The Point is to Score Points!

Football can seem like a complicated game at first glance.  All the different positions, formations, and rules can confuse a person quickly.   However, the point of the game is actually very simple:  Score more points than your opponent.  While everyone involved will agree to this point,  opinions differ on how to achieve the goal of winning.  In the beginning, football was a game of low scores and run-heavy offenses, but all this would change in 1966.1  At this time, modern football was born with the implementation of new defenses and offenses.  Today, we have Tom Landry, Weeb Ewbank, Sid Gillman, Vince Lombardi, and Don Shula to thank for many of the base formations and strategies that are employed on a weekly basis.

Offensive football saw the biggest paradigm shift in philosophy.  Prior to the 1960’s, offenses were run first and pass second. Woody Hayes sums up the philosophy of early football  best, “There are only three things that can happen on a pass, and two of them are bad.”2 But once the 60’s hit in professional football, coaches began to see the benefit of the pass and sought to create offenses that took advantage of this weapon.  Sid Gillman, Hall of Fame coach, is credited with being the father of the modern “pro-style”  offense.  His offense had three basic tenets:

1. Spread the field horizontally as well as vertically
2. Pass to set up the run (not the other way around)
3. Feature one-back formations3

Today the majority of offenses in football follow these guidelines.  There are still some coaches who cling to a run-first philosophy.  Paul Johnson, head coach at Georgia Tech, and Ken Niumatalolo, head coach at the Naval Academy, use a triple option offense.  Both coaches have been very successful.

Defenses have also changed over the past forty years.  Examples of defensive innovations include:

1. Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry’s 4-3 Flex defense  
2. The 3-4 defense that was created at OU in the 1940’s, and first used by the Dolphins to win a Super Bowl in the 1970’s4  
3. Buddy Ryan’s creation of the 46 defense that the Chicago Bears used to win the Super Bowl.
4. “Tampa 2” defense created by Monte Kiffin and Tony Dungy to stop the quick pass offenses of the late 80’s and 90’s.

All of these defensive strategies are still in use today and are just as successful now as they were then.

Football has changed over time, but the goal remains the same:  Score more points than your opponent.  Coaches differ on how this should be done.  Many are termed “offensive minded” because they want to score, score, score and aren’t as concerned with stopping the other team.  Other coaches have picked up the label “defensive minded” because they focus on developing a strong defensive scheme and strategy, and ask very little of their offense.  One thing that both sides agree on though is that they are trying to score more points than their opponent, and the differences in how a team does this is what makes football so intriguing.

References:

1The coming revolution in football strategy. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2016, from http://www.si.com/nfl/2016/01/20/super-bowl-100-football-strategy

2Quote Investigator. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2016, from http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/04/pass-3-things/

3Smart Football. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2016, from http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2009/04/sid-gillman-father-of-modern-passing.html

4(n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3–4_defense