https://theringer.com/chip-kelly-san-francisco-49ers-offense-f332f053870e#.tpx0v09q7
A couple quotes that are VERY relevant.
But another element is that while the no-huddle works in the NFL — and Kelly’s 2013 opponents were largely unprepared for Kelly’s pace — it’s not as effective as it is in college football for a very simple reason: The NFL doesn’t permit teams to ever reach the warp speeds Kelly’s Oregon teams typically operated at. While NFL coaches aren’t permitted to openly critique officials or league policy, it’s well understood in coaching circles.
“In the NFL, what they did is the officials stand over the ball until the officials are ready to call the game,” Alabama head coach (and Kelly friend) Nick Saban explained in 2014. “The coach at Philadelphia ran 83 plays a game at Oregon, and runs 65 a game in Philadelphia. … When they went to Philadelphia in the NFL and they were going so fast, the officials said, ‘We control the pace of the game.’ The league said, ‘The officials control the pace of the game, not a coach.’”
Indeed, a major reason Kelly’s offense was so difficult to defend at Oregon was because he would combine a small handful of basic, sound blocking schemes — inside zone, outside zone, and his patented sweep — with a flurry of QB reads of everyone from defensive tackles to linebackers and even safeties. As used by Kelly, the read-option provides an offense with a multitude of advantages: It’s easier to read a defender than it is to block him, the reads become built-in misdirection as the defense doesn’t know who has the ball, and, as Kelly pointed out, a QB who is a threat to run alters the fundamental arithmetic of football.
Instead, Kelly’s answer has been to simply run plays that look like read-options, but without any reads or options. This has not gone well. Defenders who used to stand and watch the QB as the running back ran free now immediately collapse toward the runner to stuff the play.
Kelly once said that the shotgun inside zone “is not a great play if the quarterback hands off to the running back and everyone in the stadium knows who has the ball.” He was right, and his NFL offense is now proof.
A great drive, but the alignment of the tight end and running back gives away the play: If the tight end and running back lined up on opposite sides of the line, Kelly’s team ran a sweep toward the tight end; if they lined up on the same side, it was an inside zone away from the tight end. This giveaway hasn’t always been in Kelly’s offense, but as he phased out read-options he increasingly kept the tight end backside to block the defensive end on inside zone plays. Defensive coaches with experience against spread offenses will tell you that the tight end often gives away the play, and that has certainly become true for Kelly’s offense.
Albert Einstein once advised his students to “make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler,” and Kelly’s offense, increasingly unable to benefit from either tempo or QB runs, is simply, well, too simple. But he doesn’t need to change his core philosophy and suddenly start using a 700-page playbook. Rather than add a bunch of new schemes, Kelly could better protect the plays he currently runs, by mixing in additional formations, motions, and shifts with his tempo to keep defenses off balance.
A couple quotes that are VERY relevant.
But another element is that while the no-huddle works in the NFL — and Kelly’s 2013 opponents were largely unprepared for Kelly’s pace — it’s not as effective as it is in college football for a very simple reason: The NFL doesn’t permit teams to ever reach the warp speeds Kelly’s Oregon teams typically operated at. While NFL coaches aren’t permitted to openly critique officials or league policy, it’s well understood in coaching circles.
“In the NFL, what they did is the officials stand over the ball until the officials are ready to call the game,” Alabama head coach (and Kelly friend) Nick Saban explained in 2014. “The coach at Philadelphia ran 83 plays a game at Oregon, and runs 65 a game in Philadelphia. … When they went to Philadelphia in the NFL and they were going so fast, the officials said, ‘We control the pace of the game.’ The league said, ‘The officials control the pace of the game, not a coach.’”
Indeed, a major reason Kelly’s offense was so difficult to defend at Oregon was because he would combine a small handful of basic, sound blocking schemes — inside zone, outside zone, and his patented sweep — with a flurry of QB reads of everyone from defensive tackles to linebackers and even safeties. As used by Kelly, the read-option provides an offense with a multitude of advantages: It’s easier to read a defender than it is to block him, the reads become built-in misdirection as the defense doesn’t know who has the ball, and, as Kelly pointed out, a QB who is a threat to run alters the fundamental arithmetic of football.
Instead, Kelly’s answer has been to simply run plays that look like read-options, but without any reads or options. This has not gone well. Defenders who used to stand and watch the QB as the running back ran free now immediately collapse toward the runner to stuff the play.
Kelly once said that the shotgun inside zone “is not a great play if the quarterback hands off to the running back and everyone in the stadium knows who has the ball.” He was right, and his NFL offense is now proof.
A great drive, but the alignment of the tight end and running back gives away the play: If the tight end and running back lined up on opposite sides of the line, Kelly’s team ran a sweep toward the tight end; if they lined up on the same side, it was an inside zone away from the tight end. This giveaway hasn’t always been in Kelly’s offense, but as he phased out read-options he increasingly kept the tight end backside to block the defensive end on inside zone plays. Defensive coaches with experience against spread offenses will tell you that the tight end often gives away the play, and that has certainly become true for Kelly’s offense.
Albert Einstein once advised his students to “make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler,” and Kelly’s offense, increasingly unable to benefit from either tempo or QB runs, is simply, well, too simple. But he doesn’t need to change his core philosophy and suddenly start using a 700-page playbook. Rather than add a bunch of new schemes, Kelly could better protect the plays he currently runs, by mixing in additional formations, motions, and shifts with his tempo to keep defenses off balance.
