So gang, what do you think, will this formation be as much a staple of our offense next season as it was after week 3 this year? Honestly not sure. Some of the better defenses we faced stopped it, case in point the Ravens. So will it just be a one season thing? If they do keep it as a facet of the offensive scheme, what new ripples will be incorporated? One thing that bugged me about it was that we primarily had Ricky in motion going left to right. Whether the ball was handed to him or Ronnie followed him in that direction, wasn't absolute. But it looked to "trend" like while lining up in that formation. If we bring it back would like to see us make it "look" different, aside from Ronnie taking the snap (or perhaps Ricky/Cobbs could line up behind center). Have Ricky coming from the other direction, attempt more passes out of it, maybe put Ginn in motion instead of Ricky, using Ricky to help seal whatever corner they are running too. If we are going to use it, we have to run many more variations as we can't disguise as well as say a play action or other plays simply because we have a RB taking the snap and our QB spread wide. Thoughts?
There were differences in it this year. Pennington took snaps out of it as well. I'm not sure about it. Not even worried about it. What I want is an offense that moves the chains. If that's the wildcat then so be it. If it's something else then that's good, as well. As Sparano always says "it's only part of what we do".
I would like to see ronnie lined up beside chad, with direct snap to ronnie. run if there's a huge gap, if not chad's already in place for the flea flicker.
My biggest complaint with our offense this year was our inability to pound the ball between the tackles. I understand that our interior line was injured, but we gotta be able to pound the rock. I like the Wildcat. Seems like we only ran it between 4-8 times per game during our amazing end-of-year run. Keep it to mix it up a bit. Also, we ran a ton of variations on the Wildcat: -Ronnie up the gut -Handoff to Ricky -Ronnie Pass to Fasano -Handoff to Ricky who flips to Penny, who throws to Ricky -Handoff to Ricky who flips to Penny, who throws a drag to Cobbs -Ricky up the gut -Ronnie, flanked by Ricky and Cobbs (no motion) -Ronnie pass to TE
That throw to Cobbs totally smoked the texans didn't it edit: god it's good to have something awesome to look back on in a season and we've got a lot!
The Ravens stopped everything we were doing, not just the wildcat. The simple fact that almost every team in the league has added wildcat plays to their offense validates the formation.
I think you should have passed out of it more often. In both encounters with us, the run out of the WC clearly wasn't working, but that's because all the backers were commited to stopping the run out of it, which quite possibly left TE or Ricky Williams open. I can't cite specific examples because I was more concerned with the result of the play, as aposed to whether there were open passing lanes. I also think you might try passing to Chad. In our wildcat, the two most succesful plays out of it were passes to the QB. The first, It got snapped to flacco, he handed off to Troy Smith, then Flacco ran a wheel route and caught the pass thrown by Troy Smith for 43 yards. The other time we threw to the QB, Troy Smith was in shotgun with Flacco flanked out wide. Flacco dropped back a step, and recieved a cross field pass from Smith (which, crucially, went backwards). Then Smith ran a flat to the opposite side, Joe Flacco delivered the ball, and Troy ran behind a convoy of blockers for a 36 yard gain, IIRC. Sure, CP may not be as athletic as Flacco or Smith, but I think it's certainly worth a try.
I think if we get a true #1 WR, you'll see a lot less of the wildcat. It really helped used this team's strength (its RBs).
I think EVERY team will start using it next year. It will become a normal part of football. I still dont understand why people think its tricky.
I hear you about pounding it up the middle, that will come along as our oline comes along. At least all our RBS came through the season healthy. Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly, what I really was getting at was not so much what we do when running a wildcat, but finding better ways to hide it from the defense as they are lining up. Additionally, while we did try different things, it always seemed to me that Ricky would be coming from the left, cutting across to the right MOST of the time.
Using Ginn in the WC formation would be a good ripple. BTW, didn't Ronnie throw the TD to Cobbs in the NE game, or am I thinking about a different play? (Probably, LOL)
The TD pass was to Fasano in NE. I believe Cobbs caught one in Houston, not sure if it was Wildcat though.
