Number of Plays

Coach Bill Mountjoy had a clinic a few weeks back (which I was unable to attend, but I heard was amazing).

From the early reports Larry Zierlein, formerly of the Cleveland Browns, gave a talk heavily based in empirical work about several topics concerning the run game in the NFL, but particularly about the number of run plays used by the best rushing teams. As reported to me (something like 3rd hand, so forgive me if I miss some details), is that there is an optimum number of base run plays for a football team, and, surprisingly, this ended up being only around 5 run plays--at the NFL level!

I'll have to wait for the actual numbers, but this makes intuitive sense, and can be applied to much of your offense.

First, how many times do you run the ball? The typical NFL team runs it around 25 times a game, so that is around 5 times a game for a run play to be run per game. High School games are shorter, D-1 football games are longer, and, along with how many times you run the football, the number of plays can be adjusted from there. The kiss of death is to have a "base" run play that doesn't even get run in a football game, even worse is to have several football games where it doesn't get called. This is a good sign it should NOT be in your playbook.

Implicit in these reported success rates is the amount of practice time dedicated to each play and its techniques, and how comfortable the players are with it. If the best rushing NFL teams only have around 5 base run plays, why do you have 8 or 9? They are dealing with players much more versed with the fundamentals of running the football (blocking, running, eyes up, even handoffs) which you could be teaching instead of adding new plays, have more time, face more variations in their fronts, and, sorry to say, are probably better coaches than you or I, as well.

Furthermore, let us say that you have identified a weakness in your opponent and you want to run the ball off-tackle. You have four off-tackle runs. What is the likelihood that you will call the right one? What is the likelihood that your players are comfortable with all four of them versus whatever front you see? Having extra plays makes your job and their job that much harder, without making your opponent any weaker.

This mindset applies not only to run plays. While we can dream up a multitude of passing scenarios, football is a pretty simple game in terms of what one team or another can do, and much of it is simply window dressing. Therefore, you probably need many fewer pass plays than you would like to have in a perfect world. The same logic used earlier applies to passing: if I have a play or two that can defeat a particular coverage, how many more do I need? It may even look dramatically different than the other plays that attack that coverage, but is it really a necessary tool? Especially compared to what else I could be practicing?

Up to this point I've focused mainly on "base" plays, i.e. plays that make up the large chunk of your offense. There are certain plays that only need to be called once in a game to be successful, or are necessary for certain situations and are crucial to help you win, but you may not actually experience that scenario. Examples are some play action passes, trick plays, goal line plays, and fake punt/field goal plays. These justify practice even though you may only call them a few times a season.

However, the same rules apply: how many of these do I need? Do I need 6 goal line/short yardage passes if I realistically only call a few all season? Do I really need so many trick plays if I only call one trick play per game--if that?

All this speaks to paring down your offense (and defense) as much as possible. This is not always so easy; we see the gains of adding a new pass play and scoring a touchdown or getting a particular first down more visibly than we see our general effectiveness at the rest of our passing game deteriorate from lost practice time. However, this is exactly what Larry Zierlein's empirical results showed with the running game in the NFL.

Further, it is sometimes difficult when comparing plays. For example can we really compare the inside zone or triple option with a quick trap? The zone and the option require significant practice time outlays, and are more adaptable to more scenarios. However, we could install the trap, and a fake trap with a boot pass, and a third counter in the same practice time. Which is better? One is three plays, the other only one?

This is why being a coach, despite the fact that football is simpler than we usually make it, can be quite challenging.