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Charlie Weis’ impact on the Erhardt-Perkins system

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Charlie Weis’ impact on the Erhardt-Perkins system

This article is also a good short breakdown of the other two primary ancestors of modern offensive football: The Air Coryell system and the West Coast system. A little bit on both:

Air Coryell

The Air Coryell offense is one that is being used by a handful of teams in the league today. Oakland and San Diego use it, New Orleans runs a variation of it along with some Erhardt-Perkins, and Chicago will be using it this year now that Mike Martz is the offensive coordinator in Chicago. It’s an offense that was created by Sid Gillman back in the 60′s while with the Chargers. Later Don Coryell perfected it or made it what it eventually became remembered for while with the Chargers in the 70′s and 80′s. Another notable name to be associated with this offense is none other than Al Davis who was an assistant under Sid Gillman and took the offense to Oakland. The offense is based on timing and precession with the emphasis being on deep passes to stretch the field, and make the defense over commit to certain aspects of the passing attack.

West Coast Offense

The West Coast offense utilizes short, horizontal passing plays to stretch the defense, which then enables them to have bigger run plays and longer passes. Typical plays happen within ten to fifteen yards of the line of scrimmage. By the quarterback taking short drops, it makes the defense focus on the intermediate short routes & not on the running backs coming out of the backfield. The term “West Coast” is a term that Bill Parcells gave the offense back in 1985 after the Giants beat the 49ers in the playoffs. As people know, Parcells believes in hard nose football and tough defense over finesse football which everyone said the 49ers played finesse football back then.

Finally we have how Charlie Weis set the stage for Josh McDaniels to take the Erhardt-Perkins offense to contain elements of a modern spread.

Charlie Weis can be credited for installing the heavily modified version of this offense that we see in New England and Denver. His version of the offense became the complicated, very intricate and versatile passing attack that we have witnessed over the past ten years. He even went as far as to run five wide out sets a lot during the course of a game which was unheard of back in the day when Erhardt and Perkins created this offense. Weis left for Notre Dame which open the door for the young protege Josh McDaniels to run what he had learned under Weis as the QB coach in New England. Josh took it to another level back in 2007 with Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth. He made the offense almost exclusively a spread offense that teams weren’t ready for nor knew how to stop with Moss & Welker needing to be double teamed. In leau of the expanded wide open passing attack, he was able to keep the running game portion of this offense a key component in the Patriots record breaking season.

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In Weis’s system, though, there is less to throw out than with many other NFL teams. Weis is more a believer in matchups than trickery, as is head coch Bill Belichick. He believes more in formations and player groupings than the foolproofness of any play in his playbook, a marked departure from a place like San Francisco, where they might have 55-100 plays on a list for any game and 400 or more in a playbook that looked like Volume A of the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

By contrast, Weis’s looks more like Volume V. There’s still plenty there, it’s just a little thinner and easier to carry, both by hand and in your mind.

“San Francisco could call 400 plays,” Weis said. “I have a different philosophy. I think you can cut down on the plays and get different looks from your formations and who’s in them. It’s easier for the players to learn. It’s easier for the quarterback to learn. You get different looks without changing his reads. You don’t need an open-ended number of plays.”

https://www.patspropaganda.com/in-weiss-system-though-there-is-less-to-throw/

Ideal lineman for the Erhardt-Perkins offensive system

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Ideal lineman for the Erhardt-Perkins offensive system

Good article here with another fundamental breakdown of the offense, but what I’d like to focus on are the types of offensive lineman required to run it because clearly this is still very much a part of the system.

This system uses bigger offensive lineman and typically bigger Running Backs who can sustain running between the tackles on a regular basis. The Offensive Tackles and Guards in this system typically “Pull” and “Trap”. What this means is, on a Running play that is designed to run to the right, let’s say in the B Gap or between the Guard and Tackle on the Right Side, the Left Guard will quickly leave his original position and become the lead blocker for the Running Back. This type of Rushing attack usually requires big Offensive Lineman who will be able to handle a large Defensive Tackle head on.

Hmmm, big, athletic offensive lineman? Clearly Vollmer and Solder are perfect examples.

Schein: Patriots #4 in Franchise Rankings

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Schein: Patriots #4 in Franchise Rankings

I’m kind of upset that on “intangibles”, which includes fan support, the Pats are ranked for 10th. Perhaps my blog, podcast, and general Patriots obsession could sway Schein up to a 9 for us? That’d move the Pats into a tie for 3rd. Though I can’t complain too much, the Jets have a 6 for intangibles. 

4. NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: 54.5

  • Owner: 10
  • Quarterback: 10
  • Coach: 10
  • Front office: 8
  • Coaching staff: 8
  • Intangibles: 8.5

The Patriots, no surprise, totaled a perfect 30 points in the categories of owner, head coach and quarterback. Bill Belichick was the only head coach to get a 10. Defections through the years in the front office and the coaching staff prevented total perfection and contributed to the fall from the top spot they held in 2009 and 2010.

Belichick on the 3-4 Defense

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During Fairbanks-Bullough 3-4 defense week we brought you some notes from a coaching clinic where Dean Pees gave some pointers on the Patriots defense. Today I found some additional notes and it looks like BB spoke there as well, so forgive me since we’re in the middle of Erhardt-Perkins offense week but I had to share.

Here’s what Belichick laid out…

Bill Belichick Head Coach New England Patriots

Patriot Football

Organization

  • Sign going into the football offices at Gillette Stadium – Do  Your Job
  • Create a division of labor 
  • Put together an organization to become the best
  • Tell staff what to do and say in situations
  • Be out in front of the direction of the team
  • Meets with captains every week because it’s a more manageable group to deal with
  • Allow players to make some decisions, create a connection to program
  • Group discipline and rewards-Works both ways

Setting up a D

  • Must be able to defend what you are going to see
  • Define how you will defend a basic set of problems
  • Regardless of your personnel the 3-4 is more flexible
  • Originally made it easier to sign and draft  players but is changing as more teams adapt 3-4
  • Maintain as much coverage flexibility as possible in order to take away best player 
  • Establish the front 7 to handle running game
  • Running game force is OLB
  • Set Edge
  • Force inside
  • DL two gap responsible, if no two gap must add secondary into run game D
  • If LB is being committed to one gap then secondary comes down
  • Quarters (cover 4) is #1 coverage, Cover 3 is #2.