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.

I love Tiajuana. I am now caffeine free, and a recovering narcoleptic.

I took a trip to Tiajuana on Sunday April 5th, 2009.  The objective was to visit Mexican pharmacies.  The reason for visiting Mexican pharmacies is the complete lack of regulation thereof.  It is possible to buy any perscription drug without empediment in Mexico.  So what?  Why am I interested in that?

Well, the reason goes like this:  I have been falling asleep on the job lately.  Right around 3:00pm in the afternoon.  At this time I would experiance an almost uncontrollable power-failure.  I would shutdown and start to nod off.  Eatting nuts did not help.  Sipping from a honey bottle did not help.  Runing up and down the stairs at work did not help.  Gulping 250mg of Caffeine barely got the job done.  I would still feel energless and listless for hours.  Now whether you understand this or not, such a condition is actually career threatening to me.  We are in the midst of the worst recession since the great depression.  I am a well-paid programmer in a financial sector company.  Most meetings are organized in the morning.  Most code-smithing takes place in the afternoon.  I cannot shutdown and nod-off at 3:00pm.  This is totally unacceptible.  It is as if a starting quarterback in the NFL tore his rotator cuff in his throwing shoulder and couldn't pass in critical situations.  

I saw a doctor about perscription meds for this problem.  She wanted to refer me to her husband for gastric bipass surgery.  She would not perscribe anything.  It turns out her husband is out-of-network surgeon, specializing in Gastric Bipass, and he charges a ton of money for his services.  She functions as the schill, pushing customers to the big money-maker cosmetic surgeon.  After allowing this (and other) doctors to jack me around for several months, I finally decided to take the fucking bull by the balls and do it myself.

I had two drugs in mind as I drove to Tiajuana.  The first is Ritalin (Methylphenidate), a drug much-praised by my fellow programmers.  I really expected Methylphenidate to be the answer.  The other was a substance I had only recently heard of vis-a-vis jetlag.  The substance is known as Provigil (Modafinil).  I did not expect this to be the answer.  I was also hoping to get some Pramiracetam, but the Mexicans had no clue in the world what I was talking about.  It was almost hilarious watching a Mexican doctor rummage back and forth between pages in a 3 year old pharamacy book looking for Pramiracetam.  You won't find it there.  It is too new.

I could write at length about the trip down to Tiajuana.  It was a bit scarry.  It was very fun.  It was always interesting.  It was a little infuriating.  In the end, a good time was had by all, and basically got what I wanted.  I would love to go back soon, and I probably will.  I recommend it to one and to all.  It is a tourist trap, and it is a lot of fun.  Enjoy.  I especially liked the St. Louis Rams Poncho I bought for $32.  It is fantastic.

So now we come to the thesis point.  I have been caffeine-free for more than 68 hours now.  I haven't touched coffee.  No Red Bull.  No Stay Alert chewing gum.  No 5 Hour Energy.  No chocolate.  No Vivarine.  No NoDoz.  No Redline Xtreme.  No 14-Hour Energy by Nitro2Go.  No Pepsi.  No Coke.  No Mountain Dew.  No Penguine caffeine mints.  I have stayed away from all that stuff.  I don't need it anymore.  I am far more alert and far more awake than I have been here at work in several years.  I am very happy about this.

So what happened?

First, I was totally disapointed with Ritalin (Methylphenidate).  I took 10mg at 1:00pm yesterday, just after lunch.  I crashed and burned at 3:00pm just like before.  Methylphenidate had no effect on the 3:00pm power-failure I experiance.  That's right.  Ritalin is absolutely and completely ineffective against whatever I am fighting.  I was totally listless when I got home last night, inspite of 10mg of Ritalin.  I couldn't scrape my ass off the couch with a steam shovel.  I finally broke down and took 100mg of Modafinil at 6:30pm.  I didn't want to waste the evening in vegitative state.  It worked like magic.  I was awake and alive again in 20 minutes.

This brings us to Modafinil! What a surprise!  It is the perfect drug.  I took my first 200mg dose at approximately 7:30pm on Sunday whilst still in Tiajuana.  My buddy Jerry and his girlfriend were very tired (and a little drunk) after sampling a large 24oz Mexican beer.  They wanted me to drive us home, because I was sober guy.  I was tired at that point also.  We had been up early and walking around all day.  I popped the pill just after getting into the cab to ride back to the border.  Provil brough me back to a full state of lucid consciousness and alertness that was marvelous.  I drove all the way back without any problems at all.  I was totally focused.  Jerry and his girl slept most of the way home.

I took 100mg of Modafinil Monday morning. I was able to make it out of the appartment without caffeine to start my day for the first time in years. I was plenty sharp too.  I took another 100mg around 2:00pm expecting the 3:00pm crash to happen soon.  Guess what?  It never happened.  Monday afternoon was the first time in many months that I was fully awake and alive at 3:00pm.  I was ducedly lucid and sharp at 3:30pm.  It was as if I had never had any problem in the first place.  Caffeine withdrawel headaches began to kick in that afternoon.  The headache bothered me, but it didn't break my focus.

It has been more than 68 hours since I had my last 1mg dose of caffeine.  The caffeine headaches and withdrawel are almost completely gone.  The time is now 3:30pm on Wednesday and I am pretty well wide-awake.  I should not have eatten at Burger King during lunch, but I did.  This has made me a bit stuffed and woozy, but this is not the same as narcolepsy I used to experiance.

Which brings me to the ultimate point. I did some research into this wonderful Modafinil, and I found some very interesting things.  It turns out that Modafinil was developed as an anti-narcolepsy drug.  Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder (adyssomnia) characterized by overwhelming daytime drowsiness and sudden attacks of sleep. The condition is most characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), in which a person experiences extreme tiredness and possibly falls asleep during the day at inappropriate times, such as at work or school.  This comes straight from wikipedia.org

If you have read this blog, does this sound at all familiar?  Does that sound like yours truly?  What do you think?  The miraculous effect of this substance has left me seriously wondering if I am, infact, a 100% pure true-blue legitamite narcoleptic.  I am wondering if I should retain the services of a Narcolepsy specialist.   You can't hit the nail on the head any more accurately than this drug did.  You can't fix the problem any better than this drug did.  Since Modafinil is a proven Narcolepsy stopper, a guy like me just can't help but draw conclusions.  This conclusion is even sharper given Ritalin's abject failure to quell my problems.

I hate doctors. I hate the FDA.  I hate our fucking medical system.  I hate my insurance.  The system absolutely failed me.  The doctors should have been able to diagnose me as a narcoleptic.  I saw enough of them enough times.  I should not have had to drive to Tiajuana to get Modafinil.  I should not have had to discover I am a narcoleptic by myself.  I should not have been victemized by a gastric bipass schill with a financial agenda.  What the hell am I paying you filthy bastards for anyway?  I should pocket my money and dump you fuckers.  You have disapointed the hell out of me.