Rams report: Inside slant

April 8, 2006
The Sports Xchange

Inside slant · Strategy and personnel · Notes, quotes


New Rams coach Scott Linehan gave a significant glimpse at what his
offense will look like during a chat with reporters at the recent NFL
meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Given the voluminous playbook developed over the years by former coach
Mike Martz, Linehan made it clear his system will be easier on the players.

"The more you shoot free throws in basketball, the better you get at
it," Linehan said. "And the more you run the same play (in football),
the better you're going to get at it. It's going to become more
efficient. You're going to know where to go. You're going to know the
problems with it.

"That's the only way I've ever known how to approach it. I think players
get better by running the same things over and over -- and that's not
being critical about how they did it (before).

"You cannot deny the success of St. Louis in their glory days
offensively. It was probably one of the most unbelievable things I think
any of us have ever watched as far as an offense. ... But I'm more
inclined to say that we're going to be able to score points and be as
productive a different way. Maybe a few more runs in there. Maybe a few
more quick passes. Not as much of the hold the ball, hold the ball,
throw it."

Joking that "I'm not smart enough to do that," when talking about the
previous offense, Linehan added, "I've got to keep mine a little more
simple. In Mike's defense, he's brilliant -- probably a genius -- as far
as offense. You can't deny his ability to dissect a defense with some of
those things he did offensively. I think what happens, though, is you
get caught up in doing things and changing, and being innovative and all
that. And sometimes that can be too much for some players."

Citing the running game as an example, Linehan said, "We're only going
to have three basic runs that we run different ways -- hopefully over
and over again."

Linehan said after talking with the team's offensive players, some
things will remain the same.

"We're going to keep a lot of the concepts that they ran," he said. "The
first thing we did, we went in and kept all the personnel groupings the
same. Called the formations the same. I was explaining it to Isaac
(Bruce) and he said, 'It sounds to me like you want to set the table so
you can eat.' And it makes sense. It's a great way of looking at it.

"If we can go out to our first mini-camp and call a formation, and all
of our players can immediately line up and get in that formation -- and
running simple motions -- to me, that's half the battle."

The tempo, he said, will also be very quick.

"You'll see us break the huddle fairly quick coming up to the line,"
Linehan explained. "I like maximum time at the line, minimum time in the
huddle. You'll see us do a lot of no-huddle, as I think a lot of teams
do. You see a lot of teams that don't necessarily run no-huddle, but
they don't huddle. They get to the line and they call a play. They get
to the line and have a lot of time to look at the defense. If they need
to change a (pass) protection, you can change it. I think that's really
where the game is evolving because the defenses are getting so good at
showing you one thing and giving you something else. So you've got to
kind of change it, and try to make them more simple."

But within that simplicity will be more power for quarterback Marc
Bulger than he had under Martz, meaning the ability to audible.

"It (audible system) will be fairly simplified," Linehan said. "But
we'll have a lot of different tools to use. On first down, if they're
playing the run, if they're anticipating the run, I want to be able to
have a simple way of getting to a pass. And vice versa. It's much easier
to call plays when your quarterback is controlling that element of it.

"He's going to have automatic things he can go to. If all of a sudden
we're playing a team, and they run a 'Bear' defense, the quarterback's
got to know that this (pass-blocking) protection has too many holes in
it against the 'Bear' defense. He's going to have to know how to get us
out of a bad situation.

"He's going to have much more to do with our run game. That'll be a big
change as far as (changing) runs, or runs to pass, or passes to run."

Fewer seven-step drops? Not as many four-receiver formations? A
no-huddle? Yes, offense will be the focus, but it will be different.

Concluded Linehan, "We won our last six games at Miami, and we opened up
probably our last seven games in no-huddle and did quite a bit of it.
We're not strictly a no-huddle team. We're not going to be Indy. ... But
there's going to be a time and place for it, and I would think every
week it's going to be part of what we're doing."

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