X and O Stuff

Posted: May 21st, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 4 Comments »

Chris Brown has a really fascinating post up at Smart Football on the Colts offense in the Tom Moore / Peyton Manning era.  Moore was the Offensive Coordinator and Manning was the QB (for those who have only been football fans for the last 37 minutes).  The Colts believed in a simple playbook.  They mastered basic plays rather than relying on trickery.

Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg too often seem to want the perfect play.  I believe much more in the Moore way of doing things…let’s perfect what we do.  As Brown points out, it is easy to run a simple offense based on perfection when you have elite skill players and one of the greatest QBs of all time.  With Mike McMahon, Ryan Moats, Stephen Spach and Darnerian McCants on the field…you might need some ninja-like trick plays.  Smoke bombs work great for getting receivers open.

Toward the bottom of Brown’s post he covers the Colts running game.  This is of special interest to us.  Howard Mudd was the O-line coach for those Colts teams.  We use the blocking schemes that they did.  We use the stretch play that they did.  If you want an idea of blocking assingments, go check out the post.

The passing plays are somewhat complex and won’t be for everyone.  The running game stuff is covered in a more simplistic fashion.

4 Comments on “X and O Stuff”

  1. 1 Nathan Rufo said at 1:02 AM on May 22nd, 2012:

    I loved watching Manning play. I’ve only been watching football since about ’04 but I’ve watched a lot of football since then; and watched clips and games of other big QBs in history. Sometimes I wondered whether Manning had like a time-travel camera embedded in his mind where he could see a second into the future and know who would be open. He’s made more “perfect throws” than anyone else I’ve seen. He had some postseason struggles early on…but I think Manning may be the best QB, ever, period, end of story. Understanding and management of the game, certainly; but more importantly was the accuracy. He has made so many throws that just leave me shaking my head (and not in a Mike McMahon way!)

    I think probably the fairest way to describe it is that Manning is the Derek Landri of QBs. And I do not make that comparison lightly.

  2. 2 Steve H said at 3:54 AM on May 22nd, 2012:

    Nor should you.

  3. 3 NoDecaf said at 9:32 AM on May 22nd, 2012:

    May I have 10,000 caltrops please?

  4. 4 D3Keith said at 6:51 PM on May 22nd, 2012:

    Enjoyed that post. I follow Smart Football on Twitter but rarely make it over to the site. A lot of people have been tweeting about the book … anybody read it and like it?