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Good Article Explaining the Vikings Offense
« on: Sep 5th, 2002, 9:59am » |
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From the Star Tribune
Quote:Analysis: Vikings confident two-tight end offense will be a hit
Kent Youngblood
Star Tribune
Published Sep 4, 2002
First of all, a football team needs the right personnel.
A team can't have a bunch of glorified tackles pretending to be tight ends. Hey, nothing against tackles -- they are the building blocks of any good offensive line -- but they shouldn't be running around trying to catch passes. A collection of supersized wide receivers isn't ideal, either. Yeah, that pass-catching ability is great. But every once in a while, they need to step into the trenches and be able to give as good as they take.
So, start with the personnel.
That's what the Vikings started doing, shortly after Mike Tice was named the franchise's sixth coach. He hired Scott Linehan to coordinate the offense and started amassing one of the more impressive collections of tight ends in the NFC.
Tice and Linehan were determined to do a few things. One, get the ball to receiver Randy Moss -- a lot. And two, run the ball effectively. And they figured the best way to do that was to move away from the three-deep wide receiver philosophy that had come to dominate the Vikings' offense in the latter years of the Dennis Green era.
So they traded in three-deep for a two-tight end set. It is the base formation the Vikings will use this season, as much as 60 percent of the time. It's a set built around the talents of Byron Chamberlain, Jim Kleinsasser and Hunter Goodwin, designed to help running back Michael Bennett run faster and receiver Randy Moss fly higher.
There is no word yet on its ability to end world hunger.
All jokes aside, it is a philosophy with roots in Washington's glory years under former coach Joe Gibbs, and one Linehan adopted from the day he joined the Vikings.
"We had, we felt, two very talented tight ends," Linehan said. "Potentially, anyway. Byron wasn't signed at the time. But, potentially, we were going to have Byron back. And we had Jimmy, who really is a tight end who was playing fullback in a two-back offense. Then we got Hunter, a big, bruising tight end. You can't have enough."
With the right people, the two-tight end set is a marvel of versatility, able to show the defense several different looks using the same personnel and able to adjust to what the defense does.
For example: Say an opponent is using a nickel defense, using an extra defensive back to double up on Moss. The Vikings simply can line up Chamberlain and Kleinsasser in a balanced power set and run the ball with Bennett all day long. If a team decides to bring a safety near the line of scrimmage to stop the run? Move Chamberlain into the slot and have him run pass routes over the middle, the area where that safety used to patrol.
Decide it's time for some good, old-fashioned power running? Have Kleinsasser line up in the backfield and operate as a lead blocker from there.
There it is, three distinct sets with the same personnel.
The formation effectively forces the defense to declare its intentions, then gives Linehan the tools to take advantage of where that particular defense is vulnerable.
"That's because you can balance it up," Linehan said. "You can put a tight end on each side, and you get the same look on both sides. But at the same time, you can unbalance the formation and come with a power-type game. It gives you the ability to have some flexibility."
Not for everyone
So if this is such a good system, why doesn't everybody use it? The biggest problem might lie in getting the right combination of tight ends to correctly run it; there just aren't that many good ones around. But get the right people, and it can be effective. The Packers won the Super Bowl after the 1996 season by making extensive use of two-tight end sets featuring Keith Jackson and Mark Chmura. Three years later, Tennessee reached the Super Bowl using two tight ends. Chamberlain, along with Shannon Sharpe, was part of a similar set frequently used by Denver when the Broncos won Super Bowls following the 1997 and 1998 seasons.
"It's a set I've always liked," Tice said. "It makes a defense declare which way they're bringing the safety, then gives you the ability to be able to attack them as far as the passing game is concerned."
Another benefit: The offense faces a balanced defense. Against many power-running, two-back offenses, a defense will bring the safety near the line on the strong side, where the tight end -- the extra blocker -- is located. Against a two-tight end set, the safety has to commit to one of the tight ends, and the offense will have an extra blocker at the point of attack on what has just become the defense's weak side.
"Schemewise, when you put two tight ends in the game, defenses usually play base defense," Chamberlain said. "And with the balanced set it kind of forces their hand to tell us how they're going to play. It's harder for them to disguise their coverages. We did a lot of that in Denver with myself and Sharpe. It forces a defense into a bind. Are they going to bring a safety down to try to stop the run? Will they go with a nickel?"
Chamberlain unique
Chamberlain is a key. He's too elusive a receiver for most linebackers to cover, so he usually draws a safety. When a safety covers a tight end, he can't be doubling up on Moss.
There are other benefits. Having two tight ends on the field makes it easier to give one of the tackles help on a pesky defensive end.
"We felt that, last year, we left our tackles in space too much," Linehan said. "And we wanted to have that extra ability to help the tackle in pass protection."
The ultimate benefactors of the offense? Moss, certainly, if it forces teams to keep their base personnel on the field more often. Bennett, for sure, because the Vikings often will be able to run away from the defense's strength. And Daunte Culpepper, clearly, will have more time to pass.
"It gives you the opportunity to have balance," Linehan said. "You can run the ball out of it, regardless of the eight-man front. You can throw the ball. Flexibility is the key."
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