the Rams offense & the longer passing game

Right here, I am jumping on a favorite hobby horse and riding it hard.

We keep hearing around, here and there, that the Schott offense is horizontal and is built around short passes. A big Miklasz article supported that view, and in turn that was based on a Advanced Football Analytics article. I argued before that that view is flawed. It’s based too much on 2013, and 2013 has a lot of circumstances you have to account for (Richardson, Clemens). I argued a lot before that 2012 shows you better what this offense will be, and that yes it includes (in fact counts on) a lot of downfield shots. (PFF shows that of all the qbs in 2012, Bradford ranked 9th in PERCENTAGE of passes that are thrown 20 yards or more. He was 7th in the NUMBER of those passes thrown. That’s just one metric. There are other metrics demonstrating this.)

Well after the last 2 games,there can be no doubt IMO. The Rams passing game will be stretching the field this year, more like 2012 than 2013. And they were all doing it too–Bradford, Hill, Davis.

So my view is that this will not be a run run run offense. It won’t be that and never was going to be that. It won’t be a short passing game either, and again was never going to be that. There will be this equation where they establish a running threat and control the ball and clock with safe passes, but that will go hand in hand with attacking downfield–using play action and other means to throw 20-40 yarders at a fairly high rate.

I mean how can a team perform so well on 3rd and long against a good defense unless it has determined long ago they will exploit those ranges in the passing game. And not all the longer passes yesterday were on 3rd and long–3rd and long is just an example. They are not only going to push the ball downfield this year–and Fisher has said all along this summer they will–they are determined to be good at it.

I have also said before that the missing element in the Rams passing attack has been the medium range pass, not the long passes. I think they are fixing THAT this year, finally.

So this is one of the things I have been saying–basing your view of this offense on 2013 without accounting for the circumstances that made 2013 different means you really don’t see what this offense is about.

I know most here on this board see all that, but out there, the Miklasz view is pretty common.