Shutdown Corner is proud and pleased to announce the addition of Greg Cosell to our list of writers and analysts. Greg has been with NFL Films since 1979, and invented the concept of advanced football analysis on television in 1984 when he and Steve Sabol engineered the “NFL Matchup” concept for ESPN. The show has run ever since, and Greg has always been its executive producer. As you know if you’ve listened to our podcasts with Greg over the last two years , he brings a unique and comprehensive view to pro and college football with his decades of experience watching coach’s tape, and speaking with scouts, coaches, and personnel executives throughout the league. Greg will bring his perspective to the draft process, and to the NFL game in general, through a series of articles that begins with his take on the recent schematic changes at the quarterback position at the professional level. As I prepare for my 15 th NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, I am more intrigued than ever by the evolution of offense in the NFL. Many saw the 2012 season as the dawning of a new, ground-breaking era, one few could have seen coming just a few short years ago. Those who viewed this past season as a demarcation point focus on the respective successes of Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III. Their mastery of the Pistol and the read option offenses was seen as clear evidence of a significant change in NFL culture — the fusion of the college game, once seen as separate and distinct, with the more “advanced” and “better” NFL version. Of course, there’s more to it than that. The Pistol was not new in the NFL this past season. In fact, it was utilized extensively in 2008 in Kansas City. The offensive coordinator was Chan Gailey, and the quarterback was Tyler Thigpen. I remember a conversation I had with Ron Rivera, then the defensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers; he told me how difficult the Pistol was to defend, primarily due to the ability of Thigpen to run the ball effectively. Thigpen started 11 games that season, threw 18 touchdown passes and ran for 386 yards. The Chiefs, however, only won one of those 11 games. Thigpen was gone the next season. The main reason: he could not throw the ball well enough to be a consistent NFL starter, no matter what formation or offensive concepts were deployed. Similarly, the read option was not a revolutionary NFL idea in 2012. The Carolina Panthers, with rookie Cam Newton, used it often a year ago with success, well before Tim Tebow became the starter for the Denver Broncos. Denver won games with Tebow running the read option, but individually and offensively as a whole, Tebow and the Broncos were not very good. Again, the reason was basic: Tebow was not a good enough passer. Why did Newton struggle throughout 2012? The Panthers clearly committed to the shotgun, with more extensive utilization of the read option. No one would argue Newton’s talent. The reason Newton, and the Carolina offense, struggled was simple: Newton was erratic and scattershot throwing the ball from the pocket. As good as he was as a runner manipulating the read option (ask the Atlanta Falcons, they’ll tell you), his inability to throw consistently reduced him to an uncertain week-to-week player. At the 2006 combine, I had a great conversation with Rick Neuheisel, then the quarterback coach for the Baltimore Ravens. Neuheisel had predominantly been a college coach up to that point, and he felt strongly that the read option (the Pistol features read option concepts) would work in the NFL if coaches would only broaden their thinking. The ability of the quarterback to run on any given play would put such stress on the defense, Neuheisel believed, that extra bodies would be needed to defend that, and coverages would then be simplified and easily defined before the snap of the ball. There’s no question Neuheisel was right, as we saw this season with Kaepernick, Wilson and Griffin, but there’s a caveat, and it’s critical. There are two elements that must be in place for the read option to be successful. The first may be obvious, but it’s so important it can’t be overstated: it is the quarterback’s viability as a runner. Without that, the read option has no value. Only the quarterback as a meaningful running threat forces defenses to alter their gap control concepts, and the number of defenders allocated to defend the myriad run schemes. That has been lost in this fervor over the read option — it’s solely a function of the quarterback as runner. That is what dictates the defensive reaction, the need to always account for the quarterback. Another gap must be defended, and therefore another player is required. Is that enough for the read option to be a staple component of an NFL offense? Can an average passer be a quality, or even a high level quarterback, simply because the offense is predicated on the read option? The answer is a definitive “no.”
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Cosell’s Take: Running quarterbacks are great, but throwing from the pocket is still the best option (Shutdown Corner)