A New Era in the NFL; Old School Drafturbators join the dinosaurs and disco
 

From a recent article on NFL.com:

For years we have heard the terms "Spread Monkey," "Pro Style Set," etc., when referencing the professional potential of a college quarterback. Purported draft experts ridiculed and admonished players who operated in spread type systems as having a distinct disadvantage when coming into the professional level.

However, with the prolific and incredibly successful use of the spread system in the college game over the past decade, it was perhaps only a matter of time when the relative "old school" mindset of the NFL was going to change. Remember the forward pass? The West Coast offense? Like the spread system, these changes to the game of football were somewhat slow to become adopted by the NFL, but once established, they ushered in a new era of offense.

With the success of the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl against one of the best defenses in the NFL, as well as success of recent college spread system quarterbacks, such as Ben Rothlisberger, Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow, Josh Freeman, etc., are we watching the birth of a new era in professional football?

And conversely, are we seeing the death of the old school CP drafturbator? Is a new breed of 'bators coming up and replacing these ancient stalwarts of days gone by? Like the mighty dinosaurs, are the last of their kind being overtaken by a newer species of football bulletin boardiers? Are we seeing the Beatles SPLHCB versus the Monkeys? Nirvana versus Loverboy. The printing press versus monks with feathers dipped in ink?

Only time will tell, but I believe that we are looking at the horizon, about to see a new dawn bring about a new day, a new age.

The Patriots have been running a spread offense for a decade, pretty much. But I don't think the big change is anything technical (play-calling); it's simply that coaches and teams are becoming more willing to look for a guy's intangibles, and plug the guy's abilities into the team instead of making the player conform to what the team wants to do. That's all Belichick does: he finds guys who can do something well, and he puts them in position to do those things well. Football is becoming less about megastars (especially on offense) and more about guys who can produce. Aside from Hines Ward, most people probably couldn't name three "skill position" (RB, WR, TE) players on either the Steelers or Packers. The Wes Welkers and Danny Woodheads have a better chance to make it big in this kind of league. Spread out the defense, keep them guessing and off-balance, let your guys run around and do what they do best, and protect your QB long enough to let him make the throws.

That will never work in today's NFL. /CP stupid crack baby mother****ers.
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It's an indictment against the Chiefs if true.

Eh, if you pay enough attention to football you should.

Graham Harrell will wind up as the greatest NFL QB ever!

Timmy Chang wants another chance, dammit.

If you've got an athletic guy like Rodgers with a strong accurate arm, why not send 4-5 guys out every time? For it to work in the NFL, I think you have to have smart WRs who can make route adjustments based on the coverage... or have a crazy athletic qb.

Pretty sure most people who follow even one team could name quite a few of those guys.

With the Steelers, if you can't name these players, you know absolutely NOTHING about the Steelers.

Randle El
Mike Wallace
Mendenhall
Heath Miller

As for the Packers:

Jennings
Nelson
Driver
Jones
now you've got Starks, who was an unknow until this years playoffs.

I don't think there are many people who are actually NFL fans who wouldn't AT LEAST know those key players for those offenses.

Nah mayne, it's all about the A11!

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Our pistol is cocked and locked in anticipation!

There is a big difference in the spread offense that NFL has ran for years and what alot of the colleges are doing.

Spread monkey?

that sounds like somethng other than football related

I realize that this is just Sacc trolling, but I will respond anyway.

1) The spread offense enables you to forego having a good offensive line, which makes Sacc's position even more archaic.

2) Many spread QBs don't translate to college because they have not had to read defenses and make snappy decisions.

Our pistol went away two seasons ago. We're still figuring out the pro set.

If this happens it will be the death of the LB and put a premium on cover corners, fast hard hitting safeties that can cover, and pass rushers.

I'm envisioning 5 pass rushers (four down linemen and a move-around stand-up guy), four cover corners and two athletic safeties that can do everything, including blitz and play deep coverage.

The offense will need to counter with a RB that can shift in and out of the backfield to respond to the defensive package. A TE that can be a credible blocker or receiver would also be a bonus.

Lawrence Taylor would smarten them up.

First: The Packers lead the league in both 5-wide and 3-back sets this year. Their offense is all about creating mismatches with alignments, they'll run almost anything out of almost any alignment. Go watch the tape from the Philly playoff game and tell me they're a spread offense. (Hint: You can't, they ran the inverted wishbone like half the game)

Second: Regardless, the spread offenses that are being run in college are not what the Packers and the Patriots for instance do from their spread looks. If colleges were running their spread like the Packers run it scouts would be listing "plays in the spread" in the positives column. Most of your spread WRs can't run a full route tree, your spread QBs are being run from the spread to minimize their deficiencies. Honestly though the biggest reason that the scouts don't like the spread? It makes their job inordinately harder because they have to do even more projecting based on even less.