Wildcat Offense (From 8/17/09)

The Wildcat Formation is nothing but a trend in the NFL and will only be around until the defense figures out how to stop it effectively and consistantly. The Wildcat took off like a wildfire because nobody had prepared for it and then more and more teams started doing it. Let's all think back to any trend we have ever encountered and thought about the life of these trends. First, not a lot of people know about it and they act like it's great. After a while more and more people find out about it through the grape vines and everyone ends up getting it sooner or later. After awhile its allure starts to wear off after everyone gets used to it and then it just slowly goes away and gets shuffled out by a new trend. That is the trend lifestyle and we have all experienced it in our life. That is unless the thing breaks out of being a trend and has some staying power, that which the Wildcat does not.

Why? Think about it for a minute. The Wildcat isn't anything new. How many times do we see college teams run the same style of plays that encompass the playbook that is the Wildcat? College analysts don't sit around arguing about the Wildcat formation. I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about the Wildcat in the college ranks anyway. Why? People run it already. Vince Young ran it in Texas. Tim Tebow runs it in Florida. It's not even a Wildcat. I don't even know what the Wildcat is. If having a running back in the backfield is called the Wildcat, why is it then having a running quarterback in shotgun formation with a running back next to him called shotgun formation? College teams run it all the time, this new and innovative "formation". Now for college teams is the spread formation, which will have staying power in the college ranks.

The Steelers don't run the Wildcat. The Cardinals don't run the Wildcat. The only team that really ran the Wildcat last year was the Dolphins and they got ousted in the first round by Baltimore's sound defense. It's a great way to try to throw a cog in the defense, but eventually more and more teams will be able to hammer out the issues and stop the Wildcat. The great teams already can. Not to mention the great teams don't need to try to run this gimmick offense. With trends, there are the people who are above the trends and don't give in to the temptation, and then there were the guys who never got in on the trend and got left behind. You know, the kids who were too cool to play Pokemon or bring Pogs to school because they didn't care either way, and then the kids who show up one day with his Game Boy at recess weeks after everyone else started doing something else. The great teams don't need to run the spread, and some of the bad teams probably should but don't for unknown reasons. I'm looking at you Oakland.

You know why this offense won't stay? Because a team is only going to run the formation so many times during a game for one. The day that I see a team like the Dolphins line up with Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams in the backfield more than fifty percent of the time is the day I will actually consider the staying power of the Wildcat. If a team runs about 70 plays a game, how many of those are devoted to the Wildcat formation? Ten? Fifteen? I'll give up ten-fifteen gimmick run plays a game and focus on stopping the pass game. This formation is based upon misdirection and decision making by the psuedo QB/RB/whoever's getting the snap. You have to have your defensive ends play football 101 and stay home as well as your linebackers.

Going back to college, you see schools all the time that run these gimmick style offenses like Navy or like Texas Tech, two extremes for a football and all with Navy doing nothing but run and Texas Tech doing nothing but pass, and that is all they do. Navy will have maybe ten pass plays called while Tech will have maybe ten run plays called all game long. Those aren't gimmick offenses, that is their offense and that is the strategy and the mindset that they have. Nebraska is an option-based team and that is all they run. You do not see teams like these in the NFL. You don't have an option-based NFL team. The closest way to label a team in the NFL is by maybe the spread offense or the West-coast offense, and that is a total maybe. You will see the Pats and the Colts line up with four wide receivers but the strategy changes game by game. Maybe one game the deep ball is there, maybe one game they focus on doing a lot more screens and short passes. If you play Texas Tech or Nebraska in college, you know what your going to get, the strategy may change here and there, but it isn't the drastic change that NFL teams make in game.

The reason why the Wildcat will not have staying power is because a team won't devote their entire offense to running it. It's too risky, and I will guarantee that the Wildcat will become less and less popular as the season goes along when teams see that they can't beat the great teams using it. Nobody is beating the Steelers by running the Wildcat, they are too good of a defense to get tricked and get forced out of position, two things the Wildcat needs to happen to be succesful. Average teams will get beat by it, but the more and more that teams see it, the more and more they will get accustomed to it, and won't get tricked and get found out of position. Good coaches don't get caught up in these new, sexy trends, they stay by their own philosophies. That's why they are good coaches and why you always see the same teams in the playoffs every year.

Pop-Culture and History

I'm a historian. I like to study the past. I like knowing where something came from. I like to know what forefathers paved the way for the stuff we have today. I like to know why certain people have certain influences. I like this kind of stuff. I also like pop-culture, more-so sports, music, and movies/TV shows to be exact. That's where my two loves cross paths.

See, I don't care that I'm living in the now. I would rather listen to The Who over any band that had a hit this year. I may enjoy listening to Shinedown or Kings of Leon but I'll take The Who. It's not because they are perceived to be such a great band, it's because they are, simply, that good. I like substance. I like searching for substance. I like abusing those substances (puns intended). I like searching for good music, good movies, good TV, good sports players. I like learning about them. I like to dissect why they are perceived as good, and this brings me to my next point.

Throughout all of this digging through different time periods, I have formed a good background of knowledge in the pop-culture regime. So then, when someone claims that they have been influence by Nirvana or 2Pac, upon listening to their stuff I should be able to notice those influences. It's just like when someone says that they were influenced by Brett Favre on the football field. If I watch you play and see you're like a statue in the pocket, I would scream foul on your claims of being influenced by Brett Favre. Anyway, that's what I like the most: being able to understand the references made by people when they jot down their heroes. If I had never heard The Beatles before I would be doing nothing more than blankly nodding my head towards a TV screen upon watching an interview of some band saying they were influence by The Beatles. But because I know a decent amount of The Beatles, I can understand why they would be influenced by them.

It's more than just knowing of someone or something that's great. It blows my mind sometimes when someone speaks about great movies and includes movies that have been assimilated into greatness even though they have never seen them. Just because the general consensus of people think that something's great doesn't mean that it is great, or that you have to think it's great. If I wanted to know a bland list of great movies or music I would read one. If you were to write out a top 5 of greatest players in the history of the NBA and included Wilt Chamberlain, you better be ready to defend that statement (especially against me), and just because he is thought of to be one of the greatest of all time doesn't cut it.

It also drives me wild when others don't do this sort of thing. I hate narrow-mindedness. Maybe narrow-mindedness isn't accurately describing it, but it will have to do. If you claim to love rap music but haven't listened to anything pre DMX or Ja-Rule, I can't take you seriously. A more accurate description of your love for rap music would be that you love the Lil Wayne era of rap (also, anyone who lists Lil Wayne in any favorites list loses credibility with me instantly because there's no way anyone can justify having Lil Wayne as their favorite rapper, I will shoot holes through any argument you bring forth). If your going to be a fan of a genre of music, why wouldn't you be a fan of the greatest stuff that genre has produced? I would much rather watch Hoosiers or The Karate Kid over any sports movie made since Varsity Blues came out. I would also much rather watch Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction over any movie that has come out this year (or last year, or the last two years, or three...). In the entertainment of today, people are mesmerized by flashy sights and loud noises and the preference for flash supplants the preference for substance. I'd much rather sit through the entire Godfather trilogy back-to back-to back than watch the new Terminator movie no matter how many times I've watched the Godfather flicks.

What I'm saying in my rumbled, jumbled, redundant thought process is that people who haven't listened to genuine old-school (at least twenty years, please) musical acts or bands that were forefathers for musical acts of today drive me crazy. At least know that The Ramones were looked at as the first punk rock group. People who haven't watched movies that are great movies, not great indie flicks, not great cult flicks, but movies that really are perceived to be great and included on greatest movies lists (like the aforementioned Godfather for instance, which really is a good fuckin' movie) drive me crazy. It's not like you gotta travel back to Gone With The Wind times either. People who decide to include Joe Namath on greatest quarterbacks of all time with no real jurisdiction drive me nuts. Matter of fact, anyone who doesn't get paid to discuss sports drives me nuts. There are only about three people who I can have a serious sports conversation with. One of them is my brother and I don't know the other two. I follow sports too religiously. Sorry, I don't care if I sound like a jackass but it's true. I will have forgotten more about sports in this year than anyone I know will learn about sports in their lifetime. Just please, at least know that Elgin Baylor paved the way for Michael Jordan.

I like having conversations in which I can either A) learn new things about a subject I didn't know about or B) have an interesting back-and-forth stimulating debate with someone (except anyone claiming Lil Wayne is great, I don't care how cultivating the argument is) that makes me revalue my own thoughts and opinions. Come on people, It's not like I'm saying you can't enjoy Transformers 2 (or even Lil Wayne), and I'm not saying everyone must conform and think The Beatles, The Godfather, The Wire, and Brett Favre are the greatest in their respective genres and categories. Just get a little historical knowledge and background and perspective. At least you could justify why you think 2Pac is the greatest rapper of all-time despite not having heard a single song off anything other than his Greatest Hits album.

To An Athlete Dying Young

We always here about things like this happening in another town in a different county or in a different state altogether; events that have no bearing to our lives whatsoever. We walk into another school while on a basketball trip and see a glass case perched on a wall close to the entrance which has an asortment of different items arranged around a picture set in the middle. The pictures differ from town to town, sometimes it may be just a normal school picture of a student with small heirlooms hanging around the image, other times it may be a student's athletic picture and his or her varsity letter nearby. There always seems to be a small passage included that can be read, describing the person's life and passions. In every case though, the glass case holds the same meaning, a memorandum of a life taken too early.I'll be the first one to admit that I cannot fully put Turner Price's life into perspective. I've only really known him for about three years, starting on the football field after school at practice my senior year and his freshman year. Once a week I had the pleasure to be guarded by him on either those painfully hot August/September days or those blistering cold October/November days. Every Wednesday would be when both the varsity and JV practiced special teams. I was on the punt team occupying my usual position of receiver, and he was lined up opposite me looking to try and slow my pursuit. Usually this is the time when the nasty upperclassmen would take advantage of the slower and weaker underclassmen, but I never tried to embarass him. Sometimes I'd take it easy and let him get in a good block here and there, and somehow my acting was decent enough for the coache's to notice, because I can remember many times when we would come back to our respective huddles and he would get great praise and I would get critisized. It didn't matter to me, I could tell that it made his day and he would gain more confidence each and every week when he was probably barely 5'5" and maybe 120 lbs. I barely knew the kid, but I could tell that he was someone that never gave up and always gave his all no matter the circumstances. I'm not sure how many years it's been since the last time a tragedy has touched down upon this town of Battle Mountain, NV. What I'm really not sure of his how long it's been since a tragedy touched down onto this town involving so many young people. There have been deaths before, most noticeably Matt Stoddard not too long ago and before then Kevin Clark which happened about 7 years ago. Before then I remember a time when I was in 4th grade and a young girl was killed in an accident during the winter. I can recall a classmate of my older cousin's passing on, and of course the infamous Colby Becker and Kyle Ray murders. For me, and all of my friends, there is one glaring difference between those examples and the tragedy we found ourselves a part of: we knew the people involved. We know them, we have hung out with them, we've played sports together, we've slept over at their houses. In my case, Turner was my brother's friend growing up, and someone who I didn't meet until football my senior year. We didn't really get to become friends until about a year before his death when we met up at the lake for a weekend. After then, our friendship continued to grow over that first summer. I gave him tips to use in football, in basketball, heck I told him he should wear my old number. Yes, we've all known people who have died before, whether it be a grandparent or someone else's relative or whomever, but I don't think a lot of us have ever experienced something quite like this, a friend, someone who is basically the same age give or take a few years, passing on.Everyone knows the cliche that's out there about how the youth think they are so indestructable, that nothing ever bad will happen to us and the beliefs that we will all live to be a hundred years old. Where was the danger in the precedings on Wednesday, August 6th of 2008? It was a group of friends who were heading out to a big swimming hole. I've taken that drive loads of time, it's a place where almost every kid who has lived in this town has visited. We may as well call ourselves relatively lucky.Right now and for the next few days, maybe weeks, probably whenever we think back to Turner, everyone that knew him will wonder basically the same question, why? Why him? Why did he have to die? Why did his tire suddenly explode? Why did God take him away? Why did he decide to drive out there in the first place? No matter how many times asked, we all get the same fruitless response summed up best as "I don't know" because nobody knows why events like this have to happen. For those who don't know the story, Turner was driving his jeep out of town to an old swimming hole with three of his friends, followed by a couple other vehicles. It was basically just another trip, but on his way out there his left front tire exploded, and Turner was not able to control his vehicle as it swerved left then violently right as he tried to gain control before swinging back left off the road and then rolling a good distance into the desert. The other three passengers escaped with little to no injuries, but Turner's head smashed the driver's side window when the vehicle started to roll. That was basically all that happened to him, and it was enough.A few months ago a top high school running back from California was murdered outside his house and here's a transcript of the events that followed, written by Bill Simmons from espn. com. "When Jas came up 10 months shy, his senseless murder received national attention because of his football ability and a fascinating wrinkle that his mother, Anita, happened to be serving the country overseas in Iraq. The Associated Press filed an extensive story that landed in nearly every newspaper and on nearly every Web site. CNN filmed an interview with Anita Shaw for Anderson Cooper's show. The Los Angeles Times wrote an initial story and a few days of follow-ups. Every L.A. network led its newscast with the story. There was a candlelight vigil after Jas' death that attracted a phalanx of cameras."Not taking anything away from the person in question from the story, I had a feeling that we wouldn't have too many news vans rolling up to our town. We got a nice story in our local newspaper and a few towns from outside the area published a story as well. The Reno Gazette-Journal ran a story to my surprise as well. We had a candlelight vigil in the park located right in front of his house where a lot of us got the courage to get up on top of a park bench and shared stories commemorating Turner's life. That is just about the only justice that Turner will get for his life, four newspapers running a story on him. Outside these walls of Battle Mountain, NV, Turner will become just another picture encompassed within a glass case with his varsity letter holding a football, basketball, and baseball pin and bar representing his years served on the high school sport's teams. Other schools probably caught wind of this, but as the years pass, say five, six years from now, three random kids might be wandering the halls before a basketball game and see the case resting peacefully on the wall. Like I said before, it will have something inscribed somewhere inside. No matter how many years pass, hopefully we all remember Turner Price. I was blessed to have known him for the short period inwhich I did, and he proved to be a great friend and an even greater person. We all will need to move on eventually, but even so, we all should never forget.I recently drove by Turner's old house and looked up into his old window. I couldn't see anything other than the reflectness of the black night sky, but images started to flood back into my mind of the few times that we shared up in that room. The countless sports tournaments we had on his X-Box, accidentally frying his computer trying to download music, trying to be as quiet as we could when secretely drinking beer, to all the memories outside of his room that we had, from the many games of fugitive where one person in a vehicle acts as a cop and everyone else tries to run to different locations throughout town, the random road trips we took, the arguing over girls, the few times we went to the lake, and many other memories that I was able to share in the year that I really knew him. The worst part about all of it is is that nobody else will be able to make any more great memories with such a great guy.

To An Athlete Dying Young
by A. E. Housman
THE time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose. Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears: Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man. So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The still-defended challenge-cup. And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl's.