A New Look Offense or the Same but Better?

This is the biggest misconception of the Shanahans that is perpetuated by fans and talking heads that don't know what they are talking about.

Quick history lesson on Mike Shanahan's history with QB.
John Elway-strengths were rolling out, athleticism, making plays on the move
Brian Greise-strengths (loosely used term) were dropping back, pocket passer
Jake Plummer-strengths were rolling out, play action, deep throwbacks
Jay Cutler-strenghts were setting up in shotgun, reading pre snap, pocket passer

Each time he had a different QB, he adapted his offense to meet their strengths and had success with all of them. So what's happened in DC? He got a QB whose strengths (deep ball, mobility, creating plays outside the scope of the offense) were no longer strengths in McNabb and a QB whose strengths (again, loosely used term) are as a pocket passer executing the offense in a precise manner who sabotages his own success by poor decision making and ball security issues in Grossman. In the 3 game Beckoning, we saw a slightly different offense, more boots, more rollouts than we saw with Grossman. The biggest issue is none of them have been any good. Adaptability of the offense or a willingness to 'change' the offense is not an issue, it's talk radio show fodder.

To the question from the OP, I think it will be a new look for us because we will see more boots, more designed rollouts, more spread concepts but the core of the offense will be the same but better.

Bruce Allen was on Moving The Chains today, and Pat Kirwan hit on some of these same basic points when talking about how Shanahan has changed up his scheme to fit different QBs over the years.

SiriusXM NFL Radio | Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/siriusxmnflradio)

There's a link to a clip from the interview on NFL Radio's FB page

Love the new regime.....
Can't wait to see what they can do this season

Former Shanahan coordinator says RG3 "is going to fit perfect" with Redskins - Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/redskins-watch/2012/mar/27/former-shanahan-coordinator-says-rg3-going-fit-per/)

“Mike likes to run the ball – everything starts with the run – and likes to move his quarterback,”...“I don’t know that I’ve seen one move like this guy in a while. He’s very smart. This guy is going to fit perfect with what they want to do – if they take him, of course.”

He expects Mike and Kyle to tweak their offense to suit Griffin’s athleticism, similarly to how he and Mike adjusted when quarterback Jake Plummer joined the Broncos in 2003. That could mean adding elements of the zone-read running game in which Griffin excelled at Baylor.

“I worked for Mike all those years, and whatever we have, we’re going to find a way to make him successful,” Kubiak said. “Mike is very capable of being flexible and doing what a player does best. I’m sure if he ends up taking him, he’s going to study that portion of the offense he has run.”Kubiak interview with Campbell seems to fit these scenario's:
o the core offense/formations will remain unchanged but the playcalling balance will return and the offense will look more like Houston and the traditional Mike S. Denver WCO with a heavy focus on stretch running and boot-action passing?

o the offense formations will change and our offense will adopt and feature some of Baylor's formations and concepts, like they way the Panthers added some of Auburns formations, plays and concepts?

Kubiak's 1st sentence struck me though: "Mike likes to run the ball – everything starts with the run –"

I wonder why he chose to mention Mike as opposed to Kyle?
Because if you look at the playcalling tendecies between Mike and Kyle, especially pass/run ratio, Kyle doesn't share Mike's run focus.


I love Kubiak's last sentence because it kinda opens the door to the possibility of more spread elements and maybe even some zone-read.

It also naturally leads to this question:

What specifically (formation/play concepts) does Griffin do best from Baylor's offense?

Former Shanahan coordinator says RG3 "is going to fit perfect" with Redskins - Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/redskins-watch/2012/mar/27/former-shanahan-coordinator-says-rg3-going-fit-per/)

Kubiak's 1st sentence struck: "Mike likes to run the ball – everything starts with the run –"

I wonder why he chose to mention Mike as opposed to Kyle?
Because if you look at the playcalling tendecies between Mike and Kyle, especially pass/run ratio, Kyle doesn't share Mike's run focus.

I love Kubiak's last sentence because it kinda opens the door to the possibility of more spread elements and maybe even some zone-read.

It also naturally leads to this question:

What specifically (formation/play concepts) does Griffin do best from Baylor's offense?

Either it was the way the question was asked or Kubiak identifies more with the Elder Shanahan as a fellow head coach and colleague.

Or secret option C he resents Kyle :D

On the topic of this thread, I'm going to choose option C: our current offense already fits RG3 pretty well.

So I don't think Kyle will do anything with his offense that he wouldn't have done under normal circumstances unrelated to the new quarterback, but I think he's justified in keeping things similar.

Either it was the way the question was asked or Kubiak identifies more with the Elder Shanahan as a fellow head coach and colleague.

Or secret option C he resents Kyle :DKubiak isn't the only one to mention Mike when refering to the offense.
But when people mention Mike as opposed to Kyle it creates a false assumption about the offense.
The assumption is that because Mike like to run the ball that the Redskins are a run oriented offense when in reality the opposite is true.
Under Kyle the Redskins have been a passing team.

On the topic of this thread, I'm going to choose option C: our current offense already fits RG3 pretty well.

So I don't think Kyle will do anything with his offense that he wouldn't have done under normal circumstances unrelated to the new quarterback, but I think he's justified in keeping things similar.Here's a question I asked Dbag earlier in the thread:

Do you think Cam would have been as productive in a traditional pro-style offense?

I should have lettered or numbered the options but I think you're leaning more towards option A because option C involves a shift in the playcalling tendency towards more running or a return towards balance.

Option A is basically status quo.

An overlooked question from the OP: Do you think Griffin they'll feature Griffin specific RZ packages?

Hopefully, RGIII get the chance to work with Mike and Kyle. If its Luck then what? We may need to discuss the possibilities of Luck being the #2.

Here's a question I asked Dbag earlier in the thread:

Do you think Cam would have been as productive in a traditional pro-style offense?

I should have lettered or numbered the options but I think you're leaning more towards option A because option C involves a shift in the playcalling tendency towards more running or a return towards balance.

Option A is basically status quo.

An overlooked question from the OP: Do you think Griffin they'll feature Griffin specific RZ packages?I don't think basic passing principles really play to the strengths of Cam Newton. He didn't play well in the 2010 BCS National Championship game against a defense that had the speed to challenge him, didn't play well in the NFL Preseason, looked lost in the Pro Bowl.

But in the context of what Carolina was doing with him, he showed off critical downfield accuracy and pocket awareness you wouldn't have known he had watching college tape.

Cam Newton is a pretty huge conundrum. I think if you took him out of the Carolina offense and made him play in Jacksonville, he would be a huge projection at this point. I think if Carolina took the Jags approach to making it "easy" for Cam Newton, Newton would look lost and even when he completed passes the Jags wouldn't really be using their passing game productively. But with Carolina, every passing play has a chance to go for 20+ yards, and Newton basically was out there showing defenses that the only guy who can stop Cam is Cam.

To answer your question, I think Cam could have been just as productive at the start of the 2011 season playing in traditional pro-style sets and plays, so long as the focus of the attack remained downfield at the safety level. You can challenge a defense out of base personnel, obviously. But I think defenses would have caught up to him in the second half like they did with Dalton, because I think every challenge that can be raised by a pro style scheme has been answered at some point in history by a pro defensive coordinator.

I don't doubt that spread plays will eventually be answered by defensive guys, and that Cam will have some tougher days in his future, but I think the Panthers successfully put off to tomorrow that learning experience by not giving opponents a book to go to in order to shut down Weapon 'Cam."

he showed off critical downfield accuracy and pocket awareness you wouldn't have known he had watching college tape.Or that some didn't see.
I thought Cam's skillset including downfield accuracy and pocket awareness was clearly evident in college.
But, that's besides the point.

I think if you took him out of the Carolina offense and made him play in Jacksonville, he would be a huge projection at this point.I agree that Cam would have struggled in Jacksonville, in many ways they're a bad example.
I watched a number of Jags games and I thought their offense was mind numbingly static and predictable.
It would be one thing to have a static offense if your WRs could consistently 'win' on the outside, but their WRs didn't/couldn't.
Playing in that type of offense, would be difficult for any QB let alone a rookie QB forced to play early.
I bet dollars to doughnuts that Mike Mularkey will improve the Jags offense and help change the current perception of Blaine Gabbert as a QB.


To answer your question, I think Cam could have been just as productive at the start of the 2011 season playing in traditional pro-style sets and plays, so long as the focus of the attack remained downfield at the safety level.I don't know.
I agree that Cam would have been productive in any downfield passing attack that featured play-action and 5-7 step drop Hi-Lo reads.
But, I think Cam's record setting season 4,000 yard season was only possible because of Chudzinski forethought and innovation.
Look at Cam's domination in the RZ, I don't think that is possible without featuring Cam's run-pass threat.
Which would be hard to produce with traditional pro-style plays.

Which leads me back to the RZ question from the OP that I asked in the previous post ;)
Do you think Griffin will/should change they're RZ gameplan and play concepts?



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Using Kubiak's interview as a jump off:

What specifically (formation/play concepts) does Griffin do best from Baylor's offense?