Gorilla Crouch

Tom “Killer” Kowalski wrote this morning about the Lions’ plans to develop a signature play. They feel the lack of a signature play is one thing that has really held the offense back over the past couple years:

Late last year, right tackle Damien Woody was asked about Detroit’s offensive struggles in the running game and their lack of a signature play. “We haven’t had a signature play since the last half of Kevin Jones’ rookie year when he had all of those yards,'’ Woody said.
…
“…the year we drafted (USC receiver) Mike Williams in the first round…our focus seemed to change,'’ Woody said.

Yeah, I guess it would just be wrong to call a Jon Kitna sack a signature play, even though it was the most common outcome with their offense over the past couple seasons. All kidding aside, I agree with the general idea. The signature play will obviously be a running play, as the examples provided indicate as much:

The Washington Redskins made the signature play more famous when, for years, they would run the counter trey over and over and over again. Teams knew it was coming but the Redskins executed it so well that it was extremely difficult to defend.

It was the same situation a few years ago with the Green Bay Packers, who would run the Power-O with running back Ahman Green. It’s the same play the San Diego Chargers run now with LaDainian Tomlinson.

There’s also been a lot of talk about execution, which if you follow Michigan football you are quite familiar with this term. In the ideal world if the play works and your opponent cannot stop the play then the world is your oyster. You can run play-action and cutback/counter plays with lots of success due to the opponent being forced to stack the box to try and outman you at the point of attack.

Notre Dame fans certainly know about how successful this offense can be when you have no ability to stop the running game. Let’s take a look, shall we?

The Passing Game

The Running Game

But if the play doesn’t work then your offense can come crashing to a halt [we really don’t need to look at Michigan’s offense against Ohio State this past season to prove this]. This was the case for the Baltimore Ravens during the regular season when they went on to win the 2001 Super Bowl.

Baltimore’s offensive scheme under Billick is built around rookie running back Jamal Lewis, who rushed for 1,364 yards, and a short passing game with [Shannon] Sharpe as the main target. The Ravens actually went five straight games — the entire month of October — without scoring a touchdown. That caused Billick to switch from Tony Banks to Dilfer at quarterback. After losing their first game with Dilfer, the Ravens have won 10 in a row.

Jim Colletto was the line coach for that Ravens team, so my guess is we’ll see the same offense Baltimore used, with Jon Kitna filling the role of Trent Dilfer. With Michael Gaines at tight end [6′4″ and 275] and Gosder Cherilus at right tackle [6′7″ and 315] my guess is their signature play will be the outside zone run that will be run towards the right.

Here’s a link for a decent article on the outside zone run as a bread and butter or “signature” play.

COACHES WHO ARE IN THE PROCESS OF organizing an offense have to start with an idea of what they want for a bread-and-butter play and then go on to build a series around it.

That is how we evolved our basic off-tackle running play and outside zone series, which included a boot pass, a roll pass, a counter, and a reverse.

The Lions will certainly run middle zone plays and outsize zone plays to the left based on the defense’s formation. But my guess is that when they need to gain key yardage they will run to the opposite side the Wolverines ran their zone plays when they had Mike Hart and Jake Long.

Lions

May 4th, 2008
Categories: Lions . Author: Dave

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