49ers & others are evolving Mike Shanahan’s offensive

NFL’s hottest offensive scheme

Bucky Brooks

https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-s-hottest-offensive-scheme-my-top-five-receivers-ravens-complacency

Brooks: Why Shanahan’s scheme gives defenders nightmares. Former NFL player and scout Bucky Brooks knows the ins and outs of this league, providing keen insight in his notebook.

Kyle Shanahan is widely considered one of the best offensive minds in the NFL after guiding the San Francisco 49ers to an appearance in Super Bowl LIV. His dynamic scheme looked unstoppable at times with a punishing running game and complementary pass attack that kept defenders on their heels.

The design of that high-powered attack is a bit of deja vu for me, as I vividly remember the challenge of defending Mike Shanahan’s Denver Broncos in the late 1990s, when they notched back-to-back Super Bowl wins. Playing for the Kansas City Chiefs at the time, I watched those Broncos teams dash my title hopes in the 1997 AFC Divisional Round, with John Elway and Terrell Davis masterfully running the stretch-bootleg combination. Studying the game film and scouting report leading up to that contest, I was surprised by the simplicity of Denver’s offense. The playbook consisted of just a handful of plays, but the unit led the NFL in scoring and total offense, with Davis setting the pace on the ground. The 196th overall pick in the 1995 NFL Draft amassed 1,750 rushing yards and 15 TDs in ’97 while basically running two plays: inside and outside zone.

Davis’ talents as a rugged inside runner with speed, power and vision certainly played a major role in Denver’s offensive success. But it was really the synchronization between him and the offensive line that made the unit extremely difficult to stop. The Broncos’ O-linemen came off the ball in unison and quickly latched onto any defenders in their tracks. The back side of the line violently cut down pursuers to create huge cutback seams for Davis. With the chop blocks tempering the defensive line’s aggression and the threat of Elway escaping out of the back door on a bootleg, defenders were tentative and cautious.

As a defensive back, I remember focusing so much on the Broncos’ punishing running game that Denver receivers Rod Smith and Ed McCaffrey ran free and clear through the secondary, particularly when Elway incorporated play-action. The running game was the foundation for the offensive attack, and everyone benefitted from playing in a system built on simple concepts.

Fast-forward a couple decades, and I’m watching the younger Shanahan utilize the same scheme to lead a 49ers resurgence that just culminated in a Super Bowl appearance. The impressive run prompted the team to reward Kyle with a six-year contract extension that makes him one of the league’s five highest-paid coaches. Moreover, the Niners’ success in a zone-based scheme will prompt several coaches around the league to borrow ideas and concepts from Shanahan’s playbook this fall.

Seeing how the Shanahan system has directly influenced numerous current head coaches (the Rams’ Sean McVay, Chargers’ Anthony Lynn, Packers’ Matt LaFleur, Browns’ Kevin Stefanski and Bengals’ Zac Taylor), as well as Vikings offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak and Eagles senior offensive assistant Rich Scangarello, we’re bound to see plenty of the stretch-bootleg scheme in 2020.

After studying the All-22 Coaches Film and making a few phone calls to some coaching friends around the league, I’ve come up with three reasons why the Shanahan scheme has re-emerged as the hottest offensive trend in football:

1) Simplicity yields big results on the ground.

There’s nothing complicated about the running game in the Shanahan system. As alluded to above, the playbook consists of two basic runs (outside zone and inside zone) and a handful of complements. The offensive line works in unison like the Radio City Rockettes, with each blocker stepping into an assigned area instead of playing a specific defender. This enables the unit to quickly sort out stunts and blitzes at the line of scrimmage without hesitation or confusion.

“I remember Dom Capers running all of those zone dogs,” Kubiak was quoted as saying in an ESPN article last December. “When you’re in a man scheme, you’re getting picked off and you look bad. In zone schemes, when defenses start stunting, you don’t stop and go back and block them. You just keep running into your area and pick people off. So all of it was probably a reaction to the zone blitzes, and it just became part of football.”

Running backs are expected to adhere to a one-cut rule that limits the dancing in the backfield and challenges runners to avoid negative runs. Ball carriers hit the line of scrimmage attacking downhill while reading the flow of the defense to determine whether to “bang” (attack the hole), “bend” (cut back) or “bounce” (go outside). If the running back has patience and vision, he will always spot a crease and routinely pick up 4-plus yards on basic runs. Most importantly, he will avoid negative runs and keep the offense on schedule on early downs.

“It was really about just many, many repetitions of doing something simple,” Kubiak said in the ESPN piece. “I remember (former offensive line coach) Alex (Gibbs) saying, ‘We’re not going to run a lot of plays. We might run them 10,000 different ways to look different, but it’ll be the same thing up front.’ … You become a wide-zone or a tight-zone team, and you adjust to what people do.”

Kyle Shanahan has taken the “same but different” concept to another level by dressing up his plays with a steady diet of pre-snap shifts and motions. The 49ers used pre-snap shifts or motions on 78 percent of their offensive plays, according to Pro Football Focus. The constant movement disguises the offense’s intentions by changing the strength calls of the defense and diverting defenders’ eyes away from their keys. With Shanahan playing the shell game with his wide receivers, tight ends and running backs, San Francisco’s small selection of running plays actually looks like The Cheesecake Factory menu to the defense.

2) The complementary play-action passing game is hard to stop.

Disciples of the Shanahan system have heeded the advice of the analytics crowd and made play-action the foundation of the passing game. Data has shown that play-action is effective regardless of how well a team runs the ball, but the presence of a dominant running game really takes the play-action pass to another level. Defenders are forced to respect the ball fakes and illusion of the run when a team has an A+ ground attack.

“The main thing was, even if you’re not running the ball effectively, still use play-action,” Vikings QB Kirk Cousins said last year, via the Washington Post. “It’s still going to slow the pass rush down, make linebackers feel unsettled as to whether to get in a zone drop or go upfield and fit their gap. Usually, the routes are designed for bigger plays, and so you’re able to get bigger plays. It basically said, never get away from it. The numbers would say just keep going back to the well.”

The scheme exploits the aggressiveness of linebackers with a variety of route concepts that position pass catchers at intermediate and deep levels. The passing game features an assortment of digs, deep overs and post routes designed to punish defenders for vacating their zones. With the initial part of the play-action pass perfectly matching the scheme’s featured runs, the design creates big-play opportunities on the perimeter.

“The running game is such a force that you’re forced to play simple coverages against the scheme,” a former NFL defensive coordinator told me. “You have to play more of your single-high coverages or ‘quarters’ with your cornerbacks isolated (in) one-on-ones. … You can’t help guys with safeties and linebackers because they’re so focused on the run. … It’s a tough scheme to defend.”

That longtime defensive coach told me that the identical action at the beginning of the play makes it hard for defenders to distinguish between run and pass. That’s exactly the dilemma proponents of the system want to create on play-action passes.

Last fall, my NFL Network colleague Tom Pelissero relayed the sentiments of Stefanski, then the Vikings’ offensive coordinator, when it comes to play-action: “It needs to look like, taste like, smell like the run.” When it does, the consequences can be dire for opposing defenses.

3) The system can elevate the play of unheralded quarterbacks and running backs.

Part of the fascination with the Shanahan system is that you don’t need superstars to successfully run it. We’ve seen countless examples of late-round passers and runners producing at a Pro Bowl level thanks to the scheme.

“It’s a system that allows you to win with average players at key spots,” the former NFL defensive coordinator said. “The play designs put your top guys in prime positions to make plays. … If they make the plays they’re expected to make, everyone on the team can look like a collection of all-stars.”

For quarterbacks, the system creates easy reads against simplistic coverages. Opponents are unable to utilize two-deep coverages and other “trap” schemes due to the threat of the running game. The heavy play-action component also leads to one-defender reads where the quarterback identifies a single defender on the second level who’ll help him determine where to go with the ball. These simple reads against basic coverages enable the QB to post a high completion percentage while pushing the ball down the field.

Studying the numbers from starting quarterbacks around the NFL, it’s not a coincidence that three of the top four quarterbacks in play-action passing yards, according to Pro Football Reference, played in the Shanahan system: the Rams’ Jared Goff (1), Garoppolo (2) and Cousins (4) — Dak Prescott ranked third. In addition, four of the top seven passers in pass yards after catch per completion also play in the scheme: Garoppolo, Cousins, Goff and Aaron Rodgers. Considering Rodgers is the only generational talent in the group, it is not hard to see how the system can elevate any passer on the field.

That said, running backs are probably the biggest benefactors in the system. Late-rounders, in particular, have excelled in a scheme that calls for disciplined, straight-line runners with a grind-it-out mentality. This system demands runners to stay on their assigned tracks until they hit the line of scrimmage. If a runner adheres to the principles of the scheme, the yards come in bunches.

During the elder Shanahan’s tenure in Denver, he pumped out six different 1,000-yard rushers in the zone-based running game: Davis, Olandis Gary, Mike Anderson, Clinton Portis, Reuben Droughns and Tatum Bell. Portis and Bell were second-round picks, but Gary was a fourth-rounder while Davis and Anderson weren’t taken until Round 6. And Droughns was a cast-off snatched from the scrap heap to initially play fullback in Denver. Long story short: It’s not a stretch to suggest that the system makes the player.

That’s why more coaches and executives are flocking to the scheme, particularly following a season where San Francisco ranked second in scoring and made it all the way to the Super Bowl. Despite possessing a stable of largely unheralded backs (Raheem Mostert, Matt Breida and Tevin Coleman), the 49ers ranked second in the league in rushing. The system clearly gives you a chance to build a formidable running game without dumping top picks or significant capital into the running back room.

Those three takeaways help illustrate why the Shanahan scheme is the offensive system of the moment.