Back to the original West Coast offense?

[NDPackerFan]

I apologize in advance if this has been posted already but....

does anyone see a possibility of getting back to the old west coast style offense a la Mark Chmura and Keith Jackson now that we have David Martin playing to his potential and Donald Lee up and coming, not to mention Bubba Franks coming back sometime soon from his knee injury?

I loved those days where Brett was checking down to RB's or finding the TE in the middle of the field between the 20 yard lines. It seemed unstoppable.

 

[rabidgopher04]

They'd have to start running more screens.

In fact, I noticed Tony Fisher had a lot of receptions against New Orleans. Perhaps now that they have 2 decent TEs they can do those kinds of things once again.

 

[NDPackerFan]

I agree rabidgopher04, the screen play, once a staple in the offense, has almost been totally forgotten. Remember the glory days when the Packers would run a screen? The announcer almost invariably would say something like, "The Packers execute the screen better than any team in the NFL!" I wish a had a quarter for every time I heard an announcer say that back in the day...

 

[rabidgopher04]

Well, in recent times our signature play has become the U-71 sweep to the outside (kind of like the old Green Bay sweep) instead of the screen.

Looking at our running back situation it seems fairly obvious to me which direction we need to go (and it's not so much on the ground).

 

[NDPackerFan]

Couldn't agree more. There was a time where you almost considered a check-down pass to the RB a "running play" so to speak. It may only gain 4 yards but that's considered a "win" when you hand the ball off.

Favre may throw 30+ passes a game from here on out and it may not be a bad thing. The line isn't exactly blowing people off the ball but they seem to keep Favre fairly clean, relatively speaking.

 

[yooperfan]

I believe we will see this now with so many injuries and an anemic running game.
Some will say it won't work because defenses have figured it out but I disagree.
The Packers of the 60's didn't run alot of offensive plays and everyone knew what was coming but that didn't stop them. What they ran they executed so well that they couldn't be stopped very effectively and I believe the old west coast can be very effective in the same way.
The key is perfect or near perfect execution.

 

[NDPackerFan]

Exactly yooperfan,

The old West Coast utilized **** and dunk passing but it involved so many receivers, it was very difficult to stop. Short passes to RB's, TE's, WR's, I just feel that it goes right with Brett's strengths. Remember the young days of #4 where he almost would always go to Sterling Sharpe? That got him in trouble back in those days a little bit, but he matured so much in that time that now, it's common for him to hit 8-10 different receivers in a game. Talk about spreading the ball around! He doesn't see the name on the back of the jersey, that's fer sure! If you're open, he'll get you the ball.

The thing that I like so much about the West Coast in its true form is that is forced coverage to come up and the safeties couldn't stay so deep preventing the deep ball. Favre took many shots over the top and were successful because of it. I hope we can get back to some of that now.

 

[spillage]

All the above posts cite the idea that the running game is suffering (which you have to agree with). But as I am reading I am picturing Driver and Ferguson are better grabbing the quick slant passes and then getting Y.A.C . As much as the running game needs something else I also think the passing game would be improved. I don't think Farve is actually the best deep ball passer, and is more effective at the short and midrange throws. The whole team is currently better geared for the the West Coast offense to return.

 

[dhpackr]

dbl TE set was unstopable!

 

[rabidgopher04]

All the above posts cite the idea that the running game is suffering (which you have to agree with). But as I am reading I am picturing Driver and Ferguson are better grabbing the quick slant passes and then getting Y.A.C . As much as the running game needs something else I also think the passing game would be improved. I don't think Farve is actually the best deep ball passer, and is more effective at the short and midrange throws. The whole team is currently better geared for the the West Coast offense to return.

And I believe that's how he got so many TDs in the mid-90s. They'd pass the ball a lot, run a bunch of screens especially using 2 TE sets down in the red zone.

They always used the run to set up the pass (incidentally that's how I play on Madden too) and I think that might be the winning formula for this team down the stretch.

 

[NDPackerFan]

I think you'll see more double TE sets in the next few weeks along with some possible 3 TE sets. Lee and Martin are coming in to their own and Bubba will be back full-time soon. Things are looking up...