I absolutely agree that the GSOT's decline was due to multiple causes. Martz was unstable. He had no solid GM to keep the talent flowing. The league was put off by his iconoclasm. The whole thing disintegrated from within.
But I guess I see SOME of it as a matter of the Max Q approach being unsustainable. The margin for error was so damn fine.
I think McV's approach has a wider M of E. I think he is defying gravity less. I think he depends less on deception.
I mean, there is deception there. But consider the jet sweeps. They are not trick plays to mess with people's minds. They form a legitimate, sustainable, significant portion of the offense. They provide our running game with two legitimate points of attack that pull the defense in opposite directions. To be effective, they need not deceive so much as freeze pursuit that must stay home to honor legitimate threats. The effectiveness of the balance of power RB with jet sweeps is, I think sustainable for longer than some of Martz's crazy deployments were.
Of course, I am not saying that the Air Coryell model can't last. It can and has. I'm not comparing the WCO to A C in general terms.
But thinking of the GSOT v today's Ram offense, I do think McV shows evidence of a sustainable form of effectiveness that Martz never could match.
