The New Running Game?

[Schneed10]

Offiss, you pose some great questions, man. Props for starting this discussion.

One of the things about Gibbs' offense in the past is the power running scheme kept blockers inside the tackle box so to speak. They pull and trap and kick out and whatnot, but the lineman are all basically still in front of the QB. Then when Gibbs ran playaction, the linemen were really able to sell the fake to the defense because they would go to block as if it were a running play, and still find themselves between the defense and the QB.

Now with stretch plays, the lineman get out of the tackle box a lot more and move laterally. So then when they run the playaction fakes, and the linemen stay within the tackle box, the defense might recognize what's going on because they're used to seeing stretches. It might become easy to tell when a playaction fake is coming, if the linemen stay tight to the QB, it's a good sign that it's not Portis running the football.

I think Gibbs probably realizes this and consequently he will mix in Betts on some of those power running plays. I think he still wants to have some of the counter trey type plays in the offense to be able to keep the defense honest. Stretch running plays and playaction fakes don't go together all that well, we'll probably see a dose of Portis on the stretches, a dose of Betts on the counters, and then some classic playaction.

And hopefully a few more plays to Cooley!