Theoretical Football
“Theoretical football is the notion that American football is an exceedingly complex sport that requires a branch of learning. Its goal is to accentuate the cerebral, academic, and quantifiable
aspects of American football.” - Denauld William Brown
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Mechanics Of The West Coast Offense
By J.A. Polk
Topic: Bill Walsh
1983 49ers Offense
January 10, 1982, The NFC Championship Game: Down 21-27 with 58 Seconds left in the Fourth Quarter, San Francisco faces a 3rd and 3 on the Dallas
6th yard line. Joe Montana enters the huddle and gives the play call; Red Right Tight, Sprint Option Right. The huddle breaks, the men line up, and the
Catch becomes part of football history.
The West Coast offense (WCO) is a difficult philosophy for any defense to contend against. Over time this offensive system, and it’s
creator, has become part of football lore. Innovation has built upon Walsh’s most basic principles of the WCO. The system ran today,
only reflects the 49er’s of yesteryear in base applications. No matter how different today’s formations may be in this system (i.e.
Jon Gruden’s I-Formation based WCO or Andy Reid’s Spread based WCO), the principles of the WCO stay the same. Defending the
WCO can be challenging for someone that does not know or understand what the WCO sets out to accomplish. This guide is meant
to present those basic philosophies and how to best defend against them.
Next Topic: Steve Mariucci
1997 Cal Offense
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How do you defend an offense that
holds the ball, throws it around, and
pulls tricks out of it’s sleeve? That was
the question many defensive
coordinators were faced with in the
early 1980’s. Bill Walsh was the
brainchild of such a system. One that
attacked, for the times, in such an
unconventional way.
The WCO set out to accomplish a great
feat in football; controlling possession
and scoring the ball through the air.
Today, the principles of the WCO are
time honored, and have been
incorporated into other offensive
systems, but way back then it was a
beast of it’s own.
In principle, the WCO attacked
defenses in many new ways. These
included:
• Spreading the defense horizontally
and vertically.
• Creating mismatches between
receivers and defenders.
• Passing the ball, instead of running
it to maintain possession.
• While using all 5 receivers.
Other principles, contributed to why
defending the WCO was/is difficult.
Quick, timed passes caught defenses
off guard, while sound pass
protections and formations warded off
blitzing defenders. Receiver
mismatches wrecked havoc on M2M,
as great QB’s picked apart zones.
Defending the WCO is just like
defending any other offensive system;
by knowing and defending the
principles. How can a team use it’s
bread and butter, after the defense
slammed the bread box closed?
That is what the essentials of WCO
defense comes to, taking those
principles away. While saying that is a
lot easier then doing it, it is possible; if
planned for correctly. Remember,
football requires proper planning
today, for accurate execution
tomorrow.
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The play below emphasizes many of
the WCO’s most basic principles.
Before reading further, can you spot
them?
Walsh wanted to attack defenses by
stretching them. Forcing Defenders to
cover more of the field helped create
space. This formed open pockets in the
defensive field, that Walsh attacked
using timed pass routes. Most of
Walsh’s quarterbacks worked for a 3
or 5 step drop, allowing the pass to
leave the QB’s pocket
quicker.
These two principles can be seen in
the play below.
X,Z, and R executes, what Walsh
referred to as, a takeoff route. By
design, these routes stretch the
secondary deeper down the field. As
the secondary stretches back, F’s route
(a swing route) is used to stretch the
intermediate defensive personnel
towards the sideline. This executes
Walsh’s first concept, space. The prior
four routes helped to create space,
while the route ran by Y is designed to
take advantage of that space, using
Walsh’s second concept ; Timed pass
routes.
Route combinations such as these
made defending the WCO difficult,
when using zone coverage. This play
can successfully beat a Cover 2 and
Cover 3 zone down the field.
Defending this type of play, was best
served using a mixture of man and
zone coverage. For instance, Cover 2
Man assigns a defender for each
receiver while making two deep
defenders each responsible for one
half of the field. This allowed for
tough defense on receivers with help
from over the top. Tighter defense and
route disruption helped to throw off
the timing of the pass.
Using this type of defense lead to
creating stops, but it was far from
perfect. Man Coverage allowed for
personnel mismatches . It was only a
matter of downs, before someone
would make a play.
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When attacking with the pass in the
WCO, most plays utilized 5 receivers.
The invent of the Zone blitz helped to
defend areas of the field while
providing a pass rush. Most times, this
would create a M2M pass block;
allowing athletic pass rushers the
chance to make a play (with both sacks
and delivery sacks.) To combat this,
Walsh would often supply an extra
blocker, against pass rush happy
teams.
Designed plays that attacked with four
receivers could, at times, behave
differently. The play shown below is a
great example. Unlike most WCO
plays, that supply a number of
different reads for the QB, the play
below works off the basic high/low
read.
The play diagramed below is similar to
a Curl/Flat route combo. Can you see
why? The similarity is that the
quarterback is only reading one half of
the field. However, we can still see the
space concept at work. Instead of
having X run a Curl at 12 yards, the
player works downfield, taking the
defender(s) with them. As X works the
lane down the field, Z is used to fill the
alley, left in the flats. As stated, most
QBs will execute a traditional
High/Low read. In this play, that read
can be taken from the Strong Side
corner. If the corner plays a short
zone, X will become open in the
intermediate area, under the Safety. If
the corner played a soft zone, the flat
could open up for Z.
Press coverage proved to be effective
against types of plays. Using corners to
press X and Z off the LOS helped to
disrupt the timing of the pass . After
all, route disruption is one of the most
important aspects of WCO defense.
Man Cover 2 Press is a pretty good
option to defend this play with. Both
Z and X are covered by corners, while
the SC has ‘over the top’ help from the
deep Safety. Although M2M coverage
could create mismatches between the
running backs and linebackers, the
play’s # 1 and #2 receiving options are
well defended.
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Bill Walsh’s idea was to throw now and
run later. Walsh’s objective was to pass
for points early in the game, while
running on a tired defense later in the
game. BUT WAIT! If Roger Craig was
your back, would you wait till the third
quarter to hand him the ball?
Other coaches didn’t think so either.
Walsh would incorporate split back
running plays to add some ground
game to the WCO. But, sometimes the
presence of a great runner is threat
enough. Walsh proved to be a master
of trickery, showing a defense one
thing, while delivering another. Play
Action passing, in all it’s various forms,
was not a new topic at the time. It was
ran by many different teams for
decades.
What was different is how Walsh used
his play action. Any coach will tell
you to run the ball, until the
linebackers crept up. When this
occurred you hit them with the play
action pass down field. What set Walsh
apart was his belief that establishing
the run was not needed to perform a
successful play action pass, the threat
was good enough.
This is how the WCO (or Walsh’s style
of the WCO) would trick defenders and
frustrate DCs. To understand how this
play executed, you had to know how a
defense thought. At the time, ground
oriented offenses ruled the NFL.
Running teams like the Redskins
dominated the league. (with a few
exceptions)
Most interior defensive personnel were
taught different keys to read the
offense with. One important key then
(and now) were the offensive guards.
Walsh knew that when defenders saw
the guards clearing to one side, that
linebackers typically followed,
expecting a running play.
Walsh relied on these tendencies to
form his theory of play action passing.
When teams did not fall for this ‘trick’
he simply ran the ball in the space they
gave up.
Defending Walsh’s play action plays
were just like defending anybody
else’s. They were just harder to predict.
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Closing Notes
Walsh was indeed an offensive genius. The amount of time the WCO has lived is a testament to that. However, defending this great coach was not about defending his x’s and o’s alone. Walsh originated many other techniques that helped him get ahead in the game. Predictability- Because Walsh was open to throwing the ball in any situation, this made predicting his plays harder. Defensive Coordinators would scramble to find systems that covered both run and pass defense, especially on 3rd and short. Play scripting- Walsh was a master scripter. Where most teams scripted their first 15 offensive plays, Walsh scripted 25. Every Week the script was practiced and executed, in order. This lead to a higher level of comprehension and execution for his players. Walsh was also one of the greatest talent assessors in football. I could easily see him and John Camp standing on a sideline and discussing this topic. Walsh knew the secret, make the offense work for the players, not the other way around. The WCO oozes this belief. Montana was no Marino, but finished on top. Craig didn’t look like Sweetness, but they both averaged 4 yards a carry. Walsh knew what his players could do well, and adjusted his offense to fit their talents. Although he was not part of the 1982-83 team, I am always reminded of a quote from a Dallas Defensive coach. “It’s frustrating, you plan and practice all week to defend this thing called the West Coast Offense. You believe you dotted all the I’s and crossed all the t’s, and you say to yourself we got a real shot at beating these guys. Then come Sunday afternoon, the sun is on your back, the crowd is cheering and Jerry Rice is running away.