BLACK

Fire up the DeLorean and insert the second 5 ¼” floppy disk into your Apple IIe!
We’re going back to 1988….


Here is a team video handout from Head Coach Sam Wyche that features a young Jim McNally (doing his best Matt Foley), Jim Anderson and Bruce Coslet.  Wyche may never get the credit he deserves for advancing the ‘modern’ game as he should, but in this time capsule we can see the evidence of his staff’s attempts to break out of the box and spread defenses.  If you lived through the 80s, I apologize for the flashbacks you’ll experience watching this, we're just offering this as a continued treatment documenting the adaptations of schemes.

McNally and Anderson cover the run game and Coslet jumps in (38:36) to review Y Option and the rest of the passing game.


The Bengals went on to be the most productive scoring (448), rushing (2,048 – 4.8 yard/carry average), and total yardage (6,057 – 7.9 yard/average) offense in the league in 1987.

Had a little time to browse through my vids this weekend and coincidentally enough a discussion popped up recently going over the nuances that differentiate the "WCO" from the "Air Raid" offensive system. My thoughts on the matter were

"...from what I can tell, Air Raid is an "idiots guide to passing" (via the WC concepts).

Anymore, Air Raid is all gun, and uses probably 10% of what most WC offenses use. Also, the AR progressions are deep first / shallow last, whereas WC is primarily short first, deep last.

I'll post some Callahan / Gruden clips later in the week (2000-era) in skelly (w/ play name/tag) and it is all over the place.

AR is just a handful of concepts - there isn't much to it - with an ample sprinkling of screens.

As far as the RnS influence, I could definitely see the stealing of (philosophical) concept of verticals-to-sail - basing out of a vertical stretch into other concepts (which is essentially the RnS....vertical, to balanced, to choice routes). If you go from Verticals, then to Sail, then to Dig/Shallow, you can bridge that to RnS, pretty easily."

In the meantime, here are some clips for posterity of the Gruden/Callahan Oakland Raiders during a skelly session. Play names are included in the posts, feel free to correct me as needed or offer any other comments.



I felt this was makes for an interesting discussion because it is through these concepts that you can trace the evolution of the modern game (or watch it as it takes place) back to its roots. You can see how concepts become more and more streamlined as the superflous chaff (less efficient method / terminology) is removed. You can see where Air Raid staples were derived from and this illustrates the adaptation of the passing game.


For Additional Readings:
http://www.westcoastoffense.com/
http://www.westcoastoffense.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Spread-Offense-Passing-Game/dp/B000GAKPBS