It had a pretty good shot this year, with one of the best college QB’s to ever run it using it in Denver. I realize it wasn’t the best sample size, but it seemed to me that the read/option simply wasn’t successful enough to warrant throwing away games early in the season.
I, for one, hope more teams try to run it in the NFL, so we can put it to rest once and for all. But, by and large, I thought it got a fair shot this year and, after an OK start, it quickly went the way of the Wildcat. I saw enough of it to make sure I’d never want to run it in the NFL.
They did not install a read option in mini-camp, as there was none, nor in training camp. A handful of plays – not anything like a connected series of concepts – were put in, on the fly, midseason.
Even at the end of the season, 80% of the plays the Broncos ran were standard NFL staples. They didn’t run them in the exact same ratios, but a 5-wide QB draw is the same play, whether it’s Tebow or Brady executing it.
It was not unsuccessful: the Broncos offense with it was roughly as effective with it as they were running a conventional offense (despite losing their top receiver).
The 1971 Bengals tried an innovative scheme and finished 4-10. The 1986 Oilers were 5-11. Both teams had mediocre offenses; and yet every team in the league now uses concepts from both the Walsh and run-and-shoot.
I’m not convinced the spread, as a comprehensive system, will work in the NFL. But it’s silly to say that a half-season constitutes a full and complete trial.
I don’t see why a full spread wouldn’t work in the NFL under the right circumstances. With four or five split wide and a decent passer who’s also bigger than most linebackers, defenses would have a lot to cover. It’s not going to work with a bad passer (Tebow) or a pipsqueak QB (Pat White, Darron Thomas).
Is it sure fire? Of course not. I’d like to see a creative coach really do it.
I would not have too much read-option, though. Route progressions are better.
NFL offenses are higher-powered, teams are passing more, the best quarterbacks are throwing for more yards than ever, wideouts are bigger than ever and tight ends are now enormous receiving options. The league has never been more dominated by the pass. Denver is not going to win by running the option with a QB who can barely pass. They’re going to try to get Tebow to a be faster, more accurate, more decisive passer. They’re not going double down on running all that time- that seemed to be losing steam as the season went on. If they can’t make him a better QB, he won’t be there for all that long.
You could have posted this in 1990. Or 1979. Or 1955. The long-term trend, at every level, has always been toward the pass and away from the run. And yet, in every era, at every level, there have also been teams that have succeeded with run-based systems. Contrary to what ESPN would have you believe, the fact that Brees, Rodgers and Brady all had great seasons does not mean the game has fundamentally changed.
No, they’re not going to win if their passing game averages five completions per game, or if they’re only completing 46%. Thankfully, installing a read-option scheme does not mean you can’t pass, or are doomed to passing inefficiently (any more than the Walsh offense meant you couldn’t run, which is what everyone was saying around 1980); Cam Newton, Vince Young, Andy Dalton and yes, Tim Tebow, all had seasons where they averaged ~250 yards a game while playing in read-option based offenses.
Clearly, Tebow has to improve as a passer. But he’s highly unlikely to ever improve enough to be an efficient pocket passer, and he almost certainly won’t do it in one season. Given the choice between 1) trying to make him something he’s not, 2) dumping him right now and bringing in someone else (who?) who likely also will not be very good in 2012 and 3) working with what you have and using the skills Tebow does possess while you work to add new ones, the latter seems to me to be the best choice.
I’d love for the Broncos to try something like that full time. Just for the sake of variety. The NFL would be a more interesting place with a wide variety of schemes being run.
I know I should like college football for that reason, but I can’t get over the fact that 75% of college games are Oklahoma vs Sister Josephine’s School for Blind Girls
I also sometimes question all of the assumptions that “X won’t work at this level” said about everything but the conventional wisdom in the NFL. Most NFL coaches are pretty rigid and conservative and aren’t that great at adjusting what they do, so I think taking them out of their comfort zone has a lot of value. You won’t beat a guy like Belichick that way (who’s one of the few coaches in the NFL not bound by conservatism and actually thinks about wtf he’s doing) but you can beat most of the coaches that way. The irony is that they won’t be able to come up with the way to stop you themselves - they’ll wait for someone smarter and less conservative/conventional to beat you and then try to copy them.
You know, it sounds silly, but I think there’s a serious chance that Mercilus goes at least a few spots higher based on his name. It’ll get him more attention, and hype, which will eventually bleed over a bit into evaluations.
Coples says the browns have expressed interest in him. Ugh. I don’t want to take a questionable motor guy top 5, or even top 15 really.
Let’s go back, then, because apparently I’m missing something.
What is the read/option? What is the spread option? What offense did Florida run under Tebow?
It’s my understanding that the read/option is a system that heavily emphasizes the run, with the QB being given the option of handing it off quickly to McGahee, ahem, I mean to the running back, or keeping it himself. Tebow, ahem, I mean the QB snaps the ball, reads a key defensive player, and makes a decision. This system has a high percentage of running plays rather than pass heavy.
The spread, again to my mind, is simply the concept of making the defenders cover the entire field by spreading out your players. The resulting isolation of player on player can create mismatches, which the QB tries to take advantage of. Many NFL teams use the spread concepts in their offenses already.
The spread option is like the read/option with more WR/TE out there to spread the field. The QB is usually in shotgun and, like the read/option, makes a quick read and decides whether to hand the ball off to the running back or pull it back and throw it. Generally, the read/option has a primary route runner the QB focuses on, and if that guy isn’t open, a check-down guy. It doesn’t require the amount of reading the defense, creating mismatches with motion, or quick throws to make it work.
Am I wrong on those? I completely realize that most offenses use bits and pieces of almost every type of “system” out there (Alex Smith’s bootleg for a TD isn’t usually found in their type of offense for example), but if we’re going to discuss whether or not these systems will work in the NFL, I want to make sure that I understand what we’re talking about.
I was under the impression that the Broncos ran a pretty heavy dose of the read/option in Denver. Tebow would be in shotgun, take the snap, and either hand it off, run it himself, or pass to his primary receiver/check down guy. They did run a lot of “Tim runs around the pass rush a lot, giving the receivers time to get some separation and then he’ll chuck the ball down the field when coverage breaks down” plays that were successful, but I’m not sure those were part of the planned offense.
My understanding of the read/option and spread/read/option or whatever they call it, is that it is so successful in college football because it’s much easier on the QB and it can takE away the physical advantage great recruiting schools have by spreading them out and making them commit when they don’t have the skills to recover.
Of course the read/option didn’t get a “full shot”. As furt pointed out, it wasn’t installed until about half-way through the year and wasn’t used on every play. But, from what I saw, it was used quite a bit, and while it was occasionally successful (those huge rushing totals against the Raiders were nice), it also get less and less successful as defenses became prepared for it. And, of everyone to run it in college, Tebow was one of the best, if not the best.
After this year’s attempt by the Broncos, I just don’t see a team committing to it as a full time NFL offense. The results after the defenses adjusted weren’t very good. I cannot see a team would be willing to risk two or three years of drafting/developing/practicing a team to run the read spread option wing whatever. I can’t really blame them for that. So, if someone could sell me on why that kind of offense can work in the NFL, I’d love to hear it.
You’re mostly correct, except the idea it necessarily needs to be run-heavy, Some teams/coaches, such as Rich Rodriguez, overwhelmingly spread to run. Others spread to pass. Most will adjust based on their personnel and what the defense gives them.
Don’t get to caught up on the nomenclature; “read option” is just a specific play concept within the larger “spread” concept: the line zone-blocks to one side, and the QB makes a read based on the unblocked backside defender (usually a DE). Like all offensive concepts, it doesn’t come by itself; you then have play action off that, as well as designed runs and passes that are set up by the motion. e.g. NFL Football Highlights, Clips & Analysis | NFL.com
No. Sometimes there is a run/run option, sometimes there is a run/pass option, sometimes there is a run/run/run option, sometimes its a run/run/pass option, sometimes its a straight dropback or a straight run. The specifics vary from team to team and year to year and game to game.
Florida’s offense was a spread-option, and they did use the read-option extensively; they also featured a lot a designed QB runs, as did Auburn with Cam Newton.
The idea that spread offenses don’t require reading a defense is pure baloney, which is why you don’t hear coaches saying that. It’s the kind of crap talking heads on ESPN say. Any given spread is every bit as complex as any other given college system.
They ran it occasionally; by the end of the season, maybe 10-20% of their plays. And often when they did, it was often not in spread personnel, but from formations with multiple fullbacks/TEs (they had 4 TEs active in the playoff game)
Really, the option was more of “show” play; it got attention, but they more often just used designed runs, and then play-action rollouts off that.
Correct. And that kind of stuff is not sustainable.
No, and yes.
Yes, the option helps deal with talent discrepancy; “if you can’t block 'em, read 'em” is a coaching maxim.
No, it’s not easier on the QB; if anything it’s the kind of offense you run if you have one transcendant, smart athlete who you want to have the ball on nearly every play. It doesn’t necessarily require the cannon arm, but it absolutely demands reading a defense and making quick decisions. Andy Dalton ran a spread-option, as did Vince Young, Colt McCoy, Kevin Kolb and Alex Smith. (And of course, Drew Brees, Sam Bradford and a bunch of other NFL QBs ran spread offenses that didn’t include the option because they didn’t have the mobility for it)
It doesn’t need anything like that level of commitment. This is not some alien concept; I’d bet half the players in the NFL were in spread offenses in college and/or high school. You might change one or two players, but it’s mostly just a matter of deciding to do it in the offseason, putting it in, and the coaches get a feeling for it. Two seasons would be plenty.
As I see it, the problems with at the NFL level are twofold:
A lot of NFL D-lineman are fast enough to recover even after they bite on the RB, and as you note, they will get better at it with time. Tebow absolutely abused James Harrison in the Pittsburgh game, but I can see Dwight Freeney chasing down Tebow from behind for a two-yard gain.
NFL linebackers hit like college lineman, NFL safeties hit like college linebackers, and the season is 16 games long. Tebow could and did run over linebackers in the SEC; sooner or later that will get him hurt in the NFL; if not now, certainly when he’s older. Hence, my idea of bringing in VY.
Then again, they said the Walsh offense wouldn’t catch on because sending wideouts across the middle so much would get them killed by linebackers. You never know until you try.
More to the point, and apart from the abstract theory: given that fan fanaticism off last season is backing Elway and Fox into a corner, I think it makes sense for Denver to give it a shot. Bring in Young, and go with it. If it flops, I suspect the customers will give them a pass.
Is it as complex as NFL systems with motion, pre-snap reads, post snap reads, and all the bells and whistles that are attempts for the QB to figure out what the defense is doing on a given play? I was never impressed with Tebow’s ability to read any of the defenses he saw (outside of his first read, like when he burned Eric Smith of the Jets or Harrison of the Steelers.) I was wondering if that was him, or the system.
Any stats on it’s use? The games I saw seemed to have more than 20% of plays with the “do I give it to McGahee or not?” plays.
I’m still trying to get a hold on the terminology. Is the read/option mostly just how the play starts, with that QB decision to handoff/run/pass based on a quick read, and then they’re back to the reading the defense for a throw/not getting tackled for a run part of football? I completely understand the spread concepts, hell most NFL teams use part of it, especially the Packers. But the Broncos rarely seemed to have spreads, and did more read/option stuff.
If I understand correctly, the route running and the defensive reading by the QB are pretty much the same, but it’s the blocking up front and how the play begins that make it a read/option. If that’s the case, it seems it would be a matter of drafting/developing/practicing changes along the O Line, the QB, and the TE more than any other positions. It seems that would be a big deal.
So one of the big knocks on the read/option is that there is a much larger delay in getting to the pass if the play becomes a passing play? While it forces the defense to make an initial read before smacking someone, that can be more easily done and much quicker by professionals than college guys?
Tebow did take a lot of hits this year, I’m not sure how long a shelf life he’d have. Maybe there is something to the “load up on great college read/option QB’s” as a plan for taking those hits.
As long as Tebow is starting, they’ll fill the seats and buy the jerseys. But win without a dominant defense? I’m not sure.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see it in the NFL. Like Senor Beef, I think they need a shake up every so often and this would be one. But by those last few games (outside of the Steelers’ debacle), I was completely unimpressed by the offense. And if Tebow is the best to ever run and he can’t make it work well, I’m not sure it will find success. And if you have a QB who can make NFL passes, can read NFL defense, and can get the ball to the receiver quickly when necessary, I can’t imagine a team would want that guy to take the pounding that Tebow did.
I just wanted to echo what furt said. The read option isn’t so much a offensive scheme as it is a collection of plays. Frankly it’s no different than the “option” that most high schools ran when we were growing up and what many colleges ran in the 70/80s under Switzer and Osborne. That isn’t much different than the wishbone that came before and the T-formation before it. Really the play is identical, it’s just the personnel and formations that it’s primarily run from that have changed.
There’s 2 offenses in college that are pertinent. The Spread which is what June Jones and Mike Leach ran in Hawaii and Texas Tech to great success. It’s basically the run and shoot offense with some west coast route concepts. Spread the defense out, make them commit to a light personnel package and play a lot of man coverage and get rid of the ball before the dominant D lineman can have an impact. Less talented schools love this because it neutralizes the blitz and some of the physical advantages the power schools have. Also, you can run it with a weak armed QB because the throws tend to be short and you face fewer zone coverages that require him to zip the ball into a gap. The offense requires a very smart QB because there’s a ton or pre-snap reads and motions/audibles called to diagnose coverages and set up mismatches. Natural spread QBs are basically coordinating the offense on the field. For this reason spread offenses tend to use a lot of hurry up and no huddle.
The other offense is the spread option. Some coaches arrive at this from opposite directions. Many, are spread offense proponents that find themselves with a dynamic QB and start incorporating the option to further exploit matchups. Others are option coaches that have modernized and are trying to incorporate more passing and play action into their antiquated option offenses. Nebraska under Pellini and Houston Nutt are examples of the latter. Briles in Baylor was an example of the former.
The spread option encompasses a pretty wide range of offenses, pretty much any school that runs some read option these days gets called a spread option team. That’s technically accurate I suppose, even if it can be misleading. Some schools, like Illinois this year, ran a spread option system but they were very light on any real spread concepts. They ran a lot of option and a lot of play action and rarely came out with spread personnel.
Tebow is similar to my Illini example below. They ran very few spread concepts in Denver to compliment his read-option plays. Running a true and proper spread is going to be as complex and perhaps more complex than a traditional NFL offense. Much of the burden is lifted from the OC in the box and passed to the QB. Brady, Brees and Manning are fair facsimiles of what an NFL spread QB would look like, they just have the advantage of being able to make all the throws and aren’t running with subpar personnel. The schemes are quite a bit different, but they have similar burdens to an effective college spread QB when it comes to manipulating the defense pre-snap and reading it post snap.
We have no idea if Tebow has the chops to run a true spread system with all the reads and manipulation it takes to be effective. Denver didn’t have that much complexity in their offense. Whether this is because Tebow was unable to absorb it or if it was because the coaches didn’t have the playbook and experience to teach it and call it is probably up for debate. Personally I think both are true, but this season I think the limitation was more on the coaches than on Tebow because of the compressed timeline and Orton starts.
In Florida they ran more of a spread concept, and Percy Harvin’s success is clear result, and Tebow was OK at it. However it’s my impression that because of the ratio or read-options to spread passes and Florida’s overall physical dominance made it unnecessary to introduce much complexity. Thus far I’d say that Tebow is untested as far as having the mental acuity to have a NFL caliber offense.
No idea, but I will say that Tebow’s big passing plays in the playoffs were all on the play action. Nothing “spread” about them. Even if those McGahee/Tebow option plays made up only 20% of the snaps, a good 20%+ more were play action that directly used that action. No idea what the stats might be, but I’d say the Broncos were a pretty heavy option team under Tebow but were a very light spread team. Tebow’s only avenue for success is if they can balance that read-option with complex spread concepts. It’s fair to ask for a training camp (and some new legs at RB) to get this implemented before making any sweeping judgments.
See my other concepts. I agree, though I don’t count the Packers as a true spread offense. The distinction between passing schemes is a blurry one, but they look much more like an evolution of the west coast blended with the Air Coryell style than a spread concept. They don’t play with 4 and 5 wides very often and Rodgers throws downfield on a high percentage of passes, particularly into the seams. Spreads look more like the Pats system before the addition of these TEs, with an emphasis on YAC, picks and crossing routes.
Eh, there’s probably too many variations to make any generalizations. A true spread is going to require a lot more from the QB pre-snap than a typical NFL offense and way more than Tebow has shown in his pure option scheme. For the Broncos to be successful with the spread option they’d need to get more from their RBs and threaten more big plays on pure speed. That’s not a major commitment in the draft since those guys are useful in any scheme. It requires WRs who run precise routes with a lot of short area quickness. Think Martz type guys. Those guys are actually pretty easy to find, but they vary a lot from a group of guys who might run say the San Diego scheme. The Broncos are already most of the way there, Decker and Royal are pretty perfect. Thomas doesn’t really fit that mold, but having one homerun hitter isn’t going to undermine the system. They do need more depth at the position though, they need to go 7 deep at the WR position which can be an issue and a major investment at the coast of the defense and lines. The lineman they have can run the scheme, and if they made the change it’d actually de-emphasize the O line. A quality spread option scheme would have blockers very similar to the old Shanahan days, mobile, light and willing to trap/cut. Those guys aren’t hard to find.
You don’t really run “passing plays” from a read option. You run play action. The play action is slower developing than on a traditional run, but you aren’t going to step back from a option look and read a defense. Where the speed on an NFL defense plays a roll is in the run option. If a QB gets a DE to bite on him and makes the handoff, that DE is going to have a good chance of adjusting and attacking the RB from the backside should he want to cut back. In college that DE is going to get lost in the wash and taken out of the play. NFL 300 pounders can turn on a dime, in college they can’t.
Yeah, and I don’t think the solution is having a bunch of QBs. The solution is incorporating the spread pass to take the number of hits the Tebow takes to a more manageable number. Running a read-option mixed with some play action isn’t sustainable, being able to throw from that read-option personnel group however opens the play book. Tebow’s accuracy issues make that a tough road to hoe though.
The option can’t work in the NFL. Last year proved it. A true spread option, that might be something worth looking at.
Yes, emphatically so. If anything, I’d say the average spread team runs more motion than the average pro-style team.
That’s him. I don’t think anyone much informed on the subject would say Tebow was “the best to ever run it.” He ran it very successfully, but that was often due to sheer athleticism: even when he made a misread, he’d run over some linebacker and make the play work.
As far as the best at executing the plays as designed and making accurate reads, Tebow was not as good as Colt McCoy or Case Keenum or even Cam Newton.
According to this article, roughly half of their running plays were from under center and half were from the shotgun. At a guess, about half of the runs from shotgun were option plays, with the rest being straight designed runs (ignoring a handful of option plays that were run from under center); that means 25% of the run plays were shotgun options.
Given that, I feel pretty confident saying well under 20% of their overall plays began with a read-option look.
It’s than initial mesh - QB in shotgun takes one step forward while reading the unblocked backside defender, and then QB gives it or keeps it. That’s the “read option.”
Then as a complement to that, you have other plays that show that motion and do something different. This video is actually a good explanation of it; the base play is run twice, and then note that the second pass play uses the same motion.
(smartfootball.com, btw, is treasure trove if you’re interested in Xs and Os, though it’s focused mainly on college for reasons explained here)
No; the blocking is straight zone blocking. Half or more of the teams in the league already do that, including the Broncos last year. Really, all you especially need personnel-wise are WRs who are willing to block, and they have that.
No, what I mean is that in the second run in the Madden video I posted up top, Jared Allen bit on the handoff and then watched helplessly as Tebow ran around him. I’m not convinced that in real life Jared Allen couldn’t, at least some of the time, watch the handoff, see who has it, and still make the tackle.
The basic premise any option is that I’m going to leave a man unblocked (which then will give me a blocker advantage somewhere else), force him to commit to one thing or the other, and then do the opposite. Of course, that assumes your QB can think faster than the defender can move; which is a generally safe assumption … but people like Freeney and Allen do move very, very fast, and Tebow, especially thinks relatively slow. (They can get inside the QB’s “decision loop” if that means anything.) Even if you beat them most of the time, some of the times they don’t get beat they may or may get a clean shot on the QB, who may not have the ball secured.
I think as long as Tebow is winning. If they give him a season as the starter in an offense built around him and they suck, they can make a change.
If they bench him without giving him what the fans see as a “fair chance” to succeed, there will be a lot of pressure on them and their next QB to succeed, and quickly.
If you have Manning or Brady, or someone close to them, obviously you use them as a pocket passer. The question, though, is what to do if you don’t have one. The current approach is to keep drafting a QB every three years, hoping you get get lucky.
Maybe that is the best way; but pace Moneyball, I think it’s at least possible that there are some market inefficiencies to exploit; maybe you zig when others zag and look for the skills other people aren’t valuing.
Virginia CB Chase Minnifield looks like an early candidate for the Bears with their 2nd round pick. Cam Johnson, another Virginia prospect, could be a nice find in the middle rounds as a DE prospect. Hmm.
Great stuff from Omni; just to clarify something he said:
The option he refers to here as being unable to work, is I think, an outside pitch option, such as you see Oregon running here. Denver ran it occasionally, and it was nearly always a disaster.
I actually meant that the Option Offense, as a whole, can’t work in the NFL. Of course, that presumes that a hypothetical team would be running a pure version of it. Remember the Osborne Nebraska teams. They ran what I view as a textbook option offense. It’s bread and butter was the pitch option like furt highlights, but it also had a ton of inside trap options, counters and option-play action which complement the pitch option and inside read option. Pretty much the only time Osborne threw the ball was off play action, or in a classic pro set with a heavy dose of bootleg flood action. In the NFL this simply cannot work.
The spread however is a more diverse offense. It’s not that far from what some NFL teams run today and it’s not that different from the Coryell system and the run and shoot. The nomenclature is different and the ratio of pre-snap motion versus post snap WR option routes varies, but the fundamentals are similar.
The spread option however is a different animal that leverages both systems to varying degrees. This, one could argue, has never really been given a fair shot in the pros.
Oh, like a Wishbone or veer plays out of a power I. Yeah, I hate to say never, but that’s highly, highly unlikely to work in the NFL (or be tried, unless some owner hires Paul Johnson).
Just to add - as a practical matter, I think it’s unlikely to Broncos will do this. Mike McCoy has “hot coordinator” buzz, and he’s not going to risk that by changing completely to a system that he has no background in. They’ll do what they did last year, and incorporate some spread and option elements into a basic NFL scheme. It won’t work, and the fault will be mostly assigned to Tebow (probably fairly), and to that “college system” (probably not).
If/when the spread makes it into the NFL it will most likely be because some owner will take the chance and hire Chip Kelly and tell him to do what he does. Either that or some coach on the hot seat, with a mediocre QB and nothing to lose.
I don’t think it’s necessary to confine it to a particular presnap formation or personnel group. The jist is that these offenses use the zone read or pitch option as the core play of their offense and build everything else off of that. If you do that from the Power I or from the Pistol with 3 wides is kinda moot. If you’re planning on living and dying off the option you’re doomed to fail.
Teams can run a read option or a pitch option to some success as a way to keep defenses honest, but it needs to be a secondary (or tertiary) strategy.
I think you’re slipping a little in your terminology. The Broncos really didn’t run any spread. They ran some option, but they didn’t really do anything resembling a spread system. You can’t average less than 12 completions a game and be said to be running a spread.
They could adopt a spread option scheme, but what they really did was run a vanilla NFL offense with some option incorporated. That’s a far cry from what they would need to do to really give the spread option a real chance.
Personally, I think a more practical strategy would be adopting a Pistol style spread offense.
