The Jags Are Going to The Superbowl (and a way to neutralize Troy Paulumalu has been discovered!!!)

After watching last night's game, it is pretty apparent that if the Jaguars can stay healthy, I think they are going to the Superbowl. Their defense is absolutely dominant, just devastating tacklers at every position. They make and stick every hit, if you want to see a great defense then watch the Jags (even Rashaun Mathis who had a rough start against Dallas is coming around).

The Jags offense is very creative, and they have some great packages that effectively neutralizes the 3-4 packages that they face. The size/speed of their offensive line absolute wears down 3-4 units as the Jag o-line men are great a getting to the second level and hitting a linebacker. Plus the Jag coaches seem to be making great calls on the game plan. If you watch last night's game, they were able to take Troy Paulumalu out of the game by motioning in the WR (either Reggie Williams or Ernest Wilford) on his side, and hammering him every play by running off tackle to his side. By the 4th quarter, the Jags were able to run freely to the edges, and Pittsburgh was done. Its pretty obvious that the Jags are planning on using their big WRs as blockers in the run game, which is brillant because all their WRs are the size of some TEs. (The blocking aspect of what I just said doesn't apply to Matt Jones, he is defintiely going to be a target for Leftwich, but on running downs, you won't see him in the game very much.)

Now the question is can the San Diego defense overcome the ablility of the Jags to run off-tackle against a 3-4 front. I don't know if they can, but Merriman is probably going to be one of the most dominant OLBs this season, so it should be a good match up to watch.

Use of the Spread Option in the NFL

The Atlanta Falcons have gained something like 500 yds of rushing offense in the first 2 games on the season against 2 pretty good defenses (Carolina and Tampa), and they have won both games. Now, many of you like myself has wondered how in the world is this possible.

After seeing some parts of this week's Atlanta game, it has become pretty obvious that the Falcons are running their main offense out of the I formation option (the traditional option that we are all used from the dominant Nebraska 90's teams) and alot of nifty use of the spread option (very popular in college, the shining example of it being Texas last year).

Now when the Falcons are in the I formtaion, their option tendencies are quite low, in fact they usually just pound away with Warrick Dunn. However, once in a while we are treated to a Mike Vick sprint out where he has the ability to make a pitch to Dunn if he wanted to. Mainly, I think these runs are used to keep the defense off balance because a pure traditional option attack like this will most likely result in Mike Vick getting decapitated by week 4.

The beauty of this formation is that it is a great look to run play action off of it. Considering the astounding number of times that Atlanta runs the ball, running play action is a breeze. Plus we all know Mike Vick isn't accurate, but the one thing he does well as a passer is throwing lasers downfield. Effective play action is the perfect vehicle to take advantage of Vick's arm strength, espeically when you look at the Falcon's WR corps, where you notice that they all are tall and have deep speed, but are poor route runners.

All of this is pretty run of the mill stuff considering most ball control offenses in the NFL run a variation to what was describe above. What makes Atlanta so unique in my opinion is when they are in shotgun.

When they are in shotgun, they are effectively trying to run the spread option because they have 3 WRs (w/ Alge Crumpler, kinda being a 4th WR) on the field along with Warrick Dunn in the backfield. When the Falcons are in this look, it is pretty obvious that Vick has been given the choice of either:

1) Pass the ball downfield
2) Hand the ball off to Dunn
3) Run himself

In the past choice number 3 was usually the result of a broken play, but now its pretty obvious that the Falcons are making run a part of Vick's progressions.

The whole point of the spread option is to take as many defenders out of the box as possible in order to let the QB read the defense, and decide if he wants to pass/run/hand/toss the ball to the RB. It is a fantastic college offense with an elite athletic QB because it keeps the ball in their hands almost all the time, and usually they can take control with their athleticism. Can it work in the NFL? The jury is still out, but if Vick can keep doing it, and the Falcons can keep winning, all bets are off.

If you want to really see what I am talking about, make sure you watch this week's MNF game. It will be really interesting to watch the spread option in the NFL, I think it can work, and Monday will be the first chance most of us have had to watch it executed over an entire game.