The trend towards pass first offensive football has generally led to a decrease in run game intricacy. Spread and pass first teams have found that they can put up high point totals with only a few simple run blocking schemes. This approach is sound – with focus on the passing game, the simplified run game means that high levels of execution can be attained on the few blocking schemes that are in the playbook.
This does mean that some concepts of the past have been largely lost. The following play exemplifies the lost art of the complex run game, a tackle trap on a top nose guard (Tony Casillas), intended to make that nose guard’s life difficult while opening a sizeable hole and utilizing angles across the line of scrimmage.
The blocking scheme: TE walls off the outside. Right tackle blocks down on star MLB Brian Bosworth. Right guard pulls and looks for work downfield. Center posts on star nose guard Tony Casillas, then walls off the defensive tackle. Left guard goes for the other MLB. The left tackle pulls and traps Casillas, while the fullback walls the other defensive tackle to the outside.
The blocks take advantage of angles, including the smashing trap on Casillas.
Casillas is sent to the turf as running back Jacque Robinson (father of NBA star Nate) exploits a wide running lane.
Robinson is untouched into the defensive backfield.
Robinson finally faces impact at the goalline.
Often, the best offensive system is the one that goes against contemporary trends. Increasingly, teams are finding that the spread offense is not a magic bullet. While the many variations of the spread ARE sound football, defenses are now built to stop them, and those offenses lack the novelty that once made them so difficult to defend.
Perhaps those defenses – built to stop the spread passing game and various zone running schemes – are now susceptible to a return to power running. The Stanford Cardinal under Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw, as well as the San Francisco 49ers under Harbaugh, have capitalized by building swift, powerful lines and incorporating complex run schemes and jumbo personnel packages. Once a staple, those schemes are now the novelty while the spread offense thrives. While mastering the execution of a run game complete with powers and counters and traps and whams and isolations can be difficult, it is more than possible with proper commitment.
The play: