Football analysis and strategy from Chris B. Brown
New Grantland: Football 101 – Why Power Running Works
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New Grantland: Football 101 – Why Power Running Works
It’s now up over at Grantland: While many think the term “power football” describes an attitude or perhaps even a formation, coaches actually use it to refer to something more technical: the Power-O and Counter Trey run plays, which most coaches simply call Power and Counter, and which are foundational running plays in the NFL…
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New Grantland: Breakdown of Gary Patterson’s TCU 4-2-5 Defense
I’ve been working for a few months on a deep-dive analysis of Gary Patterson’s morphing, multifarious 4-2-5 defense for Grantland, and it’s now up. Patterson’s defense is intriguing on a number of levels, and not only because TCU is ranked #2 in the preseason AP polls: Patterson’s 4-2-5 is custom built for the kinds of…
Read more about New Grantland: Breakdown of Gary Patterson’s TCU 4-2-5 Defense
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New Grantland: The Receiver Ripple Effect – Ranking the top wide receivers in the 2015 NFL Draft
It’s now up over at Grantland: For a long time, conventional wisdom held that receivers took a few years to develop, and that the wideouts picked near the top of the draft carried a nasty bust rate1 because of the physical and mental demands of playing receiver in the NFL. But last year’s rookie class…
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New Grantland: Inside the Evolution (and Oregonification) of Urban Meyer’s Ohio State Offense
It’s now up over at Grantand: At Florida, Meyer’s offense revolved almost entirely around the quarterback. From 2007 through 2009, Tim Tebow led the SEC in pass efficiency while also leading the Gators in rushing yards, and the lasting image of those UF offenses is of Tebow plunging into the line on power runs. That…
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New Grantland Bits On Andy Dalton and Ryan Tannehill (and Dolphins OC Bill Lazor)
Bill Barnwell invited me to write some sidebars for his Grantland pieces analyzing Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton and Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill. Check out the Tannehill piece: Ryan Tannehill enters his make-or-break third season with a new offense coordinated by Bill Lazor, a promising but relatively unknown coach. Joe Philbin let his friend Mike Sherman…
Read more about New Grantland Bits On Andy Dalton and Ryan Tannehill (and Dolphins OC Bill Lazor)
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New Grantland: Goodbye to the BCS… But Careful What You Wish For
It’s now up over at Grantland: The primary advantage of a playoff is certainty, and after years of endless BCS debate — which followed decades of debate under the earlier bowl systems — certainty has real allure. But in most sports that have playoffs, like the NFL or the NBA, the criteria for getting to…
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New Grantland: Florida State’s “Most Improved Person”: Jimbo Fisher
It’s now up over at Grantland: Winston piled up yards and touchdowns on his way to the Heisman Trophy, and his 190.06 passer rating is good for the second best single-season rating of all time, just shy of the mark Russell Wilson set in 2011. And it’s not as though Winston has run some watered-down attack; Manuel said…
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New Grantland: What Really Went Wrong with RG3 This Season?
It’s now up over at Grantland: Griffin’s footwork not only hurt his reads, it hurt his accuracy. “Body position is absolutely critical,” Redskins quarterback coach Matt LaFleur recently told ESPN’s John Keim. “If you don’t have good body position, your balance is off and your accuracy will be off. It’s absolutely critical you get your body…
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New Grantland: Adrian Peterson and the Lead Draw: The Vikings’ Throwback Play for Their Throwback Runner
It’s now up over at Grantland: The lead draw has a storied history. Dating at least as far back as the Johnny Unitas–led Baltimore Colts, the play had maybe its greatest renaissance when run by Emmitt Smith for the Dallas Cowboys. To this day, Smith — not commonly known for his rhetorical flourishes — waxes philosophical whenever asked…