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We have heard this a lot, but is it the panacea some would leave you to believe?
What I’m talking about is the Shanahan-offense being QB-friendly, and the theory this will help Sam Darnold. New Jets offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur, a former 49ers assistant, is bringing that system to Gang Green.
“Shanahan’s system, the stretch bootleg system, you create a lot of easy opportunities for the quarterback,” said former NFL scout Bucky Brooks of NFL Network. “You just need to be mobile enough to get to the edge of the tackle box on the bootleg. If you can do that, you can play in this system, and with all the play-action, they make it easy.”
Okay fine, but what if the running game isn’t working? Then even in the most QB-friendly system, how are you going to sell the bootlegs and play-actions?
That’s the problem with system quarterbacks. When you throw a monkey wrench into the system, like a bad day for the running game, then what?
We saw two recent Super Bowls, featuring Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers, and another with Sean McVay’s Los Angeles Rams, where their systems weren’t working that great, and the QB had to put the team’s on their backs a little, and neither could do it. Talking about 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo and former Rams QB Jared Goff.
And notice I just wrote “former Rams QB Jared Goff,” who was traded to the Detroit Lions the other day.
McVay got fed up with Goff, due to his limitations, and sent him packing.
Goff was traded to the Lions for QB Matt Stafford. And guess what, the 49ers called about Stafford, and there are rumors out of the Bay Area that they might be ready to move on from Garoppolo.
Obviously the 49ers run the QB-friendly Shanahan-system, but so do the Rams. Remember, McVay was an assistant with the Washington Football team before becoming the Rams coach, and worked under Kyle Shanahan. So McVay also runs a variation of the “QB friendly” Shanahan-system.
So if the system is so “QB friendly,” why did the Rams and 49ers both sour on their high-paid quarterbacks?
Because even in a QB-friendly system, you need to read defenses, and neither Goff or Garoppolo is good at it.
Recently, 49ers legend Steve Young said recently that Garoppolo was rushing through his progressions which frustrated Kyle Shanahan.
The point here is pretty simple – even in a QB-friendly system, the QB still needs to go through his progressions and also make plays on his own, if the original play call doesn’t go as planned. Remember what Brooks said during the season about the problem with Goff.
“The Rams are a team that requires their offensive play-caller, Sean McVay, to be on his game, each and every week,” Brooks said on NFL Network on December 4. “Their quarterback doesn’t have the ability to bail him out when the plays aren’t necessarily correct against the defense.”
So yes, it’s okay to have a QB-friendly system, but that usually doesn’t erase the shortcomings off a QB, but just masks them, but not always.
February 4, 2021
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