The Patriots don't have a scheme. They've tried having one, but it never worked - too limiting for the sinister mind of Bill Belichick, who doesn't just think outside the box, he lives there with his Game Plan offense that relies on extreme versatility of it's athletes to give it substance.
So when Belichick lost his versatility last season as his two-headed monster at tight end suffered through injury after debilitating injury, it severely limited his options in game planning and the Patriots offense became ordinary - ordinary in the sense that it still had the best quarterback in the NFL running the fastest-paced offense in the league, but lacking in identity and substance...
...all with just essentially two wide receivers, a collection of backup tight ends but also a power running game behind the best offensive line in the NFL - so they had weapons, just not enough to allow Belichick to take advantage of his opponents' every weakness, ultimately leaving him on the outside looking in while the hated Baltimore Ravens walked away with his trophy.
And it was nobody's fault but Belichick's, being so enamored with his dominant two-tight end formations that his vision of the power game blinded him to the fact that he limited his offense by hacking apart his receiving corps to a skeleton crew of Wes Welker and a revolving door of spare parts.
That won't happen this season, as Belichick seems to have retooled his offense, by want just as much as by necessity.
Many people look at Bill Belichick's offseason moves and wonder just what the hell he's thinking when he brings in free agents like Tim Tebow or trades for a guy like LeGarrette Blount - when he brings in rookie free agents like Mark Harrison and Zach Sudfeld...
Versatility is key when running a game plan offense - as we learned last season, the less options you have, the less an opposing defensive coordinator has to game plan for. So when you bring in a Tim Tebow, an incredibly bright and inspired athlete, it's a move that can potentially open up the playbook a little more for the opposition to consider...
...and given the fact that Belichick's offense is actually a hub that brings all of his weapons into one central game plan, it behooves the hooded one to bring in as much versatility as he possibly can.
He didn't bring these players in because they fit some offensive philosophy, it's because they give him the ability to expand, to experiment and to implement - and in the case of all of these guys listed above, the one common denominator is that fact that they all played from the Pistol formation in college...
...as did Stevan Ridley and Brandon Bolden, so there are plenty of players on the offense that know the formation, have played in it and were successful in it.
And on Tuesday afternoon, there it was.
At the end of the New England Patriots' practice session on Tuesday evening, there was the polarizing Tim Tebow taking snaps in the Pistol formation, running the read option under the watchful eye of offensive assistant Brian Daboll whose presence on the staff was ,until very recently, a matter of some conjecture.
Daboll is considered somewhat of an enigma. Known as a brilliant offensive mind, yet the results of his innovation has hardly lived up to the potential.
A defensive assistant with the Patriots in his first NFL job, he became the Patriots' receiver's coach during their dynastic run at the turn of the century - jumping ship to become the New York Jets' quarterbacks coach under friend and former Patriots' defensive coordinator Eric Mangini, following Mangini to the Cleveland Browns to become their offensive coordinator...
...then on to Miami after Mangini and his staff were fired by the Browns, then on to Kansas City after the Dolphins fired Tony Sparano and his staff, and now back to New England after Romeo Crennel and his staff were all fired by the Chiefs.
Daboll's road back to Foxboro has been one car wreck after another, working for lame duck coaches who were desperate to find something - anything - to generate offense to save their jobs.
Bill Belichick is nowhere near that desperate, nor is his job in jeopardy, nor is his offense in dire straits - so when Belichick brought Daboll aboard in January, he was given the title of "Coaching Assistant", disappearing into the shadows until mid-June, when the team signed Tim Tebow...
...and the two have been thick as thieves since, seeming to be kindred spirits given each man's recent history of well-traveled failures. You don't see one without the other as Daboll shares his knowledge in Belichick's base of thinking with the charismatic Tebow, also working on his throwing mechanics and getting him up to speed on the Patriots' terminology.
And Tebow is responding, going from his passes hitting receivers right in the feet to begin OTAs to now throwing nicer looking duck/spirals that are reminiscent of his college throws, participating in ball carrying drills with the backs and receivers and, yes, now practicing in the Pistol.
Does that mean that Tim Tebow is going to make New England's 53 man roster and potentially take snaps away from the best quarterback to ever play the game?
Never say never, particularly where Bill Belichick and his game plan offense is involved.
"That's a very hypothetical question," said Brady, when posed with that very same question the day after the Patriots signed Tebow, "Maybe we'll deal with it if it happens."
And it very well could happen.
It's not beyond the spectrum of possibility that the Patriots keep three quarterbacks on the roster, particularly when just the presence of Tebow causes the opposition to have to game plan for the possibility of having to defend against the read option - that on top of having to deal with preparing for Brady and his already excellent supporting cast.
Also aiding this process is a rule change that came about in 2011 that expanded game day rosters from 45 to 46 players and was brought about primarily to enable teams to carry a third - or emergency - quarterback on the active roster without sacrificing a spot from another position...
...while also dropping the regulation that if a third quarterback is inserted into the game before the 4th quarter, they lose the option of reinserting the starter.
Before 2011, if a team was inclined or forced to play their 3rd string quarterback at any point in the game before the final period, they could not reinsert either the starter or his backup. The emergency quarterback would have to remain the quarterback for the rest of the game, and if he became injured, the team would be forced to use a position player at quarterback.
What the "Third Quarterback Rule" means to New England is that it gives them the flexibility to game plan with the ever-present possibility of either making Tebow active for a particular game or making him a healthy scratch...
...and with NFL rules stipulating that an NFL team can hold their final game day roster until 15 minutes before kickoff, it forces the opposing team to game plan for Tebow right up until game time, not knowing if he'll be active or not.
In that respect, Tebow has value for the team without even playing a down - and when he is active and on the sidelines, the rules state that Belichick can throw the other team the Tebow Change Up whenever he feels like it - all while keeping Ryan Mallett the primary backup, never having an injury to Brady dictate a change in philosophy on offense.
There is no one specific reason why Tim Tebow is in New England, but there are many collateral ones, and Bill Belichick wouldn't be Bill Belichick if he weren't looking for every advantage that he can get.
No comments:
Post a Comment