I got thinking about some other things, Jim.

Shanahan is a clever guy and I think he’s found a way to exploit the rules—-not cheating like Belichick—-but found a way to maximize coaching his run game this way.

The way the rules are crafted, the defenders are penalized for doing what an offensive player can do without getting flagged. (Just for fun and brevity, I’m going to call ‘offensive players’ ‘offenders’.)

Now—and I realize there’s some limitations—the offender is viewed as the poor defenseless victim of the Jack Tatum assassin defenders who are waiting to take the head off the offender carrying the ball. I’ve seen offenders on extremely rare occasions flagged for leading with their heads, but 99% of the time, it’s the defender getting flagged for being too head leading.

So, how does Shanahan exploit that? He coaches his ball carriers to run aggressively even if their heads are in the lead because the greater odds are that the defender will get flagged on top of the ball carrier having a better chance of getting more yards after contact.

So, Shanahan—in my view—looks at the rules and the current ball carrying tendencies which empathize ball security and Shanahan calculates that, sure, if my guys are still leg driving and fighting for every yard, there is a chance they can be stripped of the ball. But I can coach up ball security.

On the other hand, defenders are not expecting to tackle bulls in China shops, they’re expecting to have the offender go down with relative ease due to the ball security demands of his coach. Plus, it’s easy to gain a ton more yards with the implementation of this strategy because to stop this aggressive running style/philosophy, defenders really need to stick their head in there risking a 15 yard penalty tacked onto the end of the run.

So, weigh the odds: give up a scintilla of ball security or impose your will on the defense by running according to a different standard of aggression.

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We Not Me