West Coast Offense?

[HotDog37]

West coast offense=donk, dink and Dak on steroids.

Dak will be fine with it and Witten will play another 5 years.

Say it ain't so. Please. Say it ain't so. It. Can't. Happen.

 

[Zman5]

Sort of.

I don't think Dak Prescott would succeed in Bill Walsh's offense, he has real accuracy issues so this training camp will be interesting to watch.

Donovan McNabb was a 59% career passer and routinely threw passes in the dirt. He went to 4 NFCC and a SB playing in a WCO with pretty much no name receivers except TO for 1 season.
He did have few good RBs but our current RBs are better than what he had. Donavan was a better runner but Dak's a better passer than McNabb. Especially the short to intermediate passes.

 

[Captain43Crash]

As long as they don’t run a lot of crossing routes where Dak has a tendency to throw high or behind the WRs.

You have to throw crossing routes. That is on of the best ways to beat man to man. All teams has crossing routes in their offenses.

 

[MikeB80]

Donovan McNabb was a 59% career passer and routinely threw passes in the dirt. He went to 4 NFCC and a SB playing in a WCO with pretty much no name receivers except TO for 1 season.
He did have few good RBs but our current RBs are better than what he had. Donavan was a better runner but Dak's a better passer than McNabb. Especially the short to intermediate passes.

they had excellent running backs in philly with mcnabb and very good tight ends along with a very good offensive line. He was a terrific deep ball thrower and even though they were rooted in the west coast offense it was a mixture of many peoples interpretations of the walsh offense. They were a physical power running team that beat you up on both sides of the ball and like to throw deep.

I don't view Prescott as a better passer than mcnabb tbh. Very similar. Tough and can take a hit but very inaccurate. Mcnabb was a better deep ball thrower.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

I call false on saying that Dak doesn't have command of the offense. Also, you don't need to throw into tight window in the WCO. Your referring to more so to the Air Coryell offense which accuracy, reads, and timing is essential.

Call it what you want, you don't know what you are talking about. How is any QB going to have command of an Offense they have never played in? Also, you absolutely have to throw into tight windows with the WCO. Have you ever actually watched the WCO offense? I am not referring to a vertical Offense where you throw over the top. I am talking about multiple receivers running Crossing routes, backs flooding zones and TEs running drags and seems. I'm talking about 3 and 5 step drops where you pant that foot and the ball comes out and on target. It is an Offense where you must throw into small windows. It isn't a run and shoot type offense. I don't know how much RPO might be incorporated but the Offense that McCarthy has run in the past has called for some very accurate throwing into tight windows, on time. Read Building A Champion.

 

[MikeB80]

About 99.9% of fans/media refer to the Bill Walsh offense and it's it's derivatives as the West Coadt Offense.

At some point Defacto naming convention surpasses Technical definition...

yes. It doesn't change the fact that in the real football world the west coast offense was actually the Coryell offense from san diego that gibbs, turner, zampese ran......Bernie Kosar called it the west coast offense to DR.Z in an interview when he got to Dallas and people misunderstood and started calling the Walsh/Holmgren offenses the west coast offense.

That's why parcells used to always get flustered when he would get questions about playing the west coast offense when we would play reid/Holmgren/shanahan etc..

Doesn't matter anyway no one runs it like Bill Walsh did anyway.

 

[LatinMind]

So I have heard this mentioned several times by McCarthy.

I have watched the Packers bounce us out of the playoffs twice with it.

So what do you guys think about that aspect of the changing offense?

How does Dak fit that or will he struggle by having been in Linehan/Moore schemes?

Is it going to be obvious or a subtle change coming.?

We were lead to believe Moore had this profound change after Linehan was gone.

But I never saw much except we fell behind too often and had to throw to have any chance to stay in games.

Dak looked better but it was not due to design..it was due to have to.

So now West Coast?

Is this going to change anything?

Forum..check in.

Differing opinions welcome.

Well as i heard over and over McCarthy said he has used this yr to change up his philosophy a bit with his playcalling. So take that for whatever its worth. If thats the case then i think we might see something different than his norm.

But its probably not much different than what we see in Dallas anyways. As there are parts of the WCO that was used under Garrett.

 

[erod]

Yards per attempt this year:

Tannehill 9.6
Stafford 8.6
Garoppolo 8.4
Mahomes 8.3
Prescott 8.2

Oh, he threw it down field this year because Kitna told him to. We saw what that looked like.

I said he PREFERS to dink and dunk. He looks hesitant almost every time he lets it go unless the receiver is WIDE open.

 

[erod]

FYI, the QB who threw the deepest, on average, in 2019:

Avg Depth of Target
(min 300 att)
1 Winston
2 Wilson
3 Allen
4 Prescott
5 Fitzpatrick

Purely at the insistence of Kitna. That is not where he's comfortable at all. It looked shaky at best.

 

[FLCowboyFan]

I watched the GB super bowl game after he was announced on YouTube and really watched how he called plays and his offense.

What surprised me was how fast it looked. They got the ball out very quick and the WR’s all took off straight downfield as soon as they caught it. It was like watching it on fast forward. I know Rogers is a different QB than Dak but I’d love to see our team do the same thing.

 

[VaqueroTD]

Surprised no one has mentioned Coop. Yes, Dak might be more successful with it, but Coop IS the essential WCO receiver. Great routes, one speed. Coop somewhat reminds me of Jerry Rice when he's hot. Coop fell off just like Dak at the end of the year and need something to revive his career too if we're going to pay him $20-$25million a year. I am stoked about the offense. McCarthy's systems work better for our talent, even using Zeke more for receptions. He's the right guy to mold young Kellen Moore and finetune this offense that we all saw didn't deserve #1 in stats, but has the potential to be great.

 

[Tabascocat]

Surprised no one has mentioned Coop. Yes, Dak might be more successful with it, but Coop IS the essential WCO receiver. Great routes, one speed. Coop somewhat reminds me of Jerry Rice when he's hot. Coop fell off just like Dak at the end of the year and need something to revive his career too if we're going to pay him $20-$25million a year. I am stoked about the offense. McCarthy's systems work better for our talent, even using Zeke more for receptions. He's the right guy to mold young Kellen Moore and finetune this offense that we all saw didn't deserve #1 in stats, but has the potential to be great.

Yup, it just became a little more important to sign Cooper. Bease would be nice right about now too

 

[garyo1954]

West Coast Offense - The best definition I've found is from Bill Walsh himself. He says, "to control the ball with the forward pass. To do that we have to have versatility-versatility in the action and types of passes thrown by the quarterback."

It appears that by the end of his tenure in Green Bay defensive coordinators had caught up to him unlike earlier when he had superior talent in the majority of cases and the Pack were able to impose their will on the opponent. At that point Mike got away from motions, shifts, and bunch formations. He began to pick up pet plays that had worked time and time again. At the same time Ted Thompson wasn't restocking the roster as he had in earlier years. This led to the compound problem of declining talent, with a head coach stuck in a rut.

Fast forward to 2018: Mike calls one of his pet, tried and true situational pet plays. Aaron comes to the line, see the defense has already sniffed out the play and changes the play.

Mike is not happy. But he can't see what Aaron is looking at on the field.
Aaron is mad that Mike is mad since it seems that Mike is questioning Aaron's competence in reading a defense.
Aaron tells Mike the offense has gotten "stale" which, although true, doesn't help the situation.
And that's how we got to where we are today.

Bill Walsh's definition of West Coast offense is probably the best general definition of what it is we could have. But Bill went on to lay out certain concepts of design for different areas of the field and situations faced in a given game. He defined what formations and what type passes were most effective in the carious situations and areas.

By those definitions Mike was running the purest form of Bill Walsh's system as he learned from Paul Hackett. The knock on McCarthy was 1) he was using the same route combinations used for years, 2) doing away with shifts, motions, and bunches, and 3) wouldn't commit to a run game, or a running back.

Whatever we do get will require an extremely accurate QB who can read the defense quickly and who can throw in traffic, executing a given play exactly within a given time frame. And we need receiver who can catch in traffic, and run precise routes the same way each and every time. There is an exception to this rule called a rollout pass or waggle where the QB gets out of the path of an inside rush where he had a direct line of sight to his receiver and can throw the ball with a flatter trajectory since (in most cases) there will be no one between him and the receiver.

For the most part there will be timing patterns. If the receiver breaks before the ball is thrown, the defender has a chance to recover. If the QB holds the ball too long, the defender has a chance to recover.

Everything has to be done exactly the same way each time or the play fails.

These concepts, in a large nutshell, is what to expect from McCarthy's newer, cleaner, updated version of the West Coast he plans to employ in Dallas. And let's suspect we'll see update route combinations, jet motion, and some spread of the principles Andy Reid adapted.

(If you really get into it, you could spend several pages laying the different concepts and designs of the various flavors of the West Coast Offense, each with their own nuances.)

 

[Redball Express]

Agreed. I think we'll see a lot more of the screen/short passing game as a compliment to the run game.

That means fewer rushing attempts, specifically, but it should have the same impact.

So does Zeke fit this role as a pass catching RB.?

I am not as sure. There has been a lot of talk about getting Zeke more involved in the passing attack but he only had 400 or so passing yards this year.

Is that what we should expect in a WCO?

Should we see less running yds as a result.?

 

[Future]

So does Zeke fit this role as a pass catching RB.?

I am not as sure. There has been a lot of talk about getting Zeke more involved in the passing attack but he only had 400 or so passing yards this year.

Is that what we should expect in a WCO?

Should we see less running yds as a result.?

Of course he fits, he's an excellent receiver. The lack of productivity this year, if we call it that, is just that they didn't use him int he passing game as much.

I think Zeke's total yards will go up, but rushing yards will go down in the ideal McCarthy offense.

 

[garyo1954]

So does Zeke fit this role as a pass catching RB.?

I am not as sure. There has been a lot of talk about getting Zeke more involved in the passing attack but he only had 400 or so passing yards this year.

Is that what we should expect in a WCO?

Should we see less running yds as a result.?

Best I can tell from my understanding of McCarthy's new concepts, he's designed running and passing plays off the same formation for various situations. That would incline me to believe he has a better understanding and more respect for the run game.

But don't get me lying. He could fall back to the being the old Mike, still a head above Jason Garrett which Mike shows up. (I think)

 

[Redball Express]

I have no issue with using the WCO with added wrinkles. In reality, I'm ok with whatever we choose to do as long we dont totally abandon the run game which is something weve seen is a detriment to this team. Zeke has shown hes durable enough to carry the ball alot and I think hes our best offensive weapon assuming our o-line stays healthy.

I will say that assuming we use alot of short passing routes under McCarthy, Dak needs to quickly figure out how to lead slant passes much better then he has. I'm not trying to put it all on him but he does need to lead these receivers so they can turn these short passes into long gains.

My take on not leading receivers was more obvious once his shoulder was hurt.

He was not striding into his throw but sort of using an in b/w motion.

It had less velocity and was late or behind.

Regardless..

He needs to get well and needs more flexibility in that shoulder if he is going to still run.

 

[blueblood70]

WCO I doubt it ..if his year off taught him anything, analytics say adapt or die..his old system has video and ways to beat it going back 25yrs so....

I'm seeing the Kellen Moore retention as a sign they will take a version from both systems and create a hybrid to tailor it to our players and to attack different defenses....so hopefully this staff has plan to never have one plan, they will look at the upcoming opponent and implement a game plan to beat that defense..

MM will have to adapt and infuse some new ear plays into his playbook..

 

[MikeB80]

So does Zeke fit this role as a pass catching RB.?

I am not as sure. There has been a lot of talk about getting Zeke more involved in the passing attack but he only had 400 or so passing yards this year.

Is that what we should expect in a WCO?

Should we see less running yds as a result.?

The running game will be fine.
2000 - NO - Ricky Williams - 1000 yards
2001 - NO - Ricky Williams - 1245 yards
2002 - NO - Deuce McCallister - 1388 yards
2003 - NO - Deuce McCallister - 1641 yards
2004 - NO - Deuce McCallister - 1074 yards
2005 - SF - Kevin Barlow 581 yds, Frank Gore 608 yds, Maurice Hicks 308 Yds
2006 - GB - Ahman Green 1059 yards
2007 - GB - Ryan Grant 956 yards
2008 - GB - Ryan Grant 1203 yards
2009 - GB - Ryan Grant 1253 yards
2010 - GB - James Starks - 315 yards
2011 - GB - James Starks - 578 yards
2012 - GB - Alex Green - 464 yards
2013 - GB - Eddie Lacy - 1178 yards
2014 - GB - Eddie Lacy - 1139 yards
2015 - GB - Eddie Lacy - 758 yards
2016 - GB - Ty Montgomery - 457 yards
2017 - GB - Jammal Williams - 556 yards
2018 - GB - Aaron Jones - 728 yards.....McCarthy fired during the season.

No one should be worried about the running game. McCarthy will use Zeke and he will have a great season.

 

[garyo1954]

My take on not leading receivers was more obvious once his shoulder was hurt.

He was not striding into his throw but sort of using an in b/w motion.

It had less velocity and was late or behind.

Regardless..

He needs to get well and needs more flexibility in that shoulder if he is going to still run.

With the West Coast offense leading receivers will be less worry. Since it uses timing patterns the ball and the receiver should arrive at the same spot at the same time by design. That's in a perfect world but we know how that works in the NFL.