True, I probably should not assume that. Though I think the point is that a fan knows what play they are running from the line of scrimmage, let alone any one that does football for a living.
Eh, that's still a little wrong, a little right.
How it's right: As we are a zone running team, we basically have 4 running plays. Inside Left, Inside Right, Outside Right, Outside Right. We have more, but those four are probably 80-90%% of everything. The balance would be fullback dives, draws, a little bit of gap/pulling guards, and the odd end around/jet sweep.
How it's wrong: The verbiage of a WCO in theory allows near unlimited pass plays. The small novels of calls in the huddle basically expands out to "X, run this. Y, run this. Z, run this. Back, chip block and do this..." They also likely have common combinations of routes, but the point holds.
The idea that we can "call the play from home" overly simplifies playcalls in the NFL. Sure, you might be able to guess run/pass, but that's a 55/45 proposition at worst. I'd hope a knowledgable fan at home
would guess a lot of those correctly.
But just looking at run plays. You'd have to successfully guess Run. Then direction. Then wide or inside. I doubt you or anyone else (certainly myself included) could get all three successive guess right without actual statistics in front of us. And we might still get it wrong, depending on how you "score" a cutback run.
Pass plays are harder yet, as there are 5 eligible receivers on the field and (at minimum) 9 common routes each could run (using the more commonly understood Air Coryell route tree: see here
http://cdn3.sbnation.com/assets/3893711/Coryell_Route_Tree_medium.jpg . I believe there are more routes in the modern WCO. I don't know of the Slugo route under Coryell.)
So once again, you've correctly guessed "pass." What is the actual play call? What routes are all 5 receivers doing? Worse, can we prove if you were right if we can't see the 2-4 receivers who go down field and leave the screen?
Of course, this isn't just blind defense of MM. I do think he relies too heavily on 11 personnel. To my memory, he used to do more subbing, particularly 2006-2010. I'd like to see such approaches as: A drive of all different groupings. Hurry up out of TE heavy sets (non-traditional heavy sets.) 4WR sets that have fake end arounds/jet sweeps and in general more motion. His base 11-personnel no huddle. I want variety in the pre-snap. I'm reasonably okay with the post-snap, at least in terms of play calls.
