NFL Draft 2009: April 25-26

Draft order:

Football: 201

I once had a coach that said that football wasn’t a contact sport. It was a hitting sport. If you have ever tried to play organized football, you probably had that coach, too. That, with the rules of play, scoring in fantasy football, and watching sports center is football 101. Starting to see trends without being told, forming an opinion that wasn’t commanded to you by an espn anchor or talk radio jockey takes a fair amount of understanding that is football 201. Football is a forever changing- progressing sport.  It is an authentic mix of speed and power to make the most violent collisions possible. Fans hold their collective breathe to see if their guys can bounce up after a 300 pound plus encounter with destiny draped in hate.  Graceful skill positioned talent, tacticians, bruising battering rams, oversized mammoths, and lightning quick all have specialized skills of destruction. This is one of the reasons we love the game not to be confused with futbol. Unfortunately, too many idiots get paid too much money to make countless arrogant ignorant remarks about the game. This costs others their jobs, as they do a lazy beggared job reporting on the game they do not truly understand. I am going to try to tackle the issue of nourishing a few in this blog with fundamental football principles that should help the average fan see a better game.

Football is won from the lines out. It is won by a team. For a quarterback to have success, he needs time to throw the ball to a guy who needs to run the correct route and catch the ball while getting drilled in the back by a man trying to separate the receivers head from his body in hopes the ball may drop out despairingly. The line protects the quarterback from getting destroyed by defensive linemen and blitzing specialists. The line also creates for the running game. It creates by blocking. The running game is an asset to the quarterback in his hopes of an aerial assault against the opponent’s defense. The running game’s success lays with the offensive line blowing holes in the defensive line and allowing a powerful battering ram or lightning fast explosive back to shoot though the hole gaining as many yards as possible. To combat this running attack, a defense usually places an extra defensive player closer to the line of scrimmage. This is all football 101 and explained well by every idiot in front of a microphone.  It is common knowledge shared by every fan of the game, even the cheerleaders know that the game usually comes down to your line versus my line.

Where football 201 comes is in the changing of the game all in the progression of innovation. Professional football and college football have become primarily a speed game. There is a fair amount of power in the game; for example: the New York Football Giants have a huge beast at running back named Brandon Jacobs. He is 6’4” and weighs about 265 pounds. His running style would never be confused with a cheetah or gazelle. He is the typical “I am going to run through you” kind-a guy. He is very rare in the game and used to wear down defenses.  He also needs to share time with others at his position because he lacks the break-away speed and route running ability in the passing game as most other top notch NFL running backs. Every NFL team is focused on running backs who can pick up a blitz, run a route, catch a pass, and… oh yeah, run with the football. A running back must be able to do all of these things to stay on the field because the league has become a passing league. Sportswriters who still use the term “west coast offense” should be shot because every offense has some variation of the “west coast offense” built into its system. The offenses use balance, focusing on the pass to set up the run. Stopping the run and running the ball are still important. But teams cannot attempt to pass less than 20 times in a game and still win with consistency against good defenses. Teams must be able to pass the football to get the big plays and balance needed. Teams have had success throwing the ball as much as 60 % of the time. And hear this, having a “big-time” wide receiver is one of the running game’s best friends. A “big-time” wide receiver is what every GM in football is trying to get for his team. They are few and far between. The success rate of drafting them is similar to the success, or lack of success rate, as drafting a quarterback. Almost every true championship caliber team has one. That is why Belichik went against his own grain and grabbed Randy Moss. The Eagles were willing to get burned by Terrell Owens. It is because a “big-time” wide receiver actually sets up the running game by bringing the “over-sized-safety-hybrid-run-blitzing-linebacker” away from the line of scrimmage where he can assist against the running attack. One of the glaring examples on how valuable a guy like this is Plaxico Burress. He was part of a championship team that led the NFL in rushing as a team. He switched teams. His new team became a championship team that led the league in rushing. He also used an accidental bullet to put a hole in his leg. Then, the team became easier to defend against their running attack and lost their first playoff game without him. They couldn’t catch. The quarterback began to look mediocre. The defenses no longer had to account with “how do we cover that guy out there?” Another example is Larry Fitzgerald. All the quarterback had to do was put the ball within ten feet of the guy, while covered, and he would catch the ball. Defenses at the season’s end were so concerned with how they could not stop him, that the running game started to gain momentum and beat the third ranked defense in the NFL with a 14 play, 72 yard drive that took 7:52 minutes off the clock in winning the NFC Championship game. The star of the game was Larry Fitzgerald and the quarterback of course, Kurt Warner. Forgotten was how the Cardinals used the running game primarily on the drive while the Eagles were trying to find a way to defend Superman. It was all set up by the pass and having good speed at the right places (Split end, Running back, Tight end, Slot receiver.) 10 years ago, the story would have been how the running game won the game on the time consuming drive. In hammering my point, we’ll use the Superbowl. In the Superbowl, the cardinals were just out-passed by the Steelers in the crunch. Even the mighty run happy… three yards and a cloud of dust Pittsburgh Steelers figured out that they need speed and versatility at running back and a passing game to win a championship. Mewelde Moore and Willie Parker will never be confused with Rocky Bleier. The Superbowl MVP: Santanio Holmes. A wide receiver.