First of all, this post will make use of some of the stuff discussed in my “terminology” post (http://calfootballstrategy.blogspot.com/2014/01/this-is-meant-to-be-reference-post-that.html). If you don't know/remember how to number WR's from the defense's perspective, you should definitely take a look at that post before getting too far into this one. Also, if you want to skip ahead TouchedTheAxeIn82 has put together a video of a bunch of these plays, and that plus some written commentary is at the bottom of the post.
This post completes my basic
introdution to the Bear Raid offense by looking at the downfield
passing game. The name “Air Raid” might make you think that the
passing game is sophisticated, but it's really not. The theory is
that there are only so many coverages that the defense can run. If
you have a play (or two) that can beat each of those coverages, how
much more do you need? Sonny tells a story about how the Texas Tech
coaches would go around the clinic circuit, meet with other coaching
staffs, etc. during the off-season, and they'd all come back with
great ideas and things to add to the offense. They'd present their
findings to Leach, and his answer would be “That sounds great.
What are we gonna cut?” If the new play was better than something
they already had, then they had no use for the old play. If the new
play wasn't better than something they already had, why add it?
This might make the passing game sound
too simple, but certain route combinations are just plain tough to
defend with certain coverages. It doesn't matter if the defense
knows what you like to run against Cover-2, because if they're
running Cover-2 when you're running your Cover-2 beater they're in
trouble. This is a point I can't emphasize enough: The defense
doesn't figure out an offense by understanding how individual plays
work, they figure out an offense by knowing when you're going to run
those plays. This post, then, is going to take you through each of
these concepts against the coverages they're designed to beat. I
should also note that no matter what coverage the defense is in,
every concept has a route that should gain positive yards against it.
There is a limited number of concepts in the offense, but the idea
is that through repeating the same concept over and over again you
can make it efficient in a lot of different situations. This is the
philosophical opposite of having a different play for every
situation.
