(From my recent 1-5-23 FB post on multiple Seahawk pages)
I’m really struggling exactly how to explain that our problems on Defense are actually happening because of a continued hiccup in our Offense …actually, I’ve been trying to do this for weeks but not sure it’s getting through to people, SO, I’ve decided to instead let NFL Films – A Football Life: Bill Walsh do it instead.
Please watch this (scroll down for the video link) and rewatch again and again and again and…
I had two different Head Coaches in the late 80s in high school and BOTH, having never coached high school before, came directly from the college ranks, where pretty much every football organization in the country was running some form of the West Coast Offense by that time. My senior year Head Coach came through the UW football ranks under the Dawgfather (so the story goes) and I could watch Saturday afternoon Husky games, see how their offense lined up in formation, and literally be able to call the play BEFORE the ball was snapped…and I still have that playbook if anyone would like to see it.
I’ve taken the liberty to highlight key times in this short 8 minute clip that really hit home everything I’ve been trying to explain to people on FB over the last few weeks.
What I’ve been trying to explain is that our team’s defensive woes are a response from our OFFENSE because they are both so intertwined and hitched up to each other during a game. This will blow the minds of a LOT of people out there who have, for their whole lives, compartmentalized the defense and the offense as being two different things, and while in the micro they are, but in the macro, it’s really just all one massive machine, all trying to work together to win the game, and eventually the season, and right into a Super Bowl winning team.
If you insult me in the comments or for whatever reason feel the need to get personal with me, I’m going to block you, and I’m still not sure why so many people need to do that, but unfortunately that’s just the modern mass media manufactured Whack-A-Mole society we’re all in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6mFQvZxX88
Bill Walsh: A Football Life – The West Coast Offense
Highlights
Time 2:20 – Steve Young explaining how the short pass game was impossible for defenses to stop
Time 2:50 – Jerry Rice explains the importance (the whys) of QB to WR progressions – 1st receiver look, 2nd look, 3rd, and so on….
Time 3:10 – Steve Young (& Joe Montana) explains how confused he was with Walsh’s constant drone about his FOOTWORK as QB in the offense and the importance of the TIMING of the PLAY – Remember, the offense is a clock – “We put steps in here for a reason” – Joe Montana quotes Bill Walsh
Time 4:40 – The QB is more like a ballerina than a football player (my take)
Time 5:20 – How the defense is absolutely fixed to the (same team) offense even though they are not on the field at the same time – “death by a 1000 papercuts”
Time 6:25 – Offensive plays are SCRIPTED BEFORE the game is even STARTED
Time 6:43 – Steve Young NAILS IT!!! ….quotes BW “….if I could get players that would do what I told them to do”
Time 6:40 – How To beat the WCO by having aggressive FAST defenses that will BLOW UP plays that DESTROYS the CLOCK of the OFFENSE – Enter the Giants’ Lawrence Taylor (the game’s very first real EDGE rusher) and the Bears famed “46” Defense
And, lastly, what if you had a player on the offense who constantly decides to go rogue and does his own thing all the time? Wouldn’t that throw off the perfectly timed play, when everyone’s literal steps are all timed to the constant beat of a well honed and timed drum in the players’ head? Like, what if the drummer in a band suddenly decided to beat a half note randomly in the middle of the song, wouldn’t that throw off the timing of the guitar players, the keyboards, or the flutist?
And if that clock of the offense was constantly being thrown off by one of its own, wouldn’t he effectively just be doing the defense’s job for them? What if that ONE PLAYER…that ONE WOBBLING COG in the GRAND MACHINE of the TEAM basically become sort of like a TRAITOR to his army, his people, his WHOLE NATION because of his OWN SELFISHNESS, ARROGANCE, and PROFOUND NARCISSISM?
Here’s the KEY POINT – If your offense is getting bogged down on drives because just one player isn’t doing his job on EACH SCRIPTED PLAY, then those drives stall out. If the offensive drives stall out too much, then not only is it hard to score, obviously, but it takes the OFFENSE off of the field and keeps the DEFENSE on the field. If the DEFENSE is on the field too much, I don’t care how great your DC is, or how talented your players are, by the 4th quarter, they’re all going to be completely gassed.
When your players are completely exhausted (and this goes for you, me, everyone and every living animal), they tend to make bad DECISIONS in their HEADS. As complex as this game is, especially with all the changing safety rules, and a constantly shifting set of officiating standards week in and week out, defensive players can get EASILY confused.
Pete Carroll has always said “You can’t win the game in the 1st quarter, you can’t win the game in the 2nd quarter, you can’t win the game in the 3rd quarter, but you CAN win the game in the 4th quarter!”
So, if your defenders are all exhausted by the 4th quarter from being on the field for most of the previous 3 quarters BECAUSE YOUR OFFENSE CAN’T SUSTAIN LONG DRIVES…..then you are not going to WIN very many games and you can ALSO easily kiss any chance at the Super Bowl square away.
If DK doesn’t finally start to shape up and start realizing that he’s on a team that relies on his steady head to be in the game, AND TO RUN HIS RESPONSIBILITY ON EACH PLAY PERFECTLY WELL WITHOUT DISTRACTION OR CHASING THE BAIT OF HIS DEFENDER, then we will never win another championship and will always have very average mid winning/losing teams…
….and this, folks, is exactly how a team stays constantly irrelevant in the league for years or even decades.
“Fatigue makes cowards of us all” – General George S. Patton
End