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Last year, while our defense struggled, I brought you an article about all the myriad of issues that confronted it, how it was supposed to function, and what was wrong. Well, surprise, this year, I'm giving you a look at the Bills' offense. As we all know its been terrible since around Thanksgiving last year. Some of those problems last season were largely due to weather, however, a few issues that surfaced then still plague this team. For the course of this review, I'll go over some basics of the "Gilbride" offensive system, its strengths and weaknesses, what teams are doing to us, and then go back over Bledsoe and his strengths and weaknesses as a player, and what could be done now, this year, to fix the problems confronting us.
First, some basic football passing routes:
Cross: Route across the middle of the field, usually the receiver is running parallel with the line of scrimmage. A good rout to use against tight man, or deeper zones
Slant: Angle route over the middle. Very good against man… likely get your WR killed against a zone.
Hitch: Straight curl route, where the WR runs straight and stops, turning in. Very good against zone coverage.
Out: Sideline pattern, where the WR takes a break to the sideline, this is better against man than zone, as the pass has a long way to travel, and the DBs will have a good chance to break on the pass.
Straight: Route straight downfield.
Flat: Flair pass to the HB or slot receiver in the "flat"
Seam: Pass designed to beat the zone, its basically a straight deep route, altered in pattern to split between the deep DBs.
Fly: Straight route down the sideline
Post: Deep slant route. A good route against both zones and man, mainly will work based upon the location of the safeties.
Hook and Go: The receiver runs the basic hitch, or hook route, designed to get the CB to bite on it, and then turns up field for a deep pass. This is best against man, or an aggressive zone coverage.
The System
Gilbride's offensive system has its roots in back to the 1970's with what was then called the "double slot offense". It's innovator was a High School football coach in Ohio, Glenn "Tiger" Ellison. The Run 'n Shoot was a pass first, pass second and pass third offensive system, where the teams using it wouldn't carry a fullback or even tight end on their roster, and the basic formation was 4 WRs, and 1 RB. The playbook itself contained just one planned running play to the running back, the draw, and the running back was there for no real reason than to give a 6th blocker to the QB, and threaten the pass rush with draws and screens. ........MORE........
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