show many running plays, we didn't show many tricky blitz packages . . . but we did show
(1) A flea-flicker, early in the game.
(2) A 5-wide look with I-formation personnel (3 WR, Fugate, and a RB).
It's easy to read too much into that but I think it's safe to say that it was deliberate, showing 2 fairly exotic offensive concepts in a game where we otherwise played it very vanilla. Do our opponents the next 2 weeks have to slow their pursuit, even a little, from seeing that flea-flicker on the video? Perhaps there a couple corners out there that won't be crashing in on run support so quickly, and perhaps we get an extra few yards on a few plays as a result. You never know when that can make a big difference. We had some people over for the game and one of them was a drunk Pitt fan. He ragged us for nearly a half hour about calling a flea flicker against Montana, but I don't think that play was run to beat Montana.
The same goes for the 5 wide look. It would be easy to see that personnel in the huddle and come out in your base defense, only to get burned in pass coverage because your linebacker just can't cover that guy in space. So maybe, just maybe if you're the D-coordinator for Cincy or Florida, you're just a little more inclined to run a nickel package against that personnel group when you wouldn't have been otherwise. And perhaps we run the ball just a little better as a result.
Naturally this is just speculation, but those two things really jumped out at me as being possible mental games with the preparation of the opponents in our immediate future. It's fun stuff either way.
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