psubills62
11-11-2011, 10:49 AM
I thought this was a good read. It's specifically about how Jim Harbaugh has simplified the offense for Alex Smith, but it involves principles that could easily apply to every offense.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7218353/quarterbacking-made-simple
As a summary, it's saying that the NFL offenses depend too much on sight adjustments, where receivers, OL, and QB all adjust the routes and protection based on blitzes. Instead of running the normal play, they all have to adjust at the same time to the hot routes. This can lead to incorrect reads by the QB or WR, and with zone blitzes, hot routes don't necessarily make sense all the time.
Thus, Harbaugh simply uses plays with built in hot reads. When Smith sees a blitz coming he changes his reads on the play, but none of the routes change from what was originally designed.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7218353/quarterbacking-made-simple
As a summary, it's saying that the NFL offenses depend too much on sight adjustments, where receivers, OL, and QB all adjust the routes and protection based on blitzes. Instead of running the normal play, they all have to adjust at the same time to the hot routes. This can lead to incorrect reads by the QB or WR, and with zone blitzes, hot routes don't necessarily make sense all the time.
Thus, Harbaugh simply uses plays with built in hot reads. When Smith sees a blitz coming he changes his reads on the play, but none of the routes change from what was originally designed.