FAST EDDIE'S CHAMPAIGN REPORT--THE OFFENSE (Aug 1) Add yourself to The HERD's Official Roster (guestbook), if you think you are man enough!
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I am very impressed with Mike Martz' offense. The offense played much better against the Colts defense on Friday and Saturday than they did against the Rams D earlier in the week in Macomb. I'm not sure if that says more about our offense or defense or both, but it has to be good right?
It's very fun to watch what Martz tries to do. During the off-season I listened to him talking about shifts and motion and running the plays from different sets and I downplayed it all a bit in my mind because it was too abstract and I wasn't really sure what he was talking about in concrete terms. On the practice field, you have to pay close attention to the personnel on the field for each play and the various types of presnap motion... this is what the defense is watching to get an idea of what's coming at them. What you begin to see is that the motion revolves around the fullback/H-back and tight end positions. Sometimes on running plays, the backs will line up in the "I" and the TE will go in motion to the opposite side of the field, shifting the strong side and overloading the point of attack once both backs hit off tackle to that side. Other times, the TE remains stationary and an H-Back (sometimes a TE like C.Lewis or Jacoby and sometimes a FB like Harris or Hodgins) will come in motion and once again overload the strong side with blockers.
If everyone matches up and gets some push, it's very hard to bottle this up due to the sheer number of blockers on one side of the field, especially if the tackle and guard play on the line gets some initial push. Then on the next play, they change it up and run the H-Back in motion wide to clear out for a single back draw play to the weak side of the field. If the defense doesn't honor the formation and stays in the box, they will also often run play action to the single back and look downfield for the H-Back in motion. We saw a number of passes complete to the H-Back in the flats on this sort of play, and then later, we saw Holcombe take a couple of these draws up the middle and break free for huge gains by running over one guy, and then he was off to the races because the defense overreacted to the shifts. The key to all this is keeping the defense off balance as I said with the motion of the H-Backs and tight ends... that's why it's so important that all of the players in those positions have some skills and are a threat to do something with the ball... otherwise they won't be honored.
- Offensive Analysis- Part 1
- Offensive Analysis- Part 2
- Defensive Analysis