Spread far and wide: Passing formation catching on in NFL
07:44 PM CDT on Wednesday, September 23, 2009
If I were running an NFL team, I’d sign Chase Daniel off the New Orleans practice squad.
I’ve come to the realization that the spread offense is a lot closer to becoming an NFL staple than I envisioned. I believe it’s already here.
The NFL disguises it as the shotgun, but with its plethora of three- and four-receiver sets and the overabundance of quick passes, the spread offense is thriving on Sundays as well as Saturdays.
My moment of enlightenment came Sunday on my visit to Soldier Field. Chicago and Pittsburgh are two teams with long and illustrious histories as power running teams. With Gale Sayers, Walter Payton, Franco Harris, Jerome Bettis, these two franchises have long relied on big, swift backs to win games and championships.
But they all but conceded the run Sunday when they met in Chicago. Faced with a 3rd-and-1 at their own 40 in the third quarter – a traditional power-running down – the Steelers lined up Ben Roethlisberger in the shotgun.
Short yardage or long, it no longer matters in today’s NFL. The shotgun is becoming the formation of choice.
The Bears and Steelers ran the ball 40 times and five of them didn’t involve handoffs. They were quarterbacks scrambling or taking a knee. The teams combined to throw 73 passes. That’s better than a 2-to-1 ratio of passes to handoffs.
But it wasn’t the number of passes thrown at Soldier Field that day that was interesting as the types of passes.
The spread is all about the quarterback making quick reads and throwing short, accurate passes. Put the ball in the hands of a talented receiver in space and try to isolate him 1-on-1 with a tackler.
The spread offenses of the college game has long feasted on slants, quick screens and bubble screens. The ball is out of the quarterback’s hand before the pass rush can arrive, and it’s on the perimeter where a 6-2, 210-pound wide receiver must merely shake a 5-10, 195-pound cornerback for a big play.
The Indianapolis Colts scored the winning touchdown Monday night against Miami on a bubble screen to Pierre Garcon. Peyton Manning’s pass never crossed the line of scrimmage, but Garcon’s legs turned it into a 48-yard score.
It’s all about the quick pass. Chicago quarterback Jay Cutler completed 27 passes against the Steelers, but only eight of them covered more than 10 yards. That quick pass is replacing the running game with its parade of three-, four- and five-yard gains.
Cutler threw 38 passes against the Steelers. Roethlisberger threw 35 against the Bears. There were two other games Sunday where quarterbacks threw 50 passes and another on the opening weekend. That’s three 50-pass games in two weeks. There were only eight quarterbacks who threw 50-plus passes in 17 weeks all of last season.
That’s why I’d sign Daniel. No one in the NFL has the experience or the history of success in the spread than the former Southlake Carroll and University of Missouri quarterback has. His preseason tape shows he can execute the offense on Sundays as well as he did on Saturdays.
If I lost my starting quarterback, I’d plug Daniel in and go exclusively to the shotgun. It’s the spread offense, and the team that has Daniel would be way ahead of the curve.
Let’s go radical this week – Baltimore against New Orleans. Watching the Saints offense versus the Ravens defense would be highly entertaining. The last time these two teams played was 2006, when Baltimore was on the way to a 13-3 season and New Orleans was woring on an NFC South-winning 10-6 mark. The game was in New Orleans. Drew Brees passed for 383 yards and three touchdowns, but the Ravens intercepted him three times and returned two of them for scores in a 35-22 triumph over the Saints.
Soldier Field had the worst looking turf I think I’ve ever seen for an NFL home opener.
U2 played a concert there seven days earlier with a humongous stage that mangled the playing surface. So the Chicago Park District, which operates the stadium, had to re-sod the field less than a week before the Bears were to open the season against the Steelers.
Grass can’t take root in a week, not with the abuse it takes from football cleats. The resulting poor field conditions, coupled with a game-long drizzle, produced slipping and sliding by receivers on both teams Sunday that detracted from the quality of play. It’s hard to believe the Chicago Park District would stage a concert that close to the start of an NFL season.
I’ll be attending the Redskins-Lions game and look forward to visiting with Detroit QB Matthew Stafford, the first Dallas product ever selected No. 1 overall in an NFL draft.
I was surprised Lions coach Jim Schwartz elected to start Stafford over veteran Daunte Culpepper this season, strictly because of the Detroit schedule. I would expect a rookie quarterback to struggle in his first NFL start regardless of the opponent, and Stafford did against New Orleans, throwing three interceptions and no touchdown passes in a 45-27 loss. The Lions then play a string of top-shelf defenses – Minnesota, Washington, Chicago and Pittsburgh. Those defenses would give most Pro Bowl quarterbacks fits, much less a rookie quarterback, much less a rookie quarterback who gave up his senior season to turn pro.
Stafford threw two more interceptions and took two sacks last week in a 27-13 loss to the Vikings. Next is the Redskins, with a defense that finished fourth in the NFL last season and added the best defensive tackle this off-season in Albert Haynesworth.
I’d have opened the season with Culpepper, let Stafford watch and get a feel for the pace of the game, then installed him as the starter after the bye the seventh weekend of the season.
Rick Gosselin shares his NFL analysis Wednesdays through Fridays on the NFL blog.
Rick Gosselin is the author of GoodFellows, the story of Detroit's surprisingly successful St. Ambrose football teams of the '50s and '60s.