SB Nation: The Future is Already Here: How the Pistol Offense is Changing the NFL

[SkinsHokieFan]

Great article written by Chris Brown of smartfootball.com

Part of the discussion we have had over the past few weeks is about running an "NFL offense" My argument has been that the pistol elements which the Redskins/Seahawks/49ers/Panthers are now running, in part to the talent at the QB spot, will be the future, and the attack that Andrew Luck is running, which he is asked to force the ball down field and is committing many turnovers

Great read

“There are no gimmicks in our offense,” Nevada head coach Chris Ault recently explained. [source]. “When the shotgun offenses came out, I enjoyed watching those teams move the football. The thing I did not like was the idea of a running back getting the ball running east and west,” he said. “We have always been a north and south running game offense.”

The entire premise of Ault’s pistol attack is to combine the best of the shotgun spread offenses, like Chip Kelly’s attack at Oregon [source], with the traditional, north-south power attack Ault had coached for more than 20 years. The Pistol alignment is merely the means by which to do it; the “Pistol Offense” is this blend of old and new.

It is easy to see why Ault’s vision had more appeal to the NFL mindset than the “east-west” schemes of Chip Kelly or the other spread offense gurus.

What was not strange were the teams’ tactics. In high school and college, football has been rapidly changing. New variations on the read-option, no-huddle and all manner of other new offensive strategies seem to pop up every year. There, change is normal. But I wasn’t watching two high schools, or even two teams from the Mid-American Conference or the Big 12. No, what made the game odd was that I was watching the San Francisco 49ers and the New England Patriots in the National Football League.

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