"The Constraint Theory of Offense"

by cwofford on Jan 31, 2008 1:16 PM CST

I think Greg Davis would do well to read this: "The Constraint Theory of Offense".

Money quote:

The upshot of all this is that when you are designing an offense you must (a) find those one or two things which you can hang your hat on and beat just about anything doing when the defense is playing honest, and (b) get good at all those little "constraint" plays which keep the defense playing honest. You won’t win championships simply throwing the bubble screen, but the bubble will help keep you from losing games when the defense wants to crash your run game. Same with draws and screens if you’re a passing team. You find ways to do what you want and put your players in position to win and score.

My (and many others') annoyance at GD's reliance on bubble screens, etc. stems from the fact that he seems to be using them backwards. Meaning, he seems to call them as "set-up plays" hoping to force a defense to over-react, thereby setting up other opportunities.

Instead, he should be using the screens as a tool to "constrain" overly-attacking defenses and force them to play you straight up. Then, your bread-and-butter offense can then exploit inherent mismatches.

Anyone else agree or have another idea?

(HT: SMQ)

All comments, FanPosts, and FanShots are the views of the reader-authors who create them.

Tweet Comment 7 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Lack of trust

Don't have the time to go back and look this up...but I want to say 99% of the time, Colt's first pass of the game is a lateral to a WR. It's a high percentage throw that usually nets about a 2 yard gain.

I don't think Greg trusts Colt to be ready from the get-go and feels like he needs to get that first throw under his belt before he can be successful.

Sooner or later, a CB is going to wise up and jump it.

Be nobody but yourself in a world that desperately wants you to be like everybody else.

by 54b on Jan 31, 2008 2:02 PM CST reply actions

his adjustments

are what really have been driving me crazy the past couple of years. i dont know why it takes so long to adjust to what the other teams are doing and he lets the other team dictate the tempo for the majority of the game. you can look to our entire schedule and see that we failed to adjust until late in the second half and pulled away late. but what the hell do i know?

muckelroy doesnt do pushups... he pushes the earth down!

by kcc28 on Jan 31, 2008 2:27 PM CST reply actions

Couple of things

Most plays like the ones you want to keep the defense honest require the quarterback to get enough time to get rid of the ball. Considering our offensive line was very inconsistent, as was our running game (not coincidences), and Colt definitely not being very accurate on the deep ball, there's only so much you can do in the passing game. Defenses weren't buying the deep plays because there was very little to buy. If we had played the gameplan most people would have liked, we would have gotten demolished. Our offense wasn't accurate enough as a whole to make it work. It worked for certain periods of time, but over an entire game we would have turned the ball over even more than we did playing the safest of gameplans, and that's saying a lot.

I don't know if im the only one that remembers this, but in most games, Colt was running for his life a considerable fraction of the time. Our Oline wasn't very good, and quick developing plays seemed like a much better idea than slow developing ones.

Although I did not like the play calling, I still have more trust in Greg Davis than in message board posters. A lot of playcalling ideas sound beautiful when they never get tested, but trust me, if we implement the gameplan that to you seems so logical, I get a strange feeling we wouldn't be talking about a 10 win season here...

And lastly, as was posted a while ago, when you design an offense during the offseason, there's only so much you can teach your players. These guys aren't pros, they don't spend all day learning plays. You can't just say "oh, today we're gonna run a tech-type offense, and tomorrow an Ohio State type offense" ... it's not that simple.

by fathead on Jan 31, 2008 3:11 PM CST reply actions

i know they are not pros

but i remember my plan book being very, very thick (about 200 pages)and thats because i played in division II and we had to study every bit of information in there day and night all spring and summer long. now with that said we still only scripted about 60 - 75 base plays and then during the year the playbook would open up but still implementing no more than 60 -70 scripted plays. but your main point was the offensive line play and how it dont matter what plays you call if you aint got time you aint going to do anything consistantly, and im getting away from that. my bad fathead, good point my friend.

muckelroy doesnt do pushups... he pushes the earth down!

by kcc28 on Jan 31, 2008 4:28 PM CST up reply actions

Re:

The Constraint Theory of Offense, Chapter 1: Horizontalism is its Own Reward.

My adopted kid is pure genius at the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model.

by jc25 on Jan 31, 2008 5:49 PM CST reply actions

i think it's all semantics

he calls it 'constraints', i call it the other plays in your offensive series set up to make the defense wrong - again.

your bread-and-butter play is a play you can execute against any defense. the defense needs to mis-align itself, or weaken itself in some way to stop your bread-and-butter play. when they do that, you go to the next play in the series, and take advantage of that weakness.
i don't call it 'constraints', i call it series-based football.

by Beergut on Jan 31, 2008 11:12 PM CST reply actions

Its all semantics

But the fact is that when your Oline is not very good to begin with, and then more than half of your starters go out, you don't have a bread and butter. You a have a pita bread and refried beans.

by fathead on Feb 1, 2008 12:54 AM CST up reply actions