From the New Orleans Times-Picuyane, via reader Justin. Sean Payton discusses several plays, including four verticals and stick.

Below is a diagram of the second play the Saints run in the video above. The second video in the series (which is the more informative of the two videos) can be found after the jump.

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So asks Gregg Easterbrook, in an article titled “Coaching is Overrated”:

Changing the playcaller sure helped the Redskins!

In the cult of football, surely few things are more overrated than play calling. Much football commentary, from high school stands to the NFL in prime time, boils down to: “If they ran they should have passed, and if they passed they should have run.” Other commentary boils down to: “If it worked, it was a good call, if it failed, it was a bad call,” though the call is only one of many factors in a football play. Good calls are better than bad calls — this column exerts considerable effort documenting the difference. But it’s nonsensical to think that replacing a guy who calls a lot of runs to the left with a guy who calls a lot of runs to the right will transform a team.

One factor here is the Illusion of Coaching. We want to believe that coaches are super-ultra-masterminds in control of events, and coaches do not mind encouraging that belief. But coaching is a secondary force in sports; the athletes themselves are always more important. TMQ’s immutable Law of 10 Percent holds that good coaching can improve a team by 10 percent, bad coaching can subtract from performance by 10 percent — but the rest will always be on the players themselves, their athletic ability and level of devotion, plus luck. If the players are no good or out of sync, it won’t matter what plays are called; if the players are talented and dedicated, they will succeed no matter what the sideline signals in. Unless they have bad luck, which no one can control.

Yes and no. I wholeheartedly agree that playcalling is overrated, and he is right that much of the commentary after games involves a lot of second-guessing full of hindsight bias. Few ever pose the “should he have done X?” question in terms of the probabilities and tendencies at the time, or in the context of the 10 or so seconds available to make such calls. Indeed, I have even argued that there’s a case to be made that the best playcalling might be a controlled but randomized “mixed-strategy.”

The other coaching bogeyman is the aura surrounding “in-game adjustments” or “halftime adjustments,” both of which are supposed to be the “hallmarks of good coaching.” This is another thing where there’s a kernel of truth surrounding by a lot of speculation. Yes, a good coach will not do the same thing over and over again if it isn’t working, or if the other team has figured it out. And yes, coaching a game involves an ongoing process of what the other team is doing (this is one reason why I think, even if adjustments are part of the game, “halftime adjustments” are very much overrated). But if you want to see a bad coach then I’ll show you one who tries to “adjust” to everything the other team is doing with new schemes and ideas built-in midgame. Instead, teams with good coaching pretty much run only things within their plan — i.e. stuff they had practiced during the week. Indeed, much of what fans or commentators will pick out as an “adjustment” was something in the original gameplan that just didn’t get called until the second half because of the flow of the game. Yet how can good coaches both “adjust” throughout a game and also not deviate from what they have practiced?

This brings me to where I depart from Easterbrook, that coaching is minor. (I don’t really know how to judge “overrated” — in relation to what? overrated by whom?) While playcalling is definitely overhyped (hey, the talking heads get paid to talk about something), preparation is extremely important, and much of a gameplan involves contingency planning. It also means that the “base stuff” should have the counters built in, the constraint plays are already there, and the defensive adjustments are easy to make because they are a part of the system. A good offense “implies the counter,” meaning that if a defense adjusts in some way, then playcalling is simple because there’s an obvious counter play to be called. On defense you take away the other team’s best stuff, and focus on other things as it comes, though by dictating to the offense through aggressiveness and by trying to confuse it. Unlike Easterbrook I can’t hang a number on how many wins or losses “coaching” is responsible for (and if I could I’d imagine it varies by level), I can safely say that I think weekly preparation is underrated, because it is rarely talked about — other than platitudes like “we had a great week of practice” — has a long-tail in terms of continual refinement of technique and effort that can only improve incrementally, and that everything run in the games is stuff that has been practiced over and over and over.

Two final points on the Redskins situation. (more…)

Credit where it is due. Trojan Football Analysis shows that Ohio State’s defensive plan against USC was creative, as they came out in a completely different look than they normally do. Trojan offensive line coach Pat Ruel observed that, “Half [of OSU's] line was playing a Bear front and half was playing an Under front and they were stopping our outside zone running plays.” Offensive linemen Jeff Byers added, “We spent all night trying to adjust to what they were doing up front. They did not come with the stuff we practiced against.” The fact that the offense, Tressel’s main focus, didn’t do the same still troubles me.

- Myles Brand, president of the NCAA, has passed away. There are many sports related obits (including this one from the NY Times), but don’t forget that Brand made serious contributions to his field as a philosophy professor, including “well-known work in metaphysics and epistemology, especially action theory, as a professor at places like Pittsburgh, Arizona, and Illinois/Chicago.”

Rethinking Fourth Downs. From Brian Burke:

Imagine that for decades no one ever thought of the punt. Teams knew nothing else than to run or pass on 4th down. And then one day it’s invented. Some guy comes up to a coach and says, “Kick the ball on every 4th down and the other team gets possession 37 yards further down the field.” The coach would think he was crazy: “Wait, you want me to give up one quarter of my opportunities for a first down on every series…just for 35 yards of field position? Do you realize how much that’s going to kill our chances of scoring?”

[T]hat coach would be absolutely right. . . . Every single serious study of 4th-down decisions has found that, in most situations, teams would be better off by going for the conversion attempt rather than kicking. . . .

. . . I also think it has something to do with what economists call Prospect Theory. In short, almost all people tend to fear losses far more than they value equivalent gains. In this perspective, a punt is considered the “break-even” decision. A failed conversion attempt is seen as a loss, and a successful attempt is seen as a gain. But the loss is feared disproportionately, and the result is clouded decision-making.

- Who does a good job in NFL free agency? Via Pro Football Reference Blog.

- Why are people successful? What motivates? Wilbon:

It’s now a rather famous anecdote in the life and times of Michael Jordan that he was cut from the varsity when he was in high school. You think that’s merely a footnote more than 30 years later? You think Jordan’s forgotten the details or is willing to let go? Guess whom Jordan invited to the Hall of Fame Friday night? Leroy Smith, the kid who took his spot on the high school team. Jordan said he’s still saying “to the coach who picked Leroy over me: ‘You made a mistake, dude.’ “

– A story about quasiparticles. From Gravity and Levity:

Imagine, if you will, that you are an alien from some advanced and distant civilization. You find yourself fascinated by humans, whom you observe from your own planet through an ultra-high-powered telescope. As individuals, you think you know what humans are like: at least you have a sense of their characteristic size and patterns of motion. But you are puzzled by the behavior of large groups of humans. You therefore decide to make a study entitled “the properties of large, densely-packed groups of humans”. You begin your study by turning the gaze of your telescope to the biggest, densest group of humans you can find: the crowd at a football stadium.

The collection of humans inside the football stadium seems at first to be an enormous, chaotic, impossibly-complex collection of individual movements. But after a long period of observation, you see something truly remarkable: the humans begin doing “the wave”. What a startling observation this would be! From 80,000 humans packed together and moving around in a hopelessly complicated mess arises something remarkably simple: a single wave, which moves around the stadium with its own characteristic size and speed. You complete your study by observing “the wave”, writing down laws that describe its size and speed, and trying to predict when and where it will occur in the future.

- “It’s the downside of celebrity without the upside of it.” College athletes under the (social networking) microscope.

- A history of violence. Urban Meyer and Kiffin the Elder have a good relationship. How will that manifest itself when the Son of Kiffin, with Dad in tow, faces the Gators?

- This is unfortunate. “Fatty acids derived from pork bone fat are used as a hardening agent in crayons and also gives them their distinctive smell.” Ugh.

A little late, but I love this. Old media covers from the WizOfOdds.

- Statistical sagas [edited]. The Doc wonders how Georgia beat South Carolina despite the stats; Blutarsky notes that he might not have been paying enough attention to the right ones, and Dawgsports notes that the problem might be in focusing too much on the box score.

A Rand row. Jonathan Chait vs. Will Wilkinson on Ayn Rand.

Steve Spurrier watched the game film of his offense’s horrible performance against NC State and concluded: we weren’t aggressive enough. And people are ridiculing him for it.

Steve Spurrier has watched the entire N.C. State game twice and part of it a third time.

The South Carolina coach reached two conclusions: The Gamecocks were too conservative offensively in their 7-3 win in Raleigh, and such an approach is not going to cut it this weekend at Georgia.

“We had a pretty conservative game plan. I didn’t realize how really conservative it was until I watched the game twice now – almost three times,” Spurrier said Sunday. “We wanted to give the running game a chance, so we did do that. But we obviously need to try for some big plays along the way a little bit more probably.”

USC’s run-pass ratio in the opener was nearly 2-to-1, with the Gamecocks running 42 times and attempting 22 passes (although some of those rushes were scrambles by or sacks of quarterback Stephen Garcia).

Still, the attack looked much too plain for a coach credited with introducing the SEC to an intricate downfield passing attack in the 1990s.

And while Spurrier is not ready to scrap the Gamecocks’ revamped rushing scheme after one game, he made it clear he wants to see a more balanced attack against Georgia.

“We certainly can’t bring that game plan to beat Georgia on offense. I don’t think we can,” Spurrier said. “But we don’t want to send Stephen back there and get sacked and run around all night either. We’ve got to get us a balance between runs and passes that we can hit and look like a good offense.”

The buzz has been that Spurrier must be nuts — hey, he’s already given up on the run game. But look at the numbers. I’ve previously talked about a notion of “balance” that only looks at the number of runs or passes or the total yards with rushing and passing as being misleading, and that a far better metric is comparing the expected — or, in lieu of that, average — yards per attempt of each, though, since passes are riskier than runs, passes should still average more (have a premium). The reason is because the defense will respond to your playcalling; it’s a game theory thing.

So let’s look at the numbers. Overall, the Gamecocks averaged a measly 2.57 yards per rush, and an okay 6.7 yards per attempt, though with an interception. There can be problems at looking at the raw numbers, particularly on third down where the result is binary: convert or fail to convert. So let’s look at first down, where clearly the optimal strategy is to maximize your expected gain.

The sample is small, but on first down South Carolina ran the ball 16 times and averaged a mere 3.06 yards per carry. They threw it nine times for 78 yards (and no INTs), resulting in a very healthy 8.67 yards per attempt. I can safely say that Spurrier should have called more first down passes. The OBC’s instincts are right. His playcalling was too conservative, at least on first down, which is the most important down in football because there are more first downs than any other down.

You know, the more I hear from Steve Kragthorpe, the more I like him. I have no idea if he is a good head coach (and the evidence seems to say no), but he was a good offensive coordinator at one time and is looking to do that again. As I wrote about for Yahoo, it might be coming too late, but some of his ideas for improving the Cardinals’ offense seem quite sound. This year, Kragthorpe has taken on the full range of offensive coordinator duties, including gamplanning and playcalling. In a recent interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, Kragthorpe explained:

What should fans expect now that the head man is taking over what was once one of the top offenses in the country? Some changes may be far less apparent from the stands than they are to the players.

For one thing, Kragthorpe, a former college quarterback himself, has designed a more QB-friendly” system, beginning with allowing them more input in play-calling. He said junior Justin Burke, who was named the starter on Tuesday, will select up to 10 plays that he likes best to add to the game plan.

“Coach Kragthorpe, as we practice, knows what our strengths are and calls plays accordingly,” Burke said. “But to really hone in on that, he lets us bring in five of our favorite plays before a game … that we’re extremely comfortable with, and (it’s) kind of a go-to in a big situation. He gives us that little option.”

Burke also will have more options at the line of scrimmage. When he breaks the huddle, he will have three different plays he can use, depending on how the defense lines up. Kragthorpe has simplified the reads Burke has to make before selecting the play. Instead of reading the entire defense, he might be able to key on where one player is aligned.

“It’s very simple, especially in the run game,” Burke said. “It’s very black and white. Some of the run checks last year weren’t as simple.”

Kragthorpe also plans to give his quarterback more alternatives on passing plays beyond a primary or secondary receiver. Burke said he will have more “full-field” reads. If his primary receiver isn’t open, he’ll swivel and progress to his second, third and fourth options.

“Time will tell how dramatic those changes are in the fans’ eyes,” Kragthorpe said. “But in our eyes we’ve made some pretty big changes in terms of the way we call plays, the way we determine what play we’re going to select at the line of scrimmage and the way we read certain passing plays.”

I’ve always been a huge fan of letting the quarterbacks suggest plays. In fact, when scripting or gameplanning, I think the head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterback should all create a list of five to ten plays based on what had been installed and practice. Stuff that all three suggest immediately go into the gameplan, preferably to be run early in the game. Non-essentials plays that none of the three suggest are thrown out.

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Suppose first that you wish to cross a river that is spanned by three bridges. (Assume that swimming, wading or boating across are impossible.) The first bridge is known to be safe and free of obstacles; if you try to cross there, you will succeed. The second bridge lies beneath a cliff from which large rocks sometimes fall. The third is inhabited by deadly cobras. Now suppose you wish to rank-order the three bridges with respect to their preferability as crossing-points. Your task here is quite straightforward. The first bridge is obviously best, since it is safest. To rank-order the other two bridges, you require information about their relative levels of danger. If you can study the frequency of rock-falls and the movements of the cobras for awhile, you might be able to calculate that the probability of your being crushed by a rock at the second bridge is 10% and of being struck by a cobra at the third bridge is 20%. Your reasoning here is strictly parametric because neither the rocks nor the cobras are trying to influence your actions, by, for example, concealing their typical patterns of behaviour because they know you are studying them. It is quite obvious what you should do here: cross at the safe bridge. . . .

[Now s]uppose that you are a fugitive of some sort, and waiting on the other side of the river with a gun is your pursuer. She will catch and shoot you, let us suppose, only if she waits at the bridge you try to cross; otherwise, you will escape. As you reason through your choice of bridge, it occurs to you that she is over there trying to anticipate your reasoning. It will seem that, surely, choosing the safe bridge straight away would be a mistake, since that is just where she will expect you, and your chances of death rise to certainty. So perhaps you should risk the rocks, since these odds are much better. But wait … if you can reach this conclusion, your pursuer, who is just as rational and well-informed as you are, can anticipate that you will reach it, and will be waiting for you if you evade the rocks. So perhaps you must take your chances with the cobras; that is what she must least expect. But, then, no … if she expects that you will expect that she will least expect this, then she will most expect it. This dilemma, you realize with dread, is general: you must do what your pursuer least expects; but whatever you most expect her to least expect is automatically what she will most expect. You appear to be trapped in indecision. All that might console you a bit here is that, on the other side of the river, your pursuer is trapped in exactly the same quandary, unable to decide which bridge to wait at because as soon as she imagines committing to one, she will notice that if she can find a best reason to pick a bridge, you can anticipate that same reason and then avoid her.

The above passage is from here. Can you explain in what way this informs play-calling and gameplanning? Here’s an (incomplete) hint.