The Greatest Show on Turf

Many will complain that I should not put the Greatest Show on Turf in my series covering the NFL's greatest all-time teams. They will protest that I am being a homer. Don't do that until I skip the Patriots. Then you can call me a homer.

As we have heard many times, and many more this past weekend, the Greatest Show on Turf was probably the greatest offense the NFL has ever seen. It's the only offense to score more than 500 points in 3 consecutive seasons. Although it only resulted one world championship, we did make it to two Super Bowls. We should have won that second one.

Cheating bastards...

What was the secret behind that amazing and astounding chemistry? How could they be that dynamic? Well, why don't you just have a good look at the general synastry picture here. I know my Pentecostal brethern Kurt Warner and Issac Bruce would not approve of this analysis, but let's set that aside for the moment.

Look at the number of key players who are water signs:

1. Kurt Warner (Cancer)
2. Marshall Faulk (Pisces)
3. Issac Bruce (Scorpio)
4. Ricky Proehl (Pisces)
5. Orlando Pace (Scorpio)

Let's not forget about Dick Vermeil who is also a Scorpio. What about the rest? Well, Roland Williams, our much forgotten Tight End, is a Taurus. He goes great with everybody.

The most interesting fact about this unit is that Az-Zahir Hakim and Torry Holt are both Geminis, and they both had tremendous chemistry with Kurt Warner.

Sirus 1.1 says Kurt and Torry are totally compatible. Consider the following numbers.

1. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 257

2. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 103

3. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 164

4. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 119

5. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 0

6. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 172

7. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 92

The story with Az Hakim is pretty good, too.

1. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 371

2. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 31

3. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 9

4. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 192

5. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 39

6. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 122

7. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 36

What is the key to Kurt's outstanding chemistry with Gemini? First, Water and Air can mix with some difficulty. Second, Kurt is a 1st day Cancer. He was born right on the edge of Gemini. Finally, Kurt has a considerable amount of Air in his chart.

The offensive line is a remarkable mixture when you look at it. Gruttadauria and Nutten are 180 degree opposites, and you know the story about opposites. They attract and complement one another tremendously. Likewise, Fred Miller and Adam Timmerman are 180 degree opposites. Orlando was actually the odd man out on this unit, although he is all the more compatible with everyone else on the team.

Consider Coach Dick Vermeil (Scorpio) and Mike Martz (Taurus). They too are 180 degree opposites, and there was incredible dynamism between them. We were never the same after we lost Coach Vermeil. It was when these two were together that we had the best of the motivational disciplinarian and the mad scientist. Incidentally, both are super-compatible with their skill position players.

One more point: Martz (Taurus) is side-by-side with Hakim (Gemini) and Holt (Gemini) in spring time. This usually leads to good relations.

One of these days I am going to write a piece about what 1999 meant to me. It's crazy. It's so crazy, I still wonder if some of you will believe me. This is why I hesitate to blog about it.

The Okie-Doke Offense

Last weekend, I heard Phil Simms say it best. Phil is still one of the best analysts of the game, and he hit the nail on the head. Regarding offensive philosophies, Phil said something like this:

"Run first, pass second. Run to win, pass to score. Pass to setup the run. Dink and Dunk. All of these sayings represent false ideas we choose to confuse our minds with. The real objective of good offense is always the same: do exactly the opposite of what the defense expects you to do."

Amen brother. I would only add to that two more phrases:

1. Get to the line of scrimmage quickly so the QB can read the defense and check off. This allows him to hit it where they ain't.

2. Use motion and formation to isolate your best playmakers against the defense's weakest sister.

If you implement these three elements of offense, you cannot be stopped. I like to call this the Okie Doke offense. Okie Doke is football jargon for showing them one thing and giving them another. You get the defense to buy something you aren't selling. You employ constant trickeration, negative influence traps, misdirection, play action, draws, option reads, option routes. Nothing is ridged. The ultimate goal is to just hit it where they ain't. Incidentally, that final pharse is baseball philosophy. This saying is frequently mis-attributed to Yogi Berra, but most historians give the credit to an ancient 19th century baseball player named Wee Willie Keeler. Wee Willie may be the greatest philosopher of football offense we have ever seen. Sun Szu frequently said "attack emptiness, avoid fullness". This is a simple way of saying don't go into the teeth of the defense. Just hit it where they ain't. Find the weakness and penetrate it.

If the defense has 9 men in the box and zero safeties, you would be stupid not to throw it intermediate or deep. You would be stupid to run the football into the teeth of the defense. If the defense is in a dime with three deep safeties, you would be stupid not to run the shotgun draw. Just hit it where they ain't. Attack emptiness. Avoid fullness. Do exactly the opposite of what the defense has set themselves to stop.

If you do this enough times, uncertainty, indecision, doubt, and finally a lack of confidence begins to take over a defense. Everybody sits and reads, instead of shooting the gaps and attacking, because they don't know what you are going to do next. This is the moment when the defensive gameplan has completely broken down, and the defense is on its heels. The offense has won.

Right now, Peyton Manning is running the NFL's foremost Okie Doke offense, with the Saints in a close 2nd place. You might say that Mike Martz is the NFL's foremost coaching authority on the subject, with Sean Payton in a close 2nd place. These are the offenses that are currently doing the greatest damage around the league, with the Philadelphia Eagles starting an assault on the top rankings.

Incidentally, I have praised Michael Vick's style as being a night at the improv. When he is in the game, the defense has no clue what he is going to do next. Even if you steal the Eagles' signals, you still don't know what Vick is going to do next. He is quite likely to throw away the play call and do something totally unexpected on any given play. Believe me, that is a serious Okie-Doke situation. Vick will find the emptiness and avoid the fullness, and he'll do it dynamically in real-time.

Being radical and unpredictable makes you dangerous offensively. Attacking the empty spots in the defense makes you really, really dangerous. Doing this dynamically in real-time makes you deadly.

This is the ultimate reason why I utterly hate ridged system guys, and in particular, rigidly constructed West Coast Offenses. The WCO has been played for some 30 years now. We now know its structure and its philosophy. We know what these OCs are trying to achieve. We have studied their methodology. If you enter the game with one of those ridged 15 play scripts, the defense is going to hammer your ass. It's all fairly routine, stock, off-the-shelf, cliche, predictable screenplay stuff nowadays. We defenders know what you want to do, and we know how to defended it. Unless you have incredible stallions, who can simply beat defenders 1-on-1, you are in big trouble if you run a ridged WCO script.

Of course, the true WCO coreligionists will never, never, never listen to this criticism. Those who are ardent and fervent WCO fundamentalist will speak of the wonders done by Bill Walsh in much the same tone that Born-Again Christians speak of the miracles of Jesus. They will tell you about what Bill Walsh, the founder of their feast, has done for them. You cannot reason with these people about what Bill Bellichick has done to them. Those who have been raised in a faith, and hold to a blind faith, cannot be persuaded otherwise.

Just remember, you can never convince anybody of anything at anytime for any reason, so don't even bother to try. They will simply say "Don't confuse me with the facts" and stubbornly move along there merry West Coast way.

Harvey Unga

So they held the NFL Supplemental Draft yesterday. Running back Harvey Unga was selected by the Chicago Bears in the 7th round. This means the bears forfeit their 7th rounder in the 2011 draft.

That is precious little to give up for such a running back. The 2011 draft is going to be a pretty dry well. A lot good sophomores came out this season. Even more juniors. Since 2007 was not a good High School recruiting class, 2011 is going to feature a depleted stock of just about everything. It will also feature a few one-season wonders. I don't know which is worse: A depleted stock, or a collection one-season hits.

This is a long way of saying the Bears gave up next to nothing to get Unga.

At just under 6'1" and about 244 pounds, Unga is a punisher with the ability to break some tackles and continue down field. The Bears are reportedly planning to use Unga as a blocking fullback. This is not the role he played in college, where he was the prime rock-runner. This is not the role most scouts projected for him. It is somewhat questionable what role he will fulfill in the Mike Martz offense. Mad Mike is extremely flexible in his approach, but he tends to go with a 3 receiver set and no fullback.

Some say Unga will have to fight for a roster spot. This is not unusual. Most 7th rounders do have to fight for a roster spot. Furthermore, as ESPN has reported, just 38 players have been taken in the Supplemental Draft since its inception in 1977. Of those 38 players, eight were running backs. Four of those never actually played in the league. The other four totaled only 3,809 yards and 20 touchdowns.

The Denver Broncos selected Bobby Humphrey in the 1st round of the 1989 Supplemental draft. He responding by accounting for 75 percent of the yards and all but five of the touchdowns. Humphrey, who rushed for more than 1,000 yards in 1989 and 1990, is the only running back chosen in the supplemental draft ever to register a Pro Bowl appearance. By 2005, Terrel Davis had taken his place.

Unga was considered by many to be worthy of a 3rd round draft choice. The St. Louis Rams were rumored (by the TurfShowTimes.com) to be one of several interested parties. Given the fact that they just drafted a top-end surgically repaired rookie QB, and given the fact that they have only one top-end surgically repaired Steven Jackson backing him, the argument made sense. Yet draft day came and went an the Rams made no move.

This is a continuation of a collection of the largely incomprehensible moves made by Billy Devaney. Given the Rams' need for a running back committee, and given the extreme poverty of the 2011 draft, you would guess that the Rams would be willing to spend a 7th round supplemental pick on Unga

No, evidently not. I am sure the folks at TurfShowTimes are extremely disappointed this morning. I don't blame them. This is why I quit folks. I have zip, zero, zilch, nada, no confidence in Billy Devaney. I do not believe the guy is competent, and I don't think he is seeking a winner roster. I think Buttism is his key philosophy. He is doing the butt-minimum mandatory things necessary to put some butts in the seats and keep his job. Only this and nothing more.

But this is none of my business. I should butt out. What butt-minimalists do is none of my business.

How 'bout da Bears?

The Bears mad a big splash in free agency this year acquiring the top two free agents on the board: Chester Taylor and Julius Peppers. The also got former Ram Brandon Manumaleuna. These were all good acquisition, but the most important acquisition this year is Mad Mike Martz, one of my favorite guys in the entire world. You know why. I don't need to explain that statement.

So what are the chances for the Bears this season. Regrettably, I don't think they are that good. Chicago is going to be caught in the middle of a prize fight between two heavy weights in the NFC: the Vikings and the Packers. Unfortunate, they still have big problems on the offense line. I truly believe that the Bear offensive line was Jay Cutler's downfall last season. You can't blame a QB who gets such dreadful protection.

There is another and more important issue. At the time Cutler was acquired by the Bears last season, former Bear QB Jim McMahon did an interview for Myers and Hartman. McMahon issued the disclaimer that he is no longer closely following NFL football, but he still has some savvy about the Bears. He said he loved Cutler's talent and skill, but he serious doubted that Cutler would continue to produce as he did in Denver.

You see Chicago has always been a run-first smash-mouth franchise, and there is a reason for that fact. The team plays in an open air stadium, on the shores of Lake Michigan. They have one of the worst facilities in the league, especially in the merry merry months of November and December, where the playoff shakeout always occurs. [San Francisco has the absolute worst facility in the League.] Given the cosmic wind that comes off lake Michigan and the outer-space cold the players endure, it is extremely difficult to throw the football well during November and December in Chicago. As an organization, the Bears have never trusted any QB to throw the football that much. They have always built and rebuilt themselves as a nasty smash-mouth running team.

Fans in Chicago could be heard beginning a discourse about getting a Domed stadium shortly thereafter.

Ergo, the two biggest factors militating against The Greatest Show on Turf in Chicago are:

1. The lack of offensive linemen
2. The dreadful cold wind coming off the shores of Lake Michigan.

You have to admit, both of these factors are going fuck with Mike Martz's vertical passing attack. I think Cutler is the most talented QB that Mike Martz has yet worked with; though we should have caution that there is a lot more to being NFL QB that pure physical talent, or even mechanical polish. If talent was all you needed, Brady Quinn would have made it in this league. You also have a natural turf field and a lack of wide receivers working against you. These are not the conditions under which you launch a Greatest Show on Turf attack.

I recently saw Jeff Joniak on NFL Total access, and he was quite sanguine about the Bears' offensive prospects. He felt they had a shot at scoring 30 points per game. I honestly doubt it. You need some linemen and some better receivers for that task. Mike only achieved this feat once in his career, and that was in St. Louis. Those were 'Perfect Storm' conditions also.

I wish you guys lot of luck. I want Mike and Lovie to be successful together again. I think you will win more than you did last year. As far as taking out both the Vikings and the Packers... I don't think so. Provided that the Lions have an excellent defensive draft, they will be more troublesome also.

Perhaps two more victories and a 9-7 record. I think the Bears will be a lot more competitive with top end teams. I think they will be a lot more threatening than last season, when they really struggled. I felt the Bears were fortunate to go 7-9 given the degree of their struggles last season. You guys struggled to beat my Rams. That was not impressive. Ergo, I think we can reasonably say that the 2009 Bear team finished with a soft 7-9 record. However, I just don't see a very soft 7-9 turning into more than a robust 9-7 this year.

What the Chicago Bear fans should expect from Mike Martz

The other day, I heard Michael Lombardi predicting success for Jay Culter now that he will be function in Mike Martz's offensive system. Michael praised Mike's system, declaring that it was proven to raise the fortunes of just about any Quarterback. Very few are qualified to evaluate the QB, and even fewer are qualified to coach him. Mike Martz is one of those guys.

I agree with the latter statement, but the former is predicated on a bit of a misunderstanding.

There is no Mike Martz system, per se. The secret is that there is no secret. Mike is against the notion of an "offensive system", in the sense that a fellow like Bill Walsh would define the term. Martz custom tailors the offense to fit the personnel that he has. The game plan is always the same: Use motion and formation to put my biggest play makers against your biggest weaknesses. The game plan is just a collection of plays Mike thinks will work in this regard. Now, he does want to pass first, and pass aggressively to get the lead, but this is a very general idea.

Now, you may want to call that a system, but I wouldn't. It is more a philosophy about using whatever playmakers you have on hand. A documentary was recently published by a bunch of Astronomers titled "Journey to the Edge of the Universe". The funny thing is that they would be the first to tell you that there is no such thing as "the edge of the Universe". Ergo, the title is just a catchy title. That is all. Calling Mike Martz's approach a system is similar to talk about "the edge of the universe". It is a catchy title, but there is no such thing.

The reason why Mike is so consistently successful in raising the fortunes of offenses and teams is pretty straightforward: He is not one of these fucked up egomaniacs who want to replace all the players he's got so he can obtain guys who will run his highly dogmatic system. Such coaches always guarantee you several years of turmoil and rebuilding (which might be necessary anyhow). West Coast coaches are these kinds of coaches, in general. Lombardites are absolutely those kinds of coaches. They'll cut all kinds of good playmakers to clean house and implement their power-running attack. I hate those little fuckers with all my heart and soul.

Mike doesn't need to cut everybody and start over. He will look hard and long at the abilities of his men. He will figure out what they do best. He will figure out how to employ those abilities to the fullest. He will create formations, plays and motion that will let you shine. You can understand why Mike is a very popular guy with his men, and you can understand why head coaches feel threatened by him.

I am going to tell you flat out: Dogmatic systematic coaches are the worst thing possible for your organization. Flexible and adaptive coaches who use the talent you have on hand are the best thing possible for your organization. Scott Linehan was a dogmatic systematic coach, and he will forever be known as the guy who killed the Greatest Show on Turf, the Show Mike Martz created.

Dump your Titans stock as quick as you can

So I was just watching the NFL network a few moments ago, and here we have Mike Martz and Charles Davis playing Buy, Sell or Hold with François. Both of them were buying Titan stock. I was shocked. Their reasoning? This is a Jeff Fisher team. That is all.

No, no, no, no fuck no. That is totally insufficient and inadequate reasoning. Let me give you some Donald Duck in Mathematicsland courtesy of Matt Millen and Penn State. The Titans are 0-2. The Colts are 2-0. The Titans must travel to Giants Stadium New Jersey to take on Mark (dirty) Sanchise the freakin' franchise of the Jets. This is a loss for the Titans. For sure. No bullshit.

Folks, the Jets punched the Texans in the face. The beat 'em up, took their lunch money and made them cry. The Texans were shutout. The Texans scored 34 against the Titans. This does not bode well. The Titans were eliminated from the playoffs last season by a mean and nasty Baltimore defense they could not figure out. That defense was the product of Rex Ryan. A defense very much like that is headed straight for them. The bottom line is this is loss for the Titans. It may be hard-fought, but it will be a loss. The Titans open 0-3.

Some say the transitive law of equality does not function in NFL football games. I would agree, but I expect it to work well in this case.

The Colts are headed for a shoot-out with the Cardinals in the Desert. This game is going to be amazing. The Colts may or may not be favored to win against the Cardinals. I personally would favor the Cardinals by the slimmest of margins. I may be allowing my biases to show there. Pick'em. This may be the most entertaining game of the year. The Colts are going to have luxury of dropping this one and maintaining a 2 game lead on the Titans. Should they prevail, they will have a 3 game lead on the Titans.

They will have two matches against the Titans. The first is in Week 5 where they will journey to Nashville. Expect the Colts to split the series at the least. This will maintain a 2 to 3 game lead through 5 weeks of play. Nasty math for the Titans. They are digging themselves a mighty hole which is probably going to be too deep to dig out of. Don't expect the Colts to tank the way the Broncos did last year. There will be no meltdown in Indianapolis.

The difference between West Coast and Air Coryell

So, one of the most persistent peeves I have as a football fan is the East Coast notion that Bill Walsh and Don Coryell were doing more or less the same thing. Not so. These are two different offensive philosophies. They have many things in common, but in the end, they are at loggerheads.

Let's start with commonalities

1. You throw to setup the run, you don't run to setup the pass.
2. You establish your passing game first. You don't establish your running game first.
3. You will substitute a short passing attack with your running backs for a standard conventional running attack.
4. You never attempt to run through a brick wall. You throw a short pass to go around the brick wall.
5. You pass early and often to get the lead. You defend that lead in the second half with a running attack that eats the clock in garbage time.
6. You use all 5 eligible receivers in the passing game. Every back on your team must have good to excellent hands.
7. There is a tendency to go with lighter, leaner, faster, more athletic offensive linemen
8. Receivers run complementary routes to clear defenders out of zones, and to create collisions between defensive players.
9. There is a strong focus on timing of routes. Both offenses expect receivers to be in a specific location within a specific interval of time. Both offenses require the QB to throw to a specific spot before the receiver is out of his break.

In the West Coast (Bill Walsh) offense, you will see the following things:

1. Short 3 step drops by the QB. Very few 7 step drops.
2. An East-West passing game rather than a North-South passing game.
3. The QB often throws the football before his receivers are finished with their breaks.
4. The offensive line must provide excellent protection for the QB, but not for long.
5. The Quarterback frequently has a specific (low) time limit in which he must throw the football. This is most often a three count. It can be longer.
6. There is always an outlet or dump-off receiver that the quarterback can throw to if he is under pressure. This is frequently a running back to his throwing-arm side.
7. The terminal point for most routes is within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage.
8. The favorite routes are quick slants, shallow crosses, dump-offs, half-back screens up the middle, flanker screens,
9. Receivers have a route tree which determines the routes they can run based on their position in the formation.
10. Receivers and Quarterbacks are expected to read and identify coverages. Receivers can adjust both depth of the pattern and the pattern itself based on the defensive coverage they are facing. The quarterback must read according to the same set of rules and correctly predict where the receiver will go.
11. The absolute idea is a ball-control passing attack, which advances slowly through the air. It chews up yards and minutes. You create many one-on-one collisions between running backs and defensive backs. You beat up the secondary with this form of short passing so you can throw deep later if necessary.
12. There are a few key phrases that have been used to describe Walsh's offense. Nick & Dime. Dink & Dunk. Continuation of the run by other means. Pass-first. Conservative pass-first. Low-risk passing attack. Ball-control passing attack. High efficiency passing attack.

The Gilman/Coryell/Martz style of offense is different in a number of ways.

1. The first element of Air Coryell is the bomb. You go deep, break off large chunks of yardage, and stab the defense in the heart.
2. You throw Noth and South, not East and West.
3. It not about ball control. Its about explosive plays gaining more than 25 yards per pop.
4. An ideal Air Coryell drive is no more than 3 plays long, and will cover 80 to 90 yards.
5. You force the safeties to drop deep and prevent the big pass.
6. You use motion and formation to construct mismatches.
7. The objective is to put your biggest play makers against the weakest links of the defense.
8. In the final analysis the objective is to put the ball in the hands of your biggest play makers, and let them run with the ball.
9. The system is extremely player-centric. What you do is going to be predicated on the players you have.
10. There are a lot of 5 and 7 step drops.
11. What you like to do is highly predicated on the sort of players you have, the sort of mismatches you think you can create.

In the final analysis, I would tell you that Walsh's system is much more an organized system of football that is very formulaic. A West Coast offense team will play week after week with basically the same offensive game plan. Because the passing plays themselves are loaded with adaptive option routes, the change per coverage and adjustment to defense should always happen automatically... unless the defense has something really special in mind for you.

Air Coryell is much less an organized system of football, and much more an offensive philosophy explaining how you should make aggressive use of absolutely fantastic play makers, and exploit weaknesses in the enemy defenses. In the West Coast system, you take absolutely fantastic playmakers like Jerry Rice, Sterling Sharp, Shannon Sharp, John Taylor, Rod Smith, Terrel Davis, Terrel Owens, Roger Craig, Ricky Waters, etc. and you do almost the same things with them. The system rules. The system dictates to the players. The better the players, the better the results the system produces, but they must execute according to the system. Air Coryell is different. The system is rubbery, and plasticy, and will change to maximally exploit the skills of different groups play makers. The more devastating the group of play makers, the aggressive the attack shots get.

Consider the Rams the Chargers. The Greatest Show on Turf and Air Coryell are the two greatest implementations of the system we have seen {unless you want to talk about the 1950s Rams under UCLA Bruin & Hall of Famer Bobby Waterfield}. While they were brothers under the skin, they were different in many ways. I think it is reasonable to say that Kellen Winslow was Dan Foutes' biggest play maker, and his favorite target. As such, the tight end was an absolutely massive factor in the Don Coryell's scheme. On the other hand, the tight end was not such an important factor in Mike Martz's scheme in St. Louis. Roland Williams was a nice tight end, but he was not Kellen Winslow. Rather, much of the focus was on Marshall Faulk, as he was the biggest play maker on a team loaded with lethal weapons. Muncie and Brooks combined output never matched the 2,429 yards that Marshall Faulk produced in 1999.

There are some other system-oriented things. Martz's playbook relies on a Numbers System for nomenclature. The West Coast relies on code names for formations and route numbers for receivers. So you have Base, Tiger, Zebra, Eagle describing the personnel on the field. You use colors like Brown, Blue and Green to describe variations of formation. You use numbers like 69 or 54 to describe the routes your primary and secondary receivers should run. Each route has a number. The larger the number, the deeper the route. Even numbers go out of bounds towards the sidelines. Odd numbers go in towards the center of the field. So, the key point is the language of the play is different.