You know, the more I look at the Ram offense, the more I flash back on the distant past.
We run out of a lot of tight formations. Only 1 TE, but the WRs bunched in tight, with 1 TB.
Now, if you're as old as I am, you remember that this is basically a double wing formation. And those jet sweeps from that set … man, they were doing that in the 50s and before. Back in the days when forward passes were a limited part of the game, the challenge was to find creative ways to run the ball, and wing backs cutting around to create directional indecision on the part of the defense was standard practice. McV and some other coaches are running jet sweeps to set up Gurley. EXACTLY how it was done in the old days.
And of course the little 6 inch pass the Rams have been running is a variant of that crossing action. But you know, it is not new. Fouts referred to one of them as the shortest pass you'll ever see. Well, no. A] it will be run again and again, and probably by many other teams. And B] this is essentially a shovel pass. I can remember decades ago hearing frequent references to Lee Grosscup having won a Heisman using that shovel pass. L G was before my time, but the shovel pass does crop up from time to time.
I think it is really hard to do anything brand new in football. McV is dusting off some tactics that have been around since the leather helmet days. I doubt he's alone in doing it, also. For me, it's kind of fun to see tactics that were around when I was in HS reassert themselves.
I would imagine Waterfield could tell us tales of how his namesake and the other glory Rams of the 50s used these tactics.
