Live “casting” the Patriots - Chargers…

January 20th, 2008

I realize that I am breaking every “blogging” rule out there - and have from the beginning - whether it be the length of what I write or, in this case, deviating from what the weekly audience has come to expect from this space by writing about sports; but I can’t help it. I’m in the mood.

So I want to log a few thoughts going into the fourth quarter of this really good AFC Championship game that, again, only a few of you will care about. But I have to tell someone my observations and my wife doesn’t care about what I think about the Pats 3-tight end set.

1. Speaking of that 3-tight end set:

…here’s why it’s working so well for the Patriots against a talented, speedy, and athletic Chargers defense. The Patriots had a problem going into this game - the Chargers have one of the few defenses in the league with the talent to stay with that incredibly diverse passing game led by Tom Brady. Luckily for Patriots fans there are about nine different offensive “looks” they can give a team, making them almost impossible to completely stop for 60 minutes. The Chargers have done a great job to this point, but the Patriots are starting to pull away.

This may not get any publicity afterwards, but if the Patriots win it will be because of their ability to show the other team an offensive look completely different than any other they have run the entire year. That’s practically unheard of. The Patriots head coach, for the uninitiated, is Bill Belichick, who has won Super Bowls on a few different teams as a defensive coach (twice) and a head coach (three times).

Belichick’s defenses have been known for this kind of flexibility and diversity in the past (being able to confuse offenses with multiple looks - see Super Bowl 25 and Giants 20, Bills 19 - when Belicheck’s linebackers pummeled the Bills’ wide receivers and shut down one of the most talented offenses of all time). That philosophy has shifted to his offense as well - this is a Patriots team that has terrorized the league all year from a four and five-wide receiver set; Brady passed for 50 touchdowns and hadn’t thrown an interception inside his opponent’s twenty yard-line for the last two years…until this game.

So the Patriots had to adjust.

2. No really, it’s about the three-tight end set:

Stunningly, in the third quarter, the Patriots made a strategic shift that enabled them to widen a slim lead: they went to a power running game behind that all-star offensive line. It wasn’t their typical power game, however. Normally they line up Heath Evans in the backfield at fullback and let him lead the way, plowing over opposing linebackers and creating space for their quick, strong second-year running back, Lawrence Maroney. On a few drives, however, they showed a two and three-tight end set with no fullback. The fullback has been one of their weapons in the play-action passing game (faking the run, throwing to the fullback uncovered out of the backfield) and one of the key components of their running game all year long.

Here, during the AFC Championship game with the Super Bowl and an undefeated season on the line, they try something completely different. By removing the fullback and putting in two and three tight ends, the Patriots essentially conceded to the Chargers that they were going to run the ball. The Chargers, seeing the bigger formation, would then be free to stack the line a bit with their athletic, quick defenders and plug the spaces the offensive line would try to create, neutralizing the running game. The problem is this: without the fullback leading the way, the quick Chargers linebackers have been having a hard time anticipating where the run is going to go.

In the three-tight end set, the running back has a little more freedom to pick his space, cutting back one way as the offensive line pushes the defense the other. Maroney is a suprisingly quick, big runner who made the right choices about four to five times by my count. How do you stop a team that can adjust so completely to what a defense is trying to do? The Chargers, as close as this game has been, as well as they have played, can’t seem to answer that question.

3. Now for something completely different:

Now, in the fourth quarter, the Patriots are shifting back to an offense you could see them run consistently last year; bringing in a quick, pass-catching running back named Kevin Faulk. Brady has thrown him now a couple of easy passes out of the backfield for clock-killing bursts of yardage in the middle of the field. It’s an unfair change-up that moves the Patriots from power-running team to, in these formations, a “West Coast”-type offense that features short passes to receivers five to seven yards from the line of scrimmage. These types of short passes in space put the burden on the receivers to gain yards after the catch and places pressure on the defense to make tackles.

Normally, making sound tackles isn’t a problem for the Chargers defense. Today, however, there have been a few too many “looks” for them to adjust to. For all of their talent, they are up against a Patriots team that can simply do too many things.

To review, the Patriots have shown variations of three very, very different types of offenses (all of which require three different types of players and philosophies to run effectively): a power running game with three different sets; a West Coast look with a different running back; and a “run and shoot”-type passing game with four and five wide receiver sets, depending on whether or not the coaching staff wants to feature their big tight end as they get close to the end zone. All of these offenses have strengths and weaknesses that good coaches and defenses can learn to shut down.

Bill Belichick, as a brilliant defensive coach, understands what his counterpart on the other side of the field wants to do; he also has mastered what the opposing defensive coaches are able to do. Thus, as an innovator, he has crafted one of the most effective offensive strategies in pro football history: build a team with the kind of players able to implement diverse offensive philosophies that overwhelm even a talented, athletic, smart, fast defense like the one the San Diego Chargers have built. Many fast defenses can be overpowered by strength - but not the Chargers. They have the rare combination of being both quick and powerful; against the Patriots it didn’t matter in the end.

Most pro teams have their players master one offensive philosophy; their coaches refer to it as their “offensive identity”. Not the Patriots - they refuse to settle into one identity and thus are able to stymie what the other team is trying to do. This philosophy of innovation and flexibility has led to 18 wins and no losses thus far. One more to go - and waiting for them at the last juncture of their journey will be the winner between two more talented, young, athletic defenses. The Giants in particular (though I know the sentimental pick is the Packers - I’ll write about that game later tonight) showed on the last week of the season that they have the players who are able to improve a bit on what the Chargers defense wanted to do. One could make the case that it is the Giants, not the Packers, who are best equipped to stop the man I consider to be one of the most creative and innovative coaches of all time.

I’ll write more about that another time.

David

Entry Filed under: current events, general