Body Punching

[Mr. Scot]

If you know much about boxing, you're probably familiar with the term "body puncher". It's a fighter who likes to keep going at the body until his opponent is having trouble keeping his breath. They're generally not as much fun to watch as the guys who are throwing haymakers at their opponent's head, but they can be very effective boxers.

In football, a big play Coryell style offense is one of those guys who swings for the head.

A Sean Peyton style WCO is a body puncher.

Watching last night's game reminded me of why it can be so frustrating for teams that play against the Saints. You knock them down, you think you've got them out, but they just... keep... coming.

Big plays? Not so much. But a 3 yard run here, a 4 yard pass there, little chunks of ground one play at a time. Then suddenly you realize you're backed up to your own 15 and you're not sure how you got there. Plus you look at the clock and you're wondering where half the quarter has gone.

By the end of a game against a team like that, your defense is exhausted.

The Coryell offense is a very vertical attack, whereas the West Coast style is often derided as "a horizontal offense". Recent analysis of Joe Brady's scheme has mentioned this, but also points up that when done right it can be very effective. This can be especially true in the Red Zone, where vertical space is limited.

"But we're not very good in the Red Zone" you say, and I'd agree that at the moment we haven't been, but that can change and I think it will.

Running an attack like we do now may not produce as many highlight reel plays as our prior offense. But when you look at it from a defensive standpoint, it's effective, it's relentless, and it's frustrating as hell.

I'll take that, especially if it wins games.

To this point, it's won three of them. I Don't know how many more it's going to win, but I have to admit it's kind of fun watching opponents deal with that same frustration that we always used to have when playing the Saints.

And who knows? Maybe we can even give them back a taste of their own medicine.

[Mr. Scot]

One thing to add to this (meant to do this earlier today)...

Prior coaching wound up leaving us with some players that are actually pretty well suited to what we're running right now.

To start with, Christian McCaffrey is an absolutely ideal West Coast style back. A "do everything" guy like McCaffrey gives you exactly what you need to set up mismatches.

At receiver, DJ Moore is likewise a really good WCO type with his run after catch ability.

Curtis Samuel has some skills that fit in too, and it looks like Joe Brady is figuring out just how to use him in ways that Rivera's coaches didn't.

Throw in Mike Davis (another guy previous coaches didn't understand) who could be for us what Tom Rathman was for the 49ers.

What do we lack? A good pass catching tight end for one (doesn't look like Ian Thomas is gonna be that guy) and our current offensive line isn't necessarily typical of a WCO. Though with that said, the tackles at least look pretty good.

So yeah, switching offenses like this normally requires a year or two of personnel transition, but the previous offensive staff somehow left us with a lot of the tools we'd need.

Funny how that works...

[Jesse]

It’s funny your bring up body blows. I just happened to read this the other day. In his 2017 Nike coaches clinic, Coach Rhule speaks of his preference of smash mouth, 22 personnel, football and how he and his staff counted “body blows” on opposing defenses. 
 

“I like to throw the ball, catch it, and score touchdowns. But there is something about body blows. When you stick your head gear into the defense and run the ball between the tackles it pays off. When you are knocking the defense off the ball it pays dividends.”

https://coachesinsider.com/football/three-keys-to-success-brand-plan-philosophy/

[pantherj]

With modern rules I prefer to play this way. Before the rule changes to help teams like the Colts and Patriots (their owners were bitching), DBs would just jam and reroute receivers. When that failed DBs would do their best to spear the receiver with their helmet to break something or knock them unconscious. Today's football rules make it easy to complete passes the nearly entire game so long as you have an accurate QB, decent team, and you're not getting greedy. Just toss it to the open guy. I like it.

Teddy is a west coast QB, and we have enough weapons to dink and dunk our way down the field. We have trouble in the redzone because the defense can tighten up the coverage, and Teddy is receiving pressure from the coaching staff not to turn the ball over. Better to toss it away. They keep telling him they trust him, but you know he gets hammered the day after he has a Tampa Bay type game.

What we need is an athletic monster TE that Teddy can toss the ball up high to in the endzone and feel confident that it's not going to be a turnover. A freakish "could have played in the NBA" type guy.

 

[Moo Daeng]

Mike Davis is smashing mouths quite nicely.

[Castavar]

Yeah, I think the only thing missing is a redzone threat. We currently do not have a guy that can go up and get it when the field shortens. Olsen was that guy to do it previously. Michael Thomas is the guy for the Saints to do this, which is why the Saints offense has kinda stumbled in the redzone these last few weeks he's been out. CMC will most definitely help open things up in the redzone once he gets back, but I would love to target a big pass catching TE in next year's draft.

[The Huddler]

We might not even require a "good TE".  might not be needed. 

[Mr. Scot]

12 hours ago, Jesse said:

It’s funny your bring up body blows. I just happened to read this the other day. In his 2017 Nike coaches clinic, Coach Rhule speaks of his preference of smash mouth, 22 personnel, football and how he and his staff counted “body blows” on opposing defenses. 
 

“I like to throw the ball, catch it, and score touchdowns. But there is something about body blows. When you stick your head gear into the defense and run the ball between the tackles it pays off. When you are knocking the defense off the ball it pays dividends.”

https://coachesinsider.com/football/three-keys-to-success-brand-plan-philosophy/

I had not seen that. Thanks. It's a great read.