The first thing it helps with is that it removes any keys the defense can get from the alignment of the running back," Chris Brown of the indispensable Smart Football site told me when I asked him about the primary advantages of the Pistol (Chris has also written very well about this very subject).
"If the runner is to the quarterback's left, any run play will probably be to the right," Brown said. "From the Pistol, the run could go in either direction. Moreover, the runner is deeper and set in the middle, so he can more closely emulate the downhill actions he'd take from under center. Relatedly, play-action can look more like traditional play action -- and thus hopefully be as effective as traditional play action -- than from the normal shotgun where everything looks more like a flash fake than anything else."
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It allows us to run more of a spread out offense while keeping the ability to run the ball and play action almost as well as the I formation. To me, it offers the best of both worlds.
Not asking for a full change over obviously (doesn't work in this league), but it could be a way of spreading the ball out.
Only downside is it involves a creative OC.
