only 2 out of NFLs 32 teams had less than 3200 yards passing in 2015
- Thread starter yseJ
- Start date
SPORTS
ST. LOUIS RAMS 7:44 AM SEP 23, 2014
Revisiting The Greatest Show On Turf
By NEIL PAINE
St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner passes during the first quarter Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999, in St. Louis, Missouri.
L.G. PATTERSON / AP
Fifteen years ago, Mike Martz had a radical notion: “Why does the run have to set up the pass?”
That, according to Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, was the question the new St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator posed to his head coach, dikk Vermeil, as they prepared for the coming NFL season in June 1999. It was to be Vermeil’s third in St. Louis, and judging from the press clippings, probably his last if things didn’t change in a hurry.1Over the previous two seasons, Vermeil had coached the Rams to 23 losses and only nine wins, with an offense that ranked 23rd out of 30 NFL teams in passing efficiency and 26th in scoring.
Then came Martz. “I don’t know of any assistant coach that came in, at any one time, in any one program, and made as big a contribution as Mike did at that time,” Vermeil said in a recent interview. In his estimation, Martz’s contribution to the Rams2 was equivalent to that of a first-round pick — and that’s not a hard case to make. Upon Martz’s arrival, the Rams went from laughingstocks to Super Bowl champs with an explosive attack that came to be known as the “Greatest Show on Turf.”
It was, at the time, the third-most potent scoring offense and the second-most efficient passing attack3 the league had seen in its modern incarnation.4 And of even more historical significance, the Rams did it before the league became fixated on throwing the ball.
While the longtime mantra of football coaches everywhere had been to “establish the run” before passing, Martz’s plan was to aggressively pass the ball until the Rams had a lead worth protecting with the run. Stocked with speed everywhere and willing to throw in any situation, the Greatest Show on Turf proved that pass-first teams could win championships, and it heralded the passing fireworks we see in the NFL today.
“If you go back and look at the other teams of that era, the ‘conventional’ teams that you were competing with, [the Rams were] the aberration of the day,” said former Baltimore Ravens coach and current NFL Network analyst Brian Billick, whose head-coaching debut came against the Rams in their 1999 regular-season opener. “St. Louis was so far ahead. It’s hard to say [they were] ‘pass-happy’ because they actually ran the ball pretty well,” he said. “But there’s no question they wanted to throw the ball.”
As Billick noted, St. Louis still could run effectively — running back Marshall Faulk racked up the NFL’s fifth-most rushing yards in 1999 — but that wasn’t the team’s focus. The Rams anticipated what statistical analysts would eventually come to learn about football: Teams run when they win; they don’t win when they run. After using all that passing to build early leads, St. Louis rushed on the league’s sixth-largest proportion of its second-half plays — and no team devoted more of its fourth-quarter plays to running the ball. Martz had successfully flipped conventional football wisdom on its head, using the pass to set up the run just as he had set out to do.
And ever since the Greatest Show on Turf hit the NFL scene, the league has trended toward ever more (and more effective) passing, further enabled by rule changes designed to incentivize every team to spread the field and throw the ball aggressively.
The genesis of the Rams’ aggressive strategy came when Martz was coaching quarterbacks for the Washington Redskins a year earlier. As ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski tells the story in his book “The Games That Changed The Game,” Martz realized that his pass-heavy third-down play packages were too effective to be confined to such a narrow situation.5 “Since we both love these plays so much,” Martz asked head coach Norv Turner, “why can’t we run them whenever we want? Why wait till third down?”
“So what happened was that we decided to run these third-and-long plays regardless of down and distance or field position,” Martz told Jaworski. “To us it simply didn’t matter anymore. This kept defenses guessing — they couldn’t zero in on our tendencies, personnel packages, or formations, because they’d always have to be ready for the big pass.”
More importantly, the Rams proved that a team could win without establishing the ground game before unleashing holy terror through the air. On first downs,13 St. Louis passed a league-high 59 percent of the time, and gained 7.6 yards per attempt on those throws (11 percent more than the NFL average on all attempts that year) and scored a touchdown on 7.4 percent of them (almost twice the league average across all attempts). On the whole, the Rams passed 5.4 percent more than would be expected from their +9.1 average in-game scoring margin — still the biggest disparity by any Super Bowl winner since the merger.
ST. LOUIS RAMS 7:44 AM SEP 23, 2014
Revisiting The Greatest Show On Turf
By NEIL PAINE
St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner passes during the first quarter Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999, in St. Louis, Missouri.
L.G. PATTERSON / AP
Fifteen years ago, Mike Martz had a radical notion: “Why does the run have to set up the pass?”
That, according to Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, was the question the new St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator posed to his head coach, dikk Vermeil, as they prepared for the coming NFL season in June 1999. It was to be Vermeil’s third in St. Louis, and judging from the press clippings, probably his last if things didn’t change in a hurry.1Over the previous two seasons, Vermeil had coached the Rams to 23 losses and only nine wins, with an offense that ranked 23rd out of 30 NFL teams in passing efficiency and 26th in scoring.
Then came Martz. “I don’t know of any assistant coach that came in, at any one time, in any one program, and made as big a contribution as Mike did at that time,” Vermeil said in a recent interview. In his estimation, Martz’s contribution to the Rams2 was equivalent to that of a first-round pick — and that’s not a hard case to make. Upon Martz’s arrival, the Rams went from laughingstocks to Super Bowl champs with an explosive attack that came to be known as the “Greatest Show on Turf.”
It was, at the time, the third-most potent scoring offense and the second-most efficient passing attack3 the league had seen in its modern incarnation.4 And of even more historical significance, the Rams did it before the league became fixated on throwing the ball.
While the longtime mantra of football coaches everywhere had been to “establish the run” before passing, Martz’s plan was to aggressively pass the ball until the Rams had a lead worth protecting with the run. Stocked with speed everywhere and willing to throw in any situation, the Greatest Show on Turf proved that pass-first teams could win championships, and it heralded the passing fireworks we see in the NFL today.
“If you go back and look at the other teams of that era, the ‘conventional’ teams that you were competing with, [the Rams were] the aberration of the day,” said former Baltimore Ravens coach and current NFL Network analyst Brian Billick, whose head-coaching debut came against the Rams in their 1999 regular-season opener. “St. Louis was so far ahead. It’s hard to say [they were] ‘pass-happy’ because they actually ran the ball pretty well,” he said. “But there’s no question they wanted to throw the ball.”
As Billick noted, St. Louis still could run effectively — running back Marshall Faulk racked up the NFL’s fifth-most rushing yards in 1999 — but that wasn’t the team’s focus. The Rams anticipated what statistical analysts would eventually come to learn about football: Teams run when they win; they don’t win when they run. After using all that passing to build early leads, St. Louis rushed on the league’s sixth-largest proportion of its second-half plays — and no team devoted more of its fourth-quarter plays to running the ball. Martz had successfully flipped conventional football wisdom on its head, using the pass to set up the run just as he had set out to do.
And ever since the Greatest Show on Turf hit the NFL scene, the league has trended toward ever more (and more effective) passing, further enabled by rule changes designed to incentivize every team to spread the field and throw the ball aggressively.
The genesis of the Rams’ aggressive strategy came when Martz was coaching quarterbacks for the Washington Redskins a year earlier. As ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski tells the story in his book “The Games That Changed The Game,” Martz realized that his pass-heavy third-down play packages were too effective to be confined to such a narrow situation.5 “Since we both love these plays so much,” Martz asked head coach Norv Turner, “why can’t we run them whenever we want? Why wait till third down?”
“So what happened was that we decided to run these third-and-long plays regardless of down and distance or field position,” Martz told Jaworski. “To us it simply didn’t matter anymore. This kept defenses guessing — they couldn’t zero in on our tendencies, personnel packages, or formations, because they’d always have to be ready for the big pass.”
More importantly, the Rams proved that a team could win without establishing the ground game before unleashing holy terror through the air. On first downs,13 St. Louis passed a league-high 59 percent of the time, and gained 7.6 yards per attempt on those throws (11 percent more than the NFL average on all attempts that year) and scored a touchdown on 7.4 percent of them (almost twice the league average across all attempts). On the whole, the Rams passed 5.4 percent more than would be expected from their +9.1 average in-game scoring margin — still the biggest disparity by any Super Bowl winner since the merger.
Field Marshall Bradley
Veteran
Where do you think Nick Saban got the formula from? Early Pats, Cowboys, Giants, Steelers, etc were highly successful with the philosophy
Nick Saban wins because he has 90+ 5 star recruits
Field Marshall Bradley
Veteran
He has the best concentration of lineman and linebackers without question..... and his Defense and clock management is what's allowing him to being dominate...... not scoring 70 points and having top tier skillset players 3 strings deep
Field Marshall Bradley
Veteran
There are talent advantages for sure, its just no where near the gap that you have between college teams
yseJ
Empire strikes back
Field Marshall Bradley
Veteran
SPORTS
ST. LOUIS RAMS 7:44 AM SEP 23, 2014
Revisiting The Greatest Show On Turf
By NEIL PAINE
St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner passes during the first quarter Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999, in St. Louis, Missouri.
L.G. PATTERSON / AP
Fifteen years ago, Mike Martz had a radical notion: “Why does the run have to set up the pass?”
That, according to Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, was the question the new St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator posed to his head coach, dikk Vermeil, as they prepared for the coming NFL season in June 1999. It was to be Vermeil’s third in St. Louis, and judging from the press clippings, probably his last if things didn’t change in a hurry.1Over the previous two seasons, Vermeil had coached the Rams to 23 losses and only nine wins, with an offense that ranked 23rd out of 30 NFL teams in passing efficiency and 26th in scoring.
Then came Martz. “I don’t know of any assistant coach that came in, at any one time, in any one program, and made as big a contribution as Mike did at that time,” Vermeil said in a recent interview. In his estimation, Martz’s contribution to the Rams2 was equivalent to that of a first-round pick — and that’s not a hard case to make. Upon Martz’s arrival, the Rams went from laughingstocks to Super Bowl champs with an explosive attack that came to be known as the “Greatest Show on Turf.”
It was, at the time, the third-most potent scoring offense and the second-most efficient passing attack3 the league had seen in its modern incarnation.4 And of even more historical significance, the Rams did it before the league became fixated on throwing the ball.
While the longtime mantra of football coaches everywhere had been to “establish the run” before passing, Martz’s plan was to aggressively pass the ball until the Rams had a lead worth protecting with the run. Stocked with speed everywhere and willing to throw in any situation, the Greatest Show on Turf proved that pass-first teams could win championships, and it heralded the passing fireworks we see in the NFL today.
“If you go back and look at the other teams of that era, the ‘conventional’ teams that you were competing with, [the Rams were] the aberration of the day,” said former Baltimore Ravens coach and current NFL Network analyst Brian Billick, whose head-coaching debut came against the Rams in their 1999 regular-season opener. “St. Louis was so far ahead. It’s hard to say [they were] ‘pass-happy’ because they actually ran the ball pretty well,” he said. “But there’s no question they wanted to throw the ball.”
As Billick noted, St. Louis still could run effectively — running back Marshall Faulk racked up the NFL’s fifth-most rushing yards in 1999 — but that wasn’t the team’s focus. The Rams anticipated what statistical analysts would eventually come to learn about football: Teams run when they win; they don’t win when they run. After using all that passing to build early leads, St. Louis rushed on the league’s sixth-largest proportion of its second-half plays — and no team devoted more of its fourth-quarter plays to running the ball. Martz had successfully flipped conventional football wisdom on its head, using the pass to set up the run just as he had set out to do.
And ever since the Greatest Show on Turf hit the NFL scene, the league has trended toward ever more (and more effective) passing, further enabled by rule changes designed to incentivize every team to spread the field and throw the ball aggressively.
The genesis of the Rams’ aggressive strategy came when Martz was coaching quarterbacks for the Washington Redskins a year earlier. As ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski tells the story in his book “The Games That Changed The Game,” Martz realized that his pass-heavy third-down play packages were too effective to be confined to such a narrow situation.5 “Since we both love these plays so much,” Martz asked head coach Norv Turner, “why can’t we run them whenever we want? Why wait till third down?”
“So what happened was that we decided to run these third-and-long plays regardless of down and distance or field position,” Martz told Jaworski. “To us it simply didn’t matter anymore. This kept defenses guessing — they couldn’t zero in on our tendencies, personnel packages, or formations, because they’d always have to be ready for the big pass.”
More importantly, the Rams proved that a team could win without establishing the ground game before unleashing holy terror through the air. On first downs,13 St. Louis passed a league-high 59 percent of the time, and gained 7.6 yards per attempt on those throws (11 percent more than the NFL average on all attempts that year) and scored a touchdown on 7.4 percent of them (almost twice the league average across all attempts). On the whole, the Rams passed 5.4 percent more than would be expected from their +9.1 average in-game scoring margin — still the biggest disparity by any Super Bowl winner since the merger.
And it came to an abrupt end when Beli came through with the run game\clock management and solid D... and that was the end of Mike Martz chapter........
Kurt Warner was a special QB, who had a great receiving corp and backfield.... but like clockwork, the credit is solely given to the
who is in position of authorityRight, but its also not possible to have that type of advantage in the NFL.
And it came to an abrupt end when Beli came through with the run game\clock management and solid D... and that was the end of Mike Martz chapter........
Kurt Warner was a special QB, who had a great receiving corp and backfield.... but like clockwork, the credit is solely given to the
It all goes in cycles. The Giants shut down the Pats in 07....Seahawks shut down the Broncos in 2014...last year the Pats offense won the battle against the great defense. There isnt a magic formula to success....other than good teams winning championships.
yseJ
Empire strikes back
can anyone remember why the seahags ultimately lost last year ? wasnt it because instead of running the ball with extremely slim chance of turning it over they decided to be cute and pass for a td in a high-pressure situation ?
yseJ
Empire strikes back
even the greatest show on turf SB was in an extremely close game which ended with literally an inch away from the goal line, against a defensive team manned by a guy who the coli thinks is extremely overrated as a head coachAnd it came to an abrupt end when Beli came through with the run game\clock management and solid D... and that was the end of Mike Martz chapter........
Kurt Warner was a special QB, who had a great receiving corp and backfield.... but like clockwork, the credit is solely given to the
most people dont remember, but the game they played against the bucs in NFCC ended with a 11-6 score...warner threw 3 picks and shaun king threw 2. bucs defense held them in a game against one of the best offenses of all time, all game long.
Field Marshall Bradley
Veteran
that proves absolutely nothing other than it being a shytty situational call