Air Raid / Spread - Not New & Not The Be-All-End-All Of Modern Football

[PCP63]

Should start this off by saying that I have nothing against Air Raid or Spread teams. I think they can work in the modern NFL.

 

With that being said, there seems to be a whole bunch of people that think it's the only way. It's not. And there are people that think that the Spread offense is new. It definitely is not. Actually, the spread is quite old. Actually, to be precise, 85 years old. In 1934, Dutch Meyer created the spread offense at TCU. He had a great player at QB (Sammy Baugh), and wanted to use space to take advantage of his athleticism. So he created 4 and 5 wide formations (5-wide pictured below), and ran options and jets out of them (sound familiar?).

 

[

 

He did pretty damn well, becoming the winningest coach of all-time at TCU at the time. He literally wrote the book on spread formations called Spread Formations. 

 

So it's definitely nothing new. And it's also not really that innovative, either. 

 

People talk about spread formations putting pressure on defenses to spread out and defend the whole field, and they can. But they often don't. Actually, it often has the OPPOSITE effect. Here's how a typical defense would line up to a spread formation:

 

...........................................O
...........................................Q
..............O.....................................................O
...O.........................O...O...[..]...O...O.............................O
.............................E....T..........T........E

....C..........................W.................M..................N
......................................................................................C
....................F.....................................$

 

Now, the first thing you're asking is why there are two-high safeties. That's simply just how most teams line-up to it (usually to the boundary side, since it's compressed). By changing to one-high, you lose the 3-on-2 advantage to the field side, and you also lose a pursuit player (more on that later). So most teams line-up like this. 6 in the box, only 5 potential blockers. Now, let's look at how the same team would line-up to a split-back set:

 

.............................O....................O

.........................................Q...................................O
...........O...............O...O...[.]...O...O...O
...........................E....T..........T......E.....S

..................................W..........M
...........C.................................................................C
.............................F..........................$

 

For the same reasons as stated before (again, more on that later), there's still two high safeties. Now you have 7 blockers for 6-men in the box. You have a numbers advantage.

 

"But, but but, the spread also spreads out the defense, putting them into conflict!" Yes, and no. It can spread out the field-side slot defender if you use bubble action, and the slot receiver is a legitimate speed threat that the defense has to account for. Even then, with some new split-field coverages, this can be accounted for. Additionally, with the Tite front becoming more popular, the slot defenders of the future may no longer have to fold into the B gap on the backside, lessening their conflict, since they can delay their cutback, bootleg, reverse responsibilities (CBR). 

 

Now here's where the Air Raid comes in. People forget that the original Air Raid, and the Air Raid at BYU with Lavell Edwards, were split-back teams. People talk about spreading the formation to run, but forget that you can also compress the formation to pass. 

 

For example, say that your 2 receivers on a side forces the nickel/OLB to widen out to the field. You're talking probably 5-12 yards, depending on width of slot, for an apexed defender. Definitely takes them out of the box, but that's not a lot of grass to cover, honestly. Doesn't really put them in a huge bind, in my opinion. Especially with today's athletes.

 

With a compressed formation, it causes the defense to compress their front. When this happens, they have to physically run more horizontally to reach their desired zones. When you look at it from the perspective of how much moving the defense actually has to do, it's far more from compressed formations. 

 

If I run outside zone from a spread formation, that OLB is already in great position. Doesn't have to widen out much, but can still easily fold in for inside runs, if need be. If I run it from a compressed formation, he has to widen out more, as his lack of an apex position doesn't give him as good leverage on the outside.

 

If you use a compressed formation, and take that quick slot guy and have him haul ass towards the flat, that OLB/S now doesn't have to cover him just 5-12 yards, rather 15-20+ yards horizontally.

 

When I mentioned two-high teams before, it was in regards to angles. If teams decide to "crowd" the box by bringing down a safety, it makes the deep safety have to displace more horizontally to cover runs to either side, and it makes it so that the down safety cannot provide secondary support on playside runs, since he'd have to sift through too much mayhem in the front 7. If he was deeper, he'd have the angles to run to the playside and be a secondary alley player.

 

People talk about vertical threats, but in a typical split-back formation, you can still have 4 vertical threats. Today's runningbacks should have no problems getting vertical when over the OTs. Admittedly a bit slower since they have to get to the LOS, but only by a few yards, so a fraction of a second. 

 

Things get even more interesting if you compress further. Bring those WRs into tight end and wing positions (kinda like a double-wing formation, but only one wing, and two split backs).

 

You can still horizontally displace defenders, you can max protect if need be, you have 5 potential vertical threats, there are plenty of counter/misdirection opportunities, lots of option opportunities, backside receivers joining frontside concepts are possible, you have a bunch relationship with the split back, wing, and TE (creating rubs and picks), and you can get a lead blocker to the point of attack. All things that make pro offenses very effective. And this doesn't even take into consideration the fact that defenses are moving towards smaller, faster guys to stop the spread. Compress them, and that 190lb. safety isn't as effective against a 260lb. TE. 

 

I could go on and on, but I think you guys get the point. The spread and air raid are not new, and they're not innovative. In the process of trying to spread defenders out, teams often do the opposite and just hurt their numbers in the box, limiting their run game. Football is cyclical. Spread is popular now, and soon it'll go back to running formations. But I think teams could use these compressed formations to PASS from, and, with the right personnel, tear up the NFL. I hope that Gruden pulls out some split-back next season.

 

Any questions/comments/whatever, I'm willing to hear other viewpoints.

[PCP63]

@RJIII This was kinda in response to your Mike Leach thread. I like the Air Raid, and think it can work, just wondering what your thoughts are on some of the older Air Raid stuff, like compressed sets.

[JohnnyLV]

Seems like a lot of words to say you feel the Pro Set is superior to spread because it allows more flexibility to run strong side ISOs and outside zone plays and disguise the pass, while also ignoring that Pro Set is most effective with play action from under center, but maybe I am missing something in all that jargon you are throwing around.

[Villain The Foe]

6 hours ago, PCP63 said:

Should start this off by saying that I have nothing against Air Raid or Spread teams. I think they can work in the modern NFL.

 

With that being said, there seems to be a whole bunch of people that think it's the only way. It's not. And there are people that think that the Spread offense is new. It definitely is not. Actually, the spread is quite old. Actually, to be precise, 85 years old. In 1934, Dutch Meyer created the spread offense at TCU. He had a great player at QB (Sammy Baugh), and wanted to use space to take advantage of his athleticism. So he created 4 and 5 wide formations (5-wide pictured below), and ran options and jets out of them (sound familiar?).

 

[

 

He did pretty damn well, becoming the winningest coach of all-time at TCU at the time. He literally wrote the book on spread formations called Spread Formations. 

 

So it's definitely nothing new. And it's also not really that innovative, either. 

 

People talk about spread formations putting pressure on defenses to spread out and defend the whole field, and they can. But they often don't. Actually, it often has the OPPOSITE effect. Here's how a typical defense would line up to a spread formation:

 

...........................................O
...........................................Q
..............O.....................................................O
...O.........................O...O...[..]...O...O.............................O
.............................E....T..........T........E

....C..........................W.................M..................N
......................................................................................C
....................F.....................................$

 

Now, the first thing you're asking is why there are two-high safeties. That's simply just how most teams line-up to it (usually to the boundary side, since it's compressed). By changing to one-high, you lose the 3-on-2 advantage to the field side, and you also lose a pursuit player (more on that later). So most teams line-up like this. 6 in the box, only 5 potential blockers. Now, let's look at how the same team would line-up to a split-back set:

 

.............................O....................O

.........................................Q...................................O
...........O...............O...O...[.]...O...O...O
...........................E....T..........T......E.....S

..................................W..........M
...........C.................................................................C
.............................F..........................$

 

For the same reasons as stated before (again, more on that later), there's still two high safeties. Now you have 7 blockers for 6-men in the box. You have a numbers advantage.

 

"But, but but, the spread also spreads out the defense, putting them into conflict!" Yes, and no. It can spread out the field-side slot defender if you use bubble action, and the slot receiver is a legitimate speed threat that the defense has to account for. Even then, with some new split-field coverages, this can be accounted for. Additionally, with the Tite front becoming more popular, the slot defenders of the future may no longer have to fold into the B gap on the backside, lessening their conflict, since they can delay their cutback, bootleg, reverse responsibilities (CBR). 

 

Now here's where the Air Raid comes in. People forget that the original Air Raid, and the Air Raid at BYU with Lavell Edwards, were split-back teams. People talk about spreading the formation to run, but forget that you can also compress the formation to pass. 

 

For example, say that your 2 receivers on a side forces the nickel/OLB to widen out to the field. You're talking probably 5-12 yards, depending on width of slot, for an apexed defender. Definitely takes them out of the box, but that's not a lot of grass to cover, honestly. Doesn't really put them in a huge bind, in my opinion. Especially with today's athletes.

 

With a compressed formation, it causes the defense to compress their front. When this happens, they have to physically run more horizontally to reach their desired zones. When you look at it from the perspective of how much moving the defense actually has to do, it's far more from compressed formations. 

 

If I run outside zone from a spread formation, that OLB is already in great position. Doesn't have to widen out much, but can still easily fold in for inside runs, if need be. If I run it from a compressed formation, he has to widen out more, as his lack of an apex position doesn't give him as good leverage on the outside.

 

If you use a compressed formation, and take that quick slot guy and have him haul ass towards the flat, that OLB/S now doesn't have to cover him just 5-12 yards, rather 15-20+ yards horizontally.

 

When I mentioned two-high teams before, it was in regards to angles. If teams decide to "crowd" the box by bringing down a safety, it makes the deep safety have to displace more horizontally to cover runs to either side, and it makes it so that the down safety cannot provide secondary support on playside runs, since he'd have to sift through too much mayhem in the front 7. If he was deeper, he'd have the angles to run to the playside and be a secondary alley player.

 

People talk about vertical threats, but in a typical split-back formation, you can still have 4 vertical threats. Today's runningbacks should have no problems getting vertical when over the OTs. Admittedly a bit slower since they have to get to the LOS, but only by a few yards, so a fraction of a second. 

 

Things get even more interesting if you compress further. Bring those WRs into tight end and wing positions (kinda like a double-wing formation, but only one wing, and two split backs).

 

You can still horizontally displace defenders, you can max protect if need be, you have 5 potential vertical threats, there are plenty of counter/misdirection opportunities, lots of option opportunities, backside receivers joining frontside concepts are possible, you have a bunch relationship with the split back, wing, and TE (creating rubs and picks), and you can get a lead blocker to the point of attack. All things that make pro offenses very effective. And this doesn't even take into consideration the fact that defenses are moving towards smaller, faster guys to stop the spread. Compress them, and that 190lb. safety isn't as effective against a 260lb. TE. 

 

I could go on and on, but I think you guys get the point. The spread and air raid are not new, and they're not innovative. In the process of trying to spread defenders out, teams often do the opposite and just hurt their numbers in the box, limiting their run game. Football is cyclical. Spread is popular now, and soon it'll go back to running formations. But I think teams could use these compressed formations to PASS from, and, with the right personnel, tear up the NFL. I hope that Gruden pulls out some split-back next season.

 

Any questions/comments/whatever, I'm willing to hear other viewpoints.

The spread is new and it is innovative....for the NFL in respects to it's level of popularity today. What you state here in regards to the history of the Spread I will take as fact, but that history usually ended when you got to the professional level. Young players play spread from peewee all the way up to division 1 and then they had to change because they were playing on Sunday and what they were playing wasnt a "pro-style" offense. Until recently, that was the attitude of the NFL and their fans. However, I will say that the biggest advantage of the Spread you didnt even once mention in this write up. The purpose of the Spread "spreading out defenses" is for the purpose of giving the ball carrier massive space once he makes the first man miss. It's also about personnel. If you have WR's or a RB that is great at making the first person miss, then the next defender is 7 to 10 yards away from you. That's a crazy advantage for the offense. And this is why positions like Linebacker had to get smaller because they had to get faster to close those gaps. Your defensive coverage examples are fine, but you never addressed the true nature and reason behind the spread, which was to provide space for ball carriers to pick up chunks of yards after making the first guy miss. 

For years I heard from pundits and fans talk about a player coming up from the collegiate ranks and being questioned on weather they can play in a "pro-style offense". The Spread offense has always been in the league, but has never been as popular as it is now, and that popularity has come over the past couple seasons with a few key reasons such the saving of Jared Goff by Sean McVay, Todd Monken leaving Southern Miss to become coordinator at TB and taking that offense from being ranked about 20th in 2016 to a top 10 group in 2017 and top 3 in 2018 in terms of YPG, Mahomes playing in an Air Raid system and becoming league MVP in what was his first year in the league as a starter...etc. 

However, during those same couple years while the above was happening, there were plenty of folks who were critical of guys like Mahomes, Goff, Mayfield and Mason Rudolph saying that they could never be successful in the NFL because they play Air Raid and the Air Raid could never work in the NFL because the defense is too smart and are the best of the best in the world. That talk was especially loud with Mahomes Mayfield and Rudolph given that it was added that they played in the Big 12 conference where, and I quote: "There has never been a great pro QB to come out of the Big 12 conference, they dont even play against top defenses in that conference and if anyone is impressed by those fluke numbers that they put up in college just go look at how good Geno Smith was playing in the Air Raid at WV". However, they forget about guys like Drew Brees and his time at Purdue. They never compared that, because they respect Brees, but didnt respect or understand the Air Raid/Spread and it's advantages. Folks were too busy trying to undermine it because it wasnt considered "pro-style". 

The Air Raid/Spread has been accepted for the past 15 minutes because of what we seen with Mahomes last year. The hottest college coach was Lincoln Riley until he confirmed that he wasnt leaving OU. Then it became Kliff Kingsbury another Air Raid coach. We've never seen this gravitation to Air Raid in the NFL before. 

The league is just now coming to grips with the Air Raid and it's ability to maximize the talent at the skillset positions. Just look at Ryan Fitzpatrick, or the Jets for that matter. 

I couldnt tell you the last time the Jets had a top 10 ranked offense before heading into that 2015 season. Chan Gailey is named the OC and he implements the spread offense. Some folks misconstrued my adamant position on why I wanted Geno to play when he got back from being punched in the face, but it was because this system was natural to him. Nonetheless, Ryan Fitzpatrick of all QB's was at the helm for the Jets and they produced a top 10 offense that year with that spread offense. We didnt even have a TE on the team, we used Quincy as the H-back that season. 

The Patriots have been running this for years. The QB considered to be the greatest of all-time does most of his passing behind the LOS to 4 yards up the field. The spacing allows for shifty guys like Julian Edleman to "Make the first guy miss". The patriots have been notorious for picking up WR's coming from Air Raid offenses or even converting Air Raid QB's into WR's. 

They went to 9 SB's and won 6 of them, and most of those SB appearances this was what Brady and the Pats were running. 

 

Now we're seeing bunch formations more and more in order to eliminate press as well as force the defense to be in a reactionary position. 

 

That Spread offense isnt the end all be all, that it's HIGHLY effective, which is all you need, because it allows you to not care about what a player cant do, but to take advantage of what a player can do and put that player in a position to succeed. 

Remember, the purpose of the spread is to position ball carriers to make that first guy miss and to eat up yards. 

 

[NYJ1]

Why does this have to be about air raid vs. Compressed formations?

The BEST team, is the team that can do BOTH. The versatility is what supersedes both of your proposed strategies. Just like when some teams reach the late season they emphasize the running game more because stiff December cold winds can be the enemy of high flying passing offenses. 

It's not rocket science. The most versatile offense is the one most equipped to face and exploit any style defense.

[Villain The Foe]

6 minutes ago, NYJ1 said:

Why does this have to be about air raid vs. Compressed formations?

The BEST team, is the team that can do BOTH. The versatility is what supersedes both of your proposed strategies. Just like when some teams reach the late season they emphasize the running game more because stiff December cold winds can be the enemy of high flying passing offenses. 

It's not rocket science. The most versatile offense is the one most equipped to face and exploit any style defense.

Exactly. Both the Rams and KC run spread, bunch and max protect. Matter of fact, Jared Goff has made many plays from Max protect. They're not the only teams to do it as well. 

[RJIII]

22 hours ago, PCP63 said:

@RJIII This was kinda in response to your Mike Leach thread. I like the Air Raid, and think it can work, just wondering what your thoughts are on some of the older Air Raid stuff, like compressed sets.

Great post above and you're right, the "air raid" isn't new at all. Leach made some tweaks through his mentor Hal Mumme back in the early 90's. Of note, I grew up in Lubbock TX and a Southwest Conference junkie as that was our "New York Jets" or pro football so to speak. Tech was everything to those in West Texas, even to this day. I'm very familiar with TCU and Sammy Baugh era. I played for Spike Dykes 90-94. We were defense heavy on that team, notables (Zach Thomas MLB, and Marcus Coleman DB, who most on this site will recall). Offense our RB was Bam Morris, so we had some talent.

Jack Pardee who was the HC at Houston also ran this type offense at that time called "The Run & Shoot". His QB was Andre Ware (Heisman Trophy and David Klingler who was 1st round selection I think #5 or #6.) Anyway, not new.

My reason for posting the video was educational only. Very good explanation of the Mike Leach coaching tree and his version of the "air raid" which has and will IMO be more prominate in the NFL in the years to come. The league is trending that way and most on this site are right, the true Leach air raid wont work as he runs it in college.  That said a lot of teams and coaches (Kingsbury) will get more aggressive than what Any Ried is doing and make an impact that will eventually be a trend at the very least. I'm not advocating the spread vs conventional vs heavy run. Was nearly trying to give some sound insight and explanation of what this style offense really is which is more than a gimmick and some explanation with current teams that run it. 

I'm a football junkie and love reading about the wishbone (Barry Switzer-OU), triple option (Georgia Tech/Navy). I think all these offenses are fückin great and with the right talent are effective. X's & O's with regard to football fascinate me. Appreciate your post again, brings back some memories. 

EDIT: As noted in above post, KC, NO, Rams are a few teams similar. Kingsbury will be more aggressive version of those, time will tell. 

[Peace Frog]

Thread title is a mouthful. 

[RJIII]

4 minutes ago, Peace Frog said:

Thread title is a mouthful. 

Agreed, sorry! 

Opps, this isn't my thread.

[New York Mick]

13 minutes ago, Peace Frog said:

Thread title is a mouthful. 

So was my priest 

[Peace Frog]

23 minutes ago, New York Mick said:

So was my priest 

Now, we don’t have time to unpack all of that baggage, do we. 

[Peace Frog]

25 minutes ago, New York Mick said:

So was my priest 

So a rabbi, a lawyer and a priest are on the Titanic as it hits the iceberg. 

Rabbi: Save the children!

Lawyer: F*ck the children!

Priest: Do we have time?

 

[naturalscience]

Nice effort guys.

Interesting read.

[rangerous]

getting back to chuck and duck.  it all works if the qb is decisive and accurate.  the receivers always have a distinct advantage over the db's simply because they know where they are going on their pass or blocking routes.  and no system works without the personnel and execution.

[PCP63]

Gase, please read this. Enough with the 3rd and 15 bubble screens...