Why RPOs in NFL Don't Work as Good as in College and High School

dll2000

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They still work. Just not quite as well.

1) In NFL the rule is OL can only be 1 yard downfield. In college and high school it is 3 yards. That difference is huge. To be fair though the NFL refs often give the NFL O linemen more than a yard. But in college and high school they often get more than 3 LOL. Anyway like I said that difference is huge. It makes it really difficult to run power, ISO or IZ as an RPO concept against certain fronts which from experience is best and most effective way to run an RPO. It puts so much stress on a defense. It is really difficult to defend.

(I think they should change the NFL rule to match).

2) In college and high school the R in RPO is usually the QB which puts defense a man down or at least makes it even. In modern high school football the best athlete on team who can also throw in any competent sense is who you usually make the QB. That gives you one more decoy, receiver or blocker. In NFL they seldom want the R to be the QB, which takes 1 man out of run threat equation.

While football is the most creative of all sports because it has the most variables. When you actually start white boarding plays you realize a lot of offensive vs. defensive strategy in any scheme boils down to how do I get a numbers advantage somewhere or at least even numbers.

The rest is how do I get a one on one match up (so I can choose someone favorable) or get my best athlete the ball in space.

The advantage the NFL has is P part of RPO is far superior due to arm talent and practice time. However, the wide open looks the threat that an athletic QB creates overrides that advantage because the throws become so easy.
 

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RPO in the sense that most people think of it doesn't really work all that well in the NFL. Packaged plays however are here to stay. They may not see a lot of use in the NFL but its still happens every season and its not affected by what you're talking about. Most people that were around for the Trestman era can remember packaged plays and how well they worked. It was one of the few things Marc did right.
 

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Players on average are much faster in the NFL.

While you can exploit part of the college defense the NFL defense has fast guys everywhere.
 

dll2000

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Players on average are much faster in the NFL.

While you can exploit part of the college defense the NFL defense has fast guys everywhere.

It makes a difference, but not as big as one as people think. Offensive guys are faster too and QBs throw faster and harder.

I have heard my whole life the blanket assertion that you can't run this play or that play in NFL because of speed of defense and every time someone actually tries it, it turns out not to be true.

Biggest reason NFL doesn't run more plays that work in college and high school is preservation of the QB not speed of the defense.

Ravens made playoffs last year with crap offensive talent and throwing together an offense on the fly midseason running college plays. They should have been awful offensively. One team (Chargers) shut them down and it's curtains and see I told you so. Two great teams were simulateously shut down in Super Bowl. Bears shut down Rams first. Cowboys shut down NO.

Sometimes DC comes up with a good game plan and you can't counter it in that particular game. Doesn't mean whole offense or all the plays are worthless. Obviously, Patriots, Rams and NO are great offenses and great schemes. But when it comes to certain plays everybody wants to declare it dead at first hiccup to confirm their bias or preconceived notions (not you speaking generally).

When Chip Kelly came in league Jaworski and a dozen others said zone read and RPO's couldn't work because of NFL team speed and it did and still does used sparingly to keep defenses honest. They predicted spectacular failure for Kelly, and they were right for wrong reasons, but he had some very good offenses with poor talent. Check out where they ranked when he was in Philly. He had worse talent in SF. Ask Andy Reid where he got half of his new playbook from, he will tell you he copied it from Chip Kelly and merged it with rest of his offense. They said same thing about WR screens when Gary Croughton brought them in with Bears back in day.

Now everybody uses all of them to some extent and Jaworski is learning RPO's on GamePass.
 

modo

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It makes a difference, but not as big as one as people think. Offensive guys are faster too and QBs throw faster and harder.

I have heard my whole life the blanket assertion that you can't run this play or that play in NFL because of speed of defense and every time someone actually tries it, it turns out not to be true.

Biggest reason NFL doesn't run more plays that work in college and high school is preservation of the QB not speed of the defense.

Ravens made playoffs last year with crap offensive talent and throwing together an offense on the fly midseason running college plays. They should have been awful offensively. One team (Chargers) shut them down and it's curtains and see I told you so. Two great teams were simulateously shut down in Super Bowl. Bears shut down Rams first. Cowboys shut down NO.

Sometimes DC comes up with a good game plan and you can't counter it in that particular game. Doesn't mean whole offense or all the plays are worthless. Obviously, Patriots, Rams and NO are great offenses and great schemes. But when it comes to certain plays everybody wants to declare it dead at first hiccup to confirm their bias or preconceived notions (not you speaking generally).

When Chip Kelly came in league Jaworski and a dozen others said zone read and RPO's couldn't work because of NFL team speed and it did and still does used sparingly to keep defenses honest. They predicted spectacular failure for Kelly, and they were right for wrong reasons, but he had some very good offenses with poor talent. Check out where they ranked when he was in Philly. He had worse talent in SF. Ask Andy Reid where he got half of his new playbook from, he will tell you it copied it from Chip Kelly and merged it with rest of his offense. They said same thing about WR screens when Gary Croughton brought them in with Bears back in day.

Now everybody uses all of them to some extent and Jaworski is learning RPO's on GamePass.

Here is the thing....on offense with RPOs you are looking for a single guy to create a mismatch.....and typically an offense is going to be able to find weak spots on defense for one or two guys to exploit. There just aren't that many fast guys in college. So the repetitive stuff works. The speed isn't there.

In the pros you can create mismatches from missed coverage, but all the guys are fast so you can't do the same thing over and over.
 

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You can run RPO in the pros but unlikely you want to do it for entire games and what you run won't be like college unless you want to do it with 3 different QBs over a year. Run pass option is fine but it needs to be one where the QB is handing off. Even then he can get teed up. In the pros, how you have teams stop running RPOs is having the D whoop the QB on every play. Once he leaves the pocket and is in a position to block, run etc, he's fair game with the ball or if he just pitched it.
 
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dll2000

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Here is the thing....on offense with RPOs you are looking for a single guy to create a mismatch.....and typically an offense is going to be able to find weak spots on defense for one or two guys to exploit. There just aren't that many fast guys in college. So the repetitive stuff works. The speed isn't there.

In the pros you can create mismatches from missed coverage, but all the guys are fast so you can't do the same thing over and over.

It's all relative. Talent disparity happens more at lower levels I will agree with that. There is still differences between players at NFL level. You still have to run and design an offense, you can't just say nothing works the defense is too fast.

Anyway main purpose of any play at any level like I said before is to create a number advantage. There is also something I didn't say is another purpose of an RPO is to put a player in a two way bind and make him wrong.

You can say that about stick and other concepts as well.
 

Rory Sparrow

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When Chip Kelly came in league Jaworski and a dozen others said zone read and RPO's couldn't work because of NFL team speed and it did and still does used sparingly to keep defenses honest. They predicted spectacular failure for Kelly, and they were right for wrong reasons, but he had some very good offenses with poor talent. Check out where they ranked when he was in Philly. He had worse talent in SF. Ask Andy Reid where he got half of his new playbook from, he will tell you he copied it from Chip Kelly and merged it with rest of his offense. They said same thing about WR screens when Gary Croughton brought them in with Bears back in day.

Agree with this. Kelly got a bad rap from the start, and even now when everyone can look up the stats, people still claim that Kelly's offense "didn't work" and compare his NFL tenure to Steve Spurrier's. Kelly's stuff DID work. As you said, it worked even without great offensive talent. To me, the option concept works at all levels. I don't understand how football things go out of fashion when no one really finds a solution as to how to stop it.

The whole OL downfield rule in college is a disgrace. The only time they call it is if an SEC school is losing a non-conference game, and the refs pull out their flags. OLs are 10 yards downfield on these RPOs, so there is nothing for the defense to key on/read. Its titled the college game much too far in the offense's favor...teams don't get enough practice time to put in defenses anyways, and RPO stuff just makes it impossible.
 

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I thought the Bears/Nagy made excellent use of the RPO. But that's just eye test and the fact that they ran it at a pretty substantial clip (I'm assuming they'd stop running it if it wasn't working). I think it's good for teams that have an athletic QB that they'd like to simplify the game for, as usually it requires the QB to make a decision based off the reaction and positioning of just 1 to 2 backers.

Anyone have any statistics on Bears yards per play on RPOs vs more traditional plays? I don't know where to find that, or if it's even available.
 

modo

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I thought the Bears/Nagy made excellent use of the RPO. But that's just eye test and the fact that they ran it at a pretty substantial clip (I'm assuming they'd stop running it if it wasn't working). I think it's good for teams that have an athletic QB that they'd like to simplify the game for, as usually it requires the QB to make a decision based off the reaction and positioning of just 1 to 2 backers.

Anyone have any statistics on Bears yards per play on RPOs vs more traditional plays? I don't know where to find that, or if it's even available.

PFF has done some work on it.

Here is something from 2017.

https://www.pff.com/news/pro-rpo-update-who-used-them-best
 

Mdbearz

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They still work. Just not quite as well.

1) In NFL the rule is OL can only be 1 yard downfield. In college and high school it is 3 yards. That difference is huge. To be fair though the NFL refs often give the NFL O linemen more than a yard. But in college and high school they often get more than 3 LOL. Anyway like I said that difference is huge. It makes it really difficult to run power, ISO or IZ as an RPO concept against certain fronts which from experience is best and most effective way to run an RPO. It puts so much stress on a defense. It is really difficult to defend.

(I think they should change the NFL rule to match).

2) In college and high school the R in RPO is usually the QB which puts defense a man down or at least makes it even. In modern high school football the best athlete on team who can also throw in any competent sense is who you usually make the QB. That gives you one more decoy, receiver or blocker. In NFL they seldom want the R to be the QB, which takes 1 man out of run threat equation.

While football is the most creative of all sports because it has the most variables. When you actually start white boarding plays you realize a lot of offensive vs. defensive strategy in any scheme boils down to how do I get a numbers advantage somewhere or at least even numbers.

The rest is how do I get a one on one match up (so I can choose someone favorable) or get my best athlete the ball in space.

The advantage the NFL has is P part of RPO is far superior due to arm talent and practice time. However, the wide open looks the threat that an athletic QB creates overrides that advantage because the throws become so easy.

I think you have covered the R and the P well, but I really think the reason the Bears are able to run the RPO on a regular basis throughout the entire season is the "O".

John Fox had an offense that simply lined up in predictable formations and ran typical plays, based upon the Talent on the Bears simply being better than the other team. In the case of the running scheme that worked, but we saw what it did for the overall record of the team. They were simply too predictable and that allowed the opposing defense to predict fairly accurately, what was going to happen. Essentially Fox's offense is similar to a hitter in baseball that has a very large tendency to hit the ball to a certain part of the field. The opposing defense simply "shifts" to that part of the field knowing that they have a greater advantage.

Nagy's offense is more like a balanced hitter that is capable of hitting the ball to all parts of the field and the Option part of his game plan means that the LBs and CBs must WAIT (even if it is less than a second) to see what will happen. The opposing defense and the coordinator will not be able to "shift" his people.

Nagy's style of play calling is not even the same from game to game, he will call a pass heavy game one or two weeks in a row, and then come out running the ball.

Overall this what I like most about Nagy's offense is that even if the other team has better talent, there is a huge advantage to being unpredictable.
 

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I nominate @dll2000 for the non-existent "CCS Best New Poster" award.

I thought CCS had a "Best New Poster of the Month" award...which usually went to the guy whose first post was "what the hell is wrong with this place?" and complained about everything. I think dll2000 did that in his third posting, so he is probably the best candidate.
 

dll2000

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I thought CCS had a "Best New Poster of the Month" award...which usually went to the guy whose first post was "what the hell is wrong with this place?" and complained about everything. I think dll2000 did that in his third posting, so he is probably the best candidate.
LOL
 

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It makes a difference, but not as big as one as people think. Offensive guys are faster too and QBs throw faster and harder.

I have heard my whole life the blanket assertion that you can't run this play or that play in NFL because of speed of defense and every time someone actually tries it, it turns out not to be true.

Biggest reason NFL doesn't run more plays that work in college and high school is preservation of the QB not speed of the defense.

Ravens made playoffs last year with crap offensive talent and throwing together an offense on the fly midseason running college plays. They should have been awful offensively. One team (Chargers) shut them down and it's curtains and see I told you so. Two great teams were simulateously shut down in Super Bowl. Bears shut down Rams first. Cowboys shut down NO.

Sometimes DC comes up with a good game plan and you can't counter it in that particular game. Doesn't mean whole offense or all the plays are worthless. Obviously, Patriots, Rams and NO are great offenses and great schemes. But when it comes to certain plays everybody wants to declare it dead at first hiccup to confirm their bias or preconceived notions (not you speaking generally).

When Chip Kelly came in league Jaworski and a dozen others said zone read and RPO's couldn't work because of NFL team speed and it did and still does used sparingly to keep defenses honest. They predicted spectacular failure for Kelly, and they were right for wrong reasons, but he had some very good offenses with poor talent. Check out where they ranked when he was in Philly. He had worse talent in SF. Ask Andy Reid where he got half of his new playbook from, he will tell you he copied it from Chip Kelly and merged it with rest of his offense. They said same thing about WR screens when Gary Croughton brought them in with Bears back in day.

Now everybody uses all of them to some extent and Jaworski is learning RPO's on GamePass.
Did you play college or any pro ball?
 

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I don’t understand the point of this thread.
 

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Its a good thing you're not a ref. Oh wait...
 

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