Talk:Strategy of American football

Diagrams

Can we get some nice-looking, standardized diagrams, if anyone has the means to make them? I like the way the video games (the EA Sports games) draw them up. 70.177.37.131 16:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What is the best defense?

I think it is the 4-4. I play nose tackle in a 5-3 and DE in a 4-4. Which is better? --Pupster21 13:44, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• There is no "best defense". In fact, the 4-4 can be argued as being a very bad defense, especially against the pass (which, most modern teams pass more than they run). You can say there's a "most popular" defense, which would be the 4-3, with the 3-4 a close second.

• I play defense and I think that defensive scemes are strategies. They should be merged.--Pupster21 13:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• I'm not the original author but I have started to add some content; especially to the offense section. I'm a former 10-year member of the American Football Coaches Association and would love to see this site built into a useful resource for information on American football. -B- 10:40, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• There's some more stuff that could be merged into this article at American football defensive schemes. I'll have a look around and see if there are more such articles. --Daniel11 10:40, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• I agree that there should be more content, especially with the offensive and special team sections. Zzyzx11 18:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

QB In Charge?

"Quarterback: The Quarterback (QB) is the leader of the offense, making sure the team knows which plays are being run."

I've played on a few teams where the center runs the entire offense, and every team I've been on has the center at least controlling o-line audibles, play-calls, etc. I'm removing that quote from the article as it is untrue.

--- OK so it may not be universally true, but in most cases the quarterback runs the offense, manages audibles, and so forth. This is especially so in Div-IA college ball and in the NFL. Exceptions shouldn't invalidate a statement totally - just qualify it as such: The Quarterback is usually the leader of the offense..." - If you remove all general statements that have exceptions, Wikipedia would be a cold and lonely little site with little content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.65.67.46 (talk) 14:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I also agree that the statements about the QB conveying the call is usually/mostly true, there are occasions where other offensive players may call the plays. this section should reflect the fact that the QB is usually the play caller, but not suggest that it is always trues as the article currently suggests. Previous talk user mentions the center, but sometimes, especially in high school and lower, a running back may also be the play caller. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drokross (talk • contribs) 07:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Defense

We need to do some fixing here. "Cover 2" has nothing (directly) to do with the defensive front - you can run Cover 2 out of any front that provides 7 cover defenders. Lots of teams run it out of a 3-4 front. I'll try to clean that up when I get time. ---B- 18:06, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Is it even necessary to have 7 cover defenders? Technically dropping 2 men back in zone coverage results in a Cover 2, right? --Intrepidus 10:03, 27 December 2005

Not really, no. Cover 2 is a 2-deep, 5-under zone coverage. There is also a 2-man which is 2-deep man-under (typically 5 man defenders, but sometimes less). ---B- 05:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Seeing as there's no seperate section for Cover 2 Man defense (dropping two defenders in deep zone, with five man-to-man defenders and four rushers), it should be included and/or not specified that Cover 2 includes five men low in zone. chiefs rock

I'm not sure it's accurate to say that Cover 2 provides only 7 men "in the box" and that makes it somehow weaker against the run. In most cover 2 schemes the corners are responsible for outside contain which frees up DEs or OLBs to take a tighter angle if necessary. Cover 2, in fact, can be better against the run than Cover 3 in some instances because you have, theoretically, 9 defenders in the first 10 yards rather than only 8 for cover 3. ---B- 18:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Linebackers

I'm not sure I agree that the Inside Linebackers in a 3-4 are more commonly referred to as "Middle Linebackers". Every 3-4 team I've coached the ILBs have been just...ILBs. It's an MLB in a 4-3 - in otherwords we always considered it an Middle Linebacker when there was just the one lined up roughly in the middle. As opposed to two; who typically align roughly opposing the guards. ---B- (talk) 10:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

They use "willie" and "will". It's just, will, as far as I know as the pnemonic for, weak-side, that not across from the TE or strong offensive side. With four LBs, maybe there's a, buck. I've always heard it called the, ted, presumeably because Ted Hendricks played the role of the stronger of the inside LBs. So you'd have Sam, Ted, Mike, and Will, depending, in a 3-4. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.72.157.226 (talk) 09:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I have always heard Middle with three and Right or Left Inside linebacker with four. I really remember this best from when I am driving and listening to a game, and I hear the Middle Linebacker and it seems to visually denote for the listener that their are 3 linebackers.... Msjayhawk (talk) 20:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Offensive play descriptions

I think unless the description is going to be more than about two paragraphs, we should just include it here instead of a separate (and at this time non-existant) article. As an example, see the difference between running plays and pass plays right now. I do think it's appropriate that the Hail Mary links to another article because of it's link, but the others are inline. I'd love to see the same done for running plays. Comments? Wikibofh 15:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC) falcons are the best running offense, especialy with micheal vick and warrick dunn

West Coast Offense

There seems to be some confusion about the origin and meaning of the West Coast Offense. In this section it is accredited to Bill Walsh, but in the West Coast Offense stub it explains this isn't the case. Now I'm not sure which is true being an American Football novice myself, but surely there needs to be some consistency. contributed on 12:33, November 15, 2005 by User:Taxpayer's Money please sign edits Steven McCrary 18:36, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there really any value in speculating about what the new Oakland OC *might* install? ---B- 23:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge from

I suggest we merge American football defensive schemes into this article, or else clarify the purposes of each article and move content to the appropriate place. Right now it seems a bit redundant and byzantine. Opinions? --Daniel11 21:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• P.S. Also try to think of any other articles that should be part of this series, and cleaned up or merged or otherwise improved. --Daniel11 21:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Given the comment below about length of article, it may be best not to merge the two documents. In fact, it may be best to move content from this page to that one. In some ways, the content on American football defensive schemes seems more appropriate on this page as it is more general, and the content on this page should be moved over there. Steven McCrary 18:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

That makes sense. Also, a lot of the basic material near the beginning already exists in places like American football, and is redundant and basically useless here. --Daniel11 22:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I did the original article on defensive schemes to fill a request about Cover 2 coverage. However, this article now has a lot more material than mine. --SteveHFish 03:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

k-states new head coach, Ron Prince, has brought a whole new offense to the powercatters. Ron has moved kstate from their old offense to a west coast style offense.

Page getting long

I know that there is much to write about in football strategy but this page is getting rather long(already 39 KBs). Maybe the examples of certain situations (i.e. Time Management example) aren't necessary on this page. Just a thought, let me know what you think. Otherwise good work page has been dramatically improved. contributed by User:24.54.13.21 on December 21, 2005 please sign edits Steven McCrary 18:36, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

• P.S. I agree on the move but it would need to be editted contributed by User:24.54.13.21 on December 21, 2005 please sign edits Steven McCrary 18:36, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm just now learning about football and I appreciate more, shorter articles. The long pages can quickly get too complex to take in in a reasonably short period. I assume this article is a work in progress? There's very little here. (unsigned)

There's another page describing football formations here Formation_(American_football) I think defensive strategies can be added there instead of here. That page also has diagrams to explain defensive formations. It seems this page is getting very long, and that can be discouraging to people who want to learn about it in a relatively short period. I suggest deleting the whole list of defensive schemes on this page and referring it to the page I mentioned or one of the other pages mentioned here. What do you think? Debigboy 23:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Split off sub-articles

The page lenght really is a problem for readability and general comprehension. I propose splitting content into three articles: American football offensive strategy, American football defensive strategy, and American football special teams strategy. The main page can then be condensed without long discussions about each individual position, etc.—Perceval 01:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Strongly Agree--CastAStone|^(talk) 23:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree.? GusChiggins21 10:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Article Length

I'm on my way to the Niner-Pats game but had a question on defensive strategies when a corner is injured. I'm pleased at the amount of information in this article, and found the answer I sought. Other than form, readability, Wiki protocol/rules, and other valid comments made here, I prefer long articles like this. And as an afterthought relying too heavily on the ability to link to another page -- Wiki or not -- sometimes demonstrates the disadvantages of online learning. Just my 2 cents.

DonL (talk) 17:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Vinatieri anecdote

I don't think the comment about Vinatieri throwing a TD pass off a fake FG is particularly relevent. It's happened on a few occasions but it doesn't serve the article to list them. ---B- 06:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Agree. Wikibofh_(talk) 14:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I have since put that in the trick play article, it seemed to make more sense there. Cryomaniac 01:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Articles for diferent plays

This is probably the best place for this comment. Anyway I think something needs to be done to sort out the articles about different plays. I have improved the Trick play article, but some of the others (eg. halfback option play) just repeat what is said, and are basically not needed unless we get rid of the trick play article and make separate articles for each play, which seems a little silly. Perhaps there should be one article for Offensive strategy (maybe include special teams in that) and one for defensive strategy, and then the existing trick play article. comments on this subject would be appreciated. Cryomaniac 23:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge

I agree. This is very redundundant with American Football Strategies' Defense section. We need just one place to put this kind of information for people who are looking for the basic information. Because for some( who have dial-up) having to click on another link takes time for the new page to load. Where as having all the information they need to have on one page. D-man09 in the house

4-3

These recent edits to the 4-3 while certainly enhancing the content are not entirely accurate. The "over" and "under" tackles are one variation of the 4-3 but are not universal. Some teams will play a 4-3 with balanced DTs and a wide variety of alignments are possible within the DL. ---B- 01:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Recovering Kicks

I'll have to dig out my rulebook but I don't believe the kicking team can recover a missed Field Goal as if it were a live ball, the way they can with a kickoff. ---B- 23:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It is in many ways similiar to the rules for a punt: If the ball is behind the line of scrimmage the kicking team can recover it and attempt to advance it. If the ball is past the line of scrimmage, the defense must touch it first and then the offense may recover it. Jcam 03:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

46

Should this actually be 4-6 (four-six)? This is in line will all the other defensive formations. I read 46 as forty-six. --Pinkkeith 15:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

No. The 46 defense that became famous with Buddy Ryan and the Bears was named for Safety Doug Plank's jersey number, 46. The defensive alignment is actually similar to an older defense, the 5-3. The key features of the alignment are 3 defensive linemen over the center and on the outside shoulder of the guards, with a middle line backer behind them, not easily reached for a block. Plank's alignment was as an additional linebacker, across but a few yards away from one of the offensive tackles. Bringing a safety up as an inside linebacker was unusual, which led to the naming of the defense for him. Paulmeisel 14:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Run and Shoot

I'm completely wiping out the comments on the run and shoot. NO ONE in the NFL since the June Jones Falcons have used the run and shoot and to say that the Colts and Bengals are currently running it is ludicrous.

Grammar

"("better to run" is correct, not "to better run." The latter is a split infinitive and thus WRONG. Learn english before correcting my writing.)" My my, looks like someone's a little touchy about their edits. Funny how I'm told to "learn english before correcting my writing", and whoops, English is supposed to be capitalized. Regardless, the phrase "...its philosophy of spreading a defense in order better to run the football lives on..." sounds awkward as all hell (at best), even if it's grammatically proper (not the best source, but Word's grammar checker approved both "better to run" and "to better run"), so let's just get rid of the point of contention and rewrite that bit. Drjayphd 22:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• Try to remember WP:CIVIL, guys. Jcam 01:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Added bullet to basics

I added a simple bullet to the basics explaining that if a team fails to achieve any of the (previously) listed outcomes within four downs it results in a turnover on downs. ---CFoster

Merged

As there was still content on this page about defensive strategy, I merged it with American football defensive schemes together; the entire defensive portion can be forked off into its own article (I would suggest an article title of Defensive strategy in American football next time), but it needed to be put together, first. theProject 17:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

"Spiking the Ball"

The article originally said that spiking the ball didn't count as an incomplete to the quarterback. Don't know if that's true or not, but someone added a line saying "Are you sure about that" to the main article. As the article main page isn't really the place for discussing the article itself, I removed the argument, plus the line in question until a definitive answer could be found. 207.12.238.59 19:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Apparently, I forgot to login. The above was me. Guse 19:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Spiking the ball DOES count as an incomplete pass on the quarterback's statistics. That sure, I'm not sure that this fact is relevant to an article about football strategy, as strategy exists to win the game rather than to pad statistics.

Moishe Rosenbaum 14:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

"Offensive Nomenclature"

This portion of the article seems to approach the offensive play calling nomenclature as definitively how its done versus just an example of a particular scheme. I think it should be noted that it is just an example and there are many other ways and naming schemes for offense. Bfjksig201 00:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether this nomenclature section should appear at all. The terminology described, while sometimes similar from team to team, is in no way universal.

Instead, what if we put in more generalized desciption of the most basic information conveyed in the huddle: formation, blocking scheme, point of attack for runs; formation, protection scheme, and routes for passing plays. I think it's too much information (and too likely to be inaccurate for many teams) to take the reader through specific nomenclature. Moishe Rosenbaum 16:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Clock Management

Regarding Clock Management. That should apply to both sides of the ball, not just offense. While, offense has general control of the clock while in possession, defenses still have some strategy in regard to the clock, such as time-outs called on defense, etc. KyuuA4 19:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

This is really playbook strategy, right?

I was thinking that if this article is really about "American football strategy" (the article's current title) then it should include a section about personnel strategy. It would be interesting to track the apparent trend in the NFL toward splitting the running back duties between two players; the tactic of taking out some starters when the score has been run up (in the NFL, anyway) in order to reduce injuries to the starters and give some playing time to the backup players; the tactic of not playing games with the starters at all if the team has clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, for the same reason; drafting strategies for teams in various personnel situations; the controversy over whether teams at the bottom of the rankings toward the end of the reason should "try to lose" in order to secure a better draft pick for next year. This sounds like a whole article, though, and it would probably only increase the pressure on this rambling article (don't get me wrong, its content is excellent) to split into many shards. Possibly this article should be called play strategy to distinguish it from these other strategies. Tempshill 23:45, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Opening Sentence

The opening sentence is kinda lumpy. I didn't specifically cite military strategies, but it sort of derives from those principles. --Steve (talk) 04:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

"It derives by analogy from military strategy as the science and art of command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of play." I don't agree with this except in the most abstract ways. In any case, the sentence has no warrants for its claim. Also, why would this military comparison not be made for basketball or soccer? --Olsonist 08:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olsonist (talk • contribs)

"Wildcat" offense

Should there be a mention of the "Wildcat" offense (direct snap to the running back) now that it is beginning to become a staple of college and NFL systems? There is no article on it, and no mention of it anywhere that I can see. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 06:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I started the article on it. Wildcat offense Feel free to update. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 17:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Offensive formations

Let me point out just a couple of things that are missing: 1) The Power-I formation where in addtion to the running backs in a traditional I, there is a third running back either to the left or right of the tailback, and 2) The fullhouse backfield where there are three running backs, one behind each tackle and one behind the quarterback. Hx823 (talk) 22:57, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I tried to print off the entire discussion on American Football Strategy, but certain pages are blank. I have tried to do so from every possible way and it still leaves blank pages where there should be info, e.g. pg. 3,7,8,10,13,15,16,18,20-24,27,28.

Can anyone help me with this? This is my first time trying to print off a large no. of pages from Wikipedia. If this is not the right venue to post questions, then I apologize. I have searched in vain to find the right place and ended up here. Thanks,

74.245.180.9 (talk) 18:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Splitting the article up?

I think we should split this article in a couple of parts, like one separate article for 4-3 defense, for 3-4 defense, for 46 defense and so on. Opinions? ––bender235 (talk) 19:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I've spent the last week doing some extensive editing of the article. I've created separate articles for each individual formation and strategy mentioned, unless articles already exist on them, in which case I made sure there was a link to those. Still some work to do, but I think it reads much better.Victoria1286 (talk) 17:04, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

marshall faulk

what about marshall faulk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.77.26.118 (talk) 19:45, 25 February 2009 (UTC) check it here football formations

Inclusion of A-11 offense?

Since the A-11 offense is not currently play-legal in the NFL or NCAA, and has (to the best of my knowledge) been made illegal in most every high school sanctioning body, I would argue that it should be split from the list of offensive strategies and mentioned as a controversial new play style that isn't legal for play, if it is mentioned at all. Thoughts? --H v fisher (talk) 00:55, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Defensive Players

To be blunt, some of the language in this section is atrocious. Could one of the English majors out there take a look at it an rewrite it in written communication form instead of the current 'informal conversation' explanation form it is in..... Msjayhawk (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Point-After Touchdown Strategies

There needs to be a discussion of how and when teams choose to "go for two" instead of kicking the extra point after a touchdown. 108.246.205.134 (talk) 03:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Copy Editing: Obviousness

This article clearly needs copy editing, but I can't bring myself to fix it because the way in which it is written just makes me laugh. The line "The goal of the offense is, most generally, to score points." just has me rolling, something about the obviousness is just so funny. I love this article, I've already bookmarked an oldid so I can come back and laugh some more.

If you don't want this article to be hilarious, I suggest more specificity and doing away with the broad-focused phrases. The line I mentioned previously should probably be removed entirely; instead, the article should state the means of scoring points followed by a short closing clause such as "in order to score points."

I just love humor too much to edit it myself. Pernicious.Editor (talk) 18:25, 19 July 2023 (UTC)