The rapid explosion in “QB breakdown” videos this year from QBSchool, Kurt Warner, Brees, Daniels and a million copycats made me realize that they seem to have their own name for basically every route combination. “Oh yeah, I call this one Jimmy 2 Shift” proceeds to draw out the route combination.
I get that there are definitely some broad differences like Shanahan offenses leaning on zone run and bootlegs but it’s not like they’re running some extra special sauce right? Seems like everyone else knows the same plays and could just run more of them if they wanted to have a “Shanahan offense”.
What is it that actually separates the quality of these different coordinators and schemes?
When guys are breaking down the plays, they know the result. They are telling you “This looks like Jimmy 2 Shift” after seeing what routes the receivers run, and what order the QB looks at each of the players in his progression.
The goal of the OC is to make the result not-obvious for the defense. So they’ll do things like run multiple plays out of the same formation (e.g. by changing route combinations, the order the play is read by the QB, giving receivers options based on what the defense is doing, run out of passing formations or pass out of running formations, etc).
The difference between offenses and OCs are how they mix and match some of those concepts, which formations/personnel groupings they favor, and when they choose to call which plays (e.g. to establish or exploit expctations).