The Future of the NFL: More Up-tempo No-huddle

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that huddling is an archaism destined for the dustbin. I say it’s a slight exaggeration because there is a value to huddling, primarily when you have a great leader at quarterback as a huddle is an opportunity for him to show his leadership skills. But otherwise, it’s inherently inferior to going no-huddle. It’s slower, which is a problem both in games but also in practice where your offense gets fewer reps, and, maybe most importantly, the safety net of a huddle leads coaches to transform plays that can be communicated in just one or two words into multi-syllabic monstrosities. That’s the sad secret of those long NFL playcalls: They convey no more information than can be conveyed with one or two words or with a combination of hand-signals.

It’s doubly bizarre that the NFL, which has the most (i.e. infinite) practice time to develop no-huddle methods, and where the quarterbacks actually have a radio speaker in their headsets — shouldn’t it be easy? And it’s no secret, too. Despite being a copycat league, most NFL teams don’t do it while the best teams and the best quarterbacks — Tom Brady and Peyton Manning — kill people with it every week. And what is strangest of all is that the NFL was onto the no-huddle before most modern teams:

None of this is particularly new. In the 1980s and early 1990s, both the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills used the no-huddle extensively, and college and high school teams have increasingly moved to no-huddle approaches over the last decade. In his 1997 book Finding the Winning Edge, Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh—whose West Coast offense fueled the growth of complex play calls—predicted that no-huddle offenses using “one word” play calls would come to dominate football. Walsh may have been a bit early, but Brady and Belichick are making his prediction come true.

But things may be changing, led by an influx of college quarterbacks comfortable in the movements of the no-huddle. As Tom Brady shows every week, there’s an art to manipulating the defense in the no-huddle. And there’s an incredible value to this, as NFL defenses become more and more complex.

Modern defenses want to match offenses in terms of strength and speed via personnel substitutions. They also want to confuse offenses with movement and disguise. The up-tempo no-huddle stymies those defensive options. The defense doesn’t have time to substitute, and it’s also forced to show its hand: It can’t disguise or shift because the quarterback can snap the ball and take advantage of some obvious, structural weakness. And when the defense is forced to reveal itself, Tom Brady can change into a better play. The upshot of this tactic: Brady, of all people, sees defenses that are simpler than those most other NFL quarterbacks go up against.

I’m somewhat more confident about seeing more no-huddle in the NFL both because there was more of it last season, but also because of those young quarterbacks. The “Gruden QB” camps are not the same thing as actual player evaluation, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting subtexts. Last season, everyone jumped on Cam Newton for his performance on Gruden’s show, when he was challenged about how simple his playcalls were at Auburn. The consensus was that because, in Auburn’s no-huddle offense, Cam would simply say “36″ instead of one of those long NFL playcalls, he was unfit for the pros. Well those predictions didn’t turn out well.

Flash forward a year and in the Gruden quarterback camps, specifically the ones with Robert Griffin III and Brandon Weeden, significant time is spent on the up-tempo no-huddle offenses both operated in as they decimated opponents. Gruden asks both the same questions: How do you get lined up so fast? How do you get everyone on the same page? Griffin talks about using one word playcalls, while Weeden describes the elaborate (and sometimes not so elaborate) system of hand signals he uses to communicate everything.

Weeden, of course, uses the same offense and communication methods installed by Dana Holgorsen, which Gruden got to see first hand as he broadcast the 70 point beatdown (much of it coming from the up-tempo no-huddle) that Holgorsen’s current team, West Virginia, delivered in the Orange Bowl. (Also, you have to love Weeden diagramming the infamous Stick/Draw play, a play that is both a run and a pass, as Gruden’s eyes go wide.)

And much of this ignores the greatest benefit the no-huddle delivers: Better and more efficient practices. No one exemplifies that better than Oregon:

“The N.F.L. scouts on the sideline, the first time they come and watch practice, they’re like, ‘What the heck is this?’ ” Costa said. “They’re mesmerized by it. There’s nothing like it.”

An eclectic music shuffle constantly blares to simulate crowd noise. Songs include the symbolic (“Sympathy for the Devil” before the Arizona State game); the hip (tracks from the rapper Drake); and the out of place (“Circle of Life” from “The Lion King”). For good measure, the players hurry around attired in the Ducks’ dizzying yellow and green color scheme.

“Our practices are bedlam,” said the offensive line coach Steve Greatwood.

Underlying these frenetic practices is a change to how teaching is done in football, more and more: with film. Oregon is again Exhibit A:

Oregon’s practices last two hours, an hour less than a typical college practice, and there is so little time between plays that coaches must do their teaching with only a few words or wait until the film room. Kelly said that practice had become so sophisticated and fluid that getting off 30 snaps in a 10-minute period had become common.

Nowadays, everything is videotaped and can be watched instantly after practice. Too often in practice, time is wasted as everyone stands around while one coach delivers one sermon to one player. At Oregon — like Baylor, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, and so on — unless a play is really a disaster they simply run the next play and make corrections in the film room or after practice or before the next one, just as it is with a game. As Sam Snead once said, “practice is putting brains in your muscles,” and the up-tempo no-huddle makes practice all the more efficient at doing just that.

The upshot is that the no-huddle puts additional pressure on defenses, simplifies communication, and makes practicing better, more efficient and — sometimes, at least — more fun. It’s a no brainer. And I can’t wait for the NFL to figure that out or, more accurately, remember it.

Related Posts:

• Long live the Air Raid! The Air Raid is Dead?
• Anatomy of a Beatdown: The key concepts Dana Holgorsen’s West Virginia Mountaineers used to crush Clemson 70-33 in the Orange Bowl
• Dana Holgorsen’s West Virginia “Airraid” offense
• Why every team should install its offense in three days (and other political theories on coaching offense)
• New Grantland: Post/Wheel and the Latest Wrinkles in Holgorsen’s West Virginia Offense