Special Analysis: Offensive Breakdown

In this column, I plan on discussing the state of the Dolphins offense, specifically the running game. We are at an interesting place because with just three regular season games left, the offense is still developing. Now, part of the reason this is happening is because of large shortcomings which Dan Henning has been planning around all year. However, I believe that if implemented properly, the continued evolution of the running game and offense can be an advantage, as the Dolphins could peek at exactly the right time of year. Also, the Dolphins might have stumbled upon the future of multiple back running attacks, but I digress. First, let’s review how the Dolphins got where they are.

The Dolphins, plainly, couldn’t run the ball with any consistency in the first two games. So, David Lee famously suggested the Wildcat to Sparano, and it was obviously very successful immediately and became the talk of the league. The Wildcat was a great fit for this team because of inexperience and issues up front, the presence of two good tight ends, and most importantly, multiple talented running backs. It allowed the Dolphins to get an extra blocker on the line of scrimmage, forced the defense to have to defend two or more possible ball carriers, and put the ball in the hands of their best players. It was a genius fit, especially because it forced opponents to game plan against a whole other offense.

Unfortunately, after a while, the Wildcat began to fade. It had worked some, but there are some fundamental issues with using this offense in the NFL, especially without a back who can consistently throw the football (I wouldn’t rule out the effectiveness of a Tebow running an offense like this, though durability would become the main concern; a different discussion for a different day). Mainly, defenses are just too strong and athletic at this level for any offense without a serious passing threat to work. They can commit too many players to the run (more than the single blocker you gain by taking your quarterback out of the picture), and you end up at a significant disadvantage without having a quarterback.

Still, though I do believe that the Wildcat has seen better days, and I would like to see the Dolphins relegate it to spot duty (if they see an advantage; if they can’t get anything else going; goal line; if they find/are saving a way to pass out of it), there are important lessons to be learned from the Wildcat. The basic principles of single wing football, which it relies upon, lend themselves very well to our personnel. First and foremost, we have four excellent ball carriers. Three of them, led by the patient, fast, and powerful Ronnie Brown, are very versatile and can run inside or out. This is our main advantage, and it is paramount, just as in the Wildcat, to force the defense to defend all of them. Additionally, we don’t have much up front outside of Jake Long, especially now that we have lost our two best guards for the season. Nevertheless, the pulling and misdirection game emphasized by the single wing can help mask deficiencies, especially at the guard position, by moving the linemen around. Moreover, through the course of the season the Dolphins have practiced a lot of pulling, including that of the tackles, so they would be fools to sacrifice another of their best weapons just because they are moving away from the Wildcat. Using multiple backs and pulling up front in a misdirection offense still needs to be a big part of what the Dolphins do.

Nevertheless, teams, after a while, did find ways to counteract the misdirection game employed by the Wildcat, and in a very unsurprising way. Teams used the simple, age-old strategies that have worked to combat the single wing for years. Included in these strategies, used most notably by the Bills in shutting down the Wildcat last week, are a combination of penetrating gaps and reading guards. Simply put, by employing an attacking defense, you allow the defense’s superior athleticism to take over, and you make it very difficult for the offense to move its guards. Every time the Dolphins tried to pull against the Bills, they had a defensive lineman right on our lineman’s hip, wreaking havoc in our backfield. Most importantly, the Bills were able to attack so wholeheartedly because, out of the Wildcat, we lose our ability to pass.

That leaves the Dolphins where we are now. We have not been consistently good enough up front to run in a traditional NFL style offense, and our advantages that we had exploited by using the Wildcat have now evaporated as teams have caught up. Screwed, right? Wrong. Thanks to the experimentation in and development of our base offense, I believe that the Dolphins could be in their best shape of the whole season, provided that Dan Henning implements the strategies that he’s been developing properly.

The answer is that the Dolphins need to use the Wildcat with one main change, Chad Pennington at quarterback. No, not in the sense that they have been doing, where Pennington literally replaces Ronnie Brown in the series. I mean that we need to operate our offense around all the same principles that made the Wildcat work, with multiple running threats and misdirection, while Chad Pennington is still lined up as quarterback in our base offense. By simply combining a passing threat with the Dolphins superior misdirection game, our offense could be the type that is build for success in the playoffs. A big statement, but I truly believe it is possible.

Putting Chad at the helm of an offense that relies heavily on multiple running backs and misdirection presents a lot of benefits. Number one, it tilts the scale back in our favor in terms of having an advantage over the defense. The original advantage that the Dolphins had was in their backs. On any given play, any of our running backs could take the ball and run effectively, which led to the Wildcat being effective. As opposed to most NFL offenses, where teams could key on a single tailback, our advantage was the luxury of multiple threats. However, by sacrificing the pass, the Dolphins were right back where they started, gaining one advantage, but losing another, as defenses could attack the Wildcat mercilessly.

Now we have that advantage back with Pennington taking the reins. His simple presence takes away the defense’s ability to attack the running game with such blatant disregard for the pass. By keeping Pennington back there as a passing threat, along with the multiple runners, the defense needs to respect his 3,000+ yards passing but also the numerous running threats, putting the offense in a great position.

Moreover, not only is Pennington just a quarterback who can offer balance, but he is the team MVP and, in my opinion, the best quarterback in NFL history at executing fakes. The Dolphins have been running this form of offense, the Wildcat, with a moderate degree of success, without even involving their best player in it most of the time. Now, just imagine how proficient this offense would be with their best player involved. When you say it like that, it seems like a no-brainer, but getting past the incorrect notion that the “Wildcat” is what made this running attack work is key. The Dolphins running backs are the advantage, not the offense, and adding Chad to that list of backs will increase their productivity exponentially. The fact that he is so skilled in play fakes just makes the whole fit even more perfect, as his skill set matches a misdirection offense perfectly. The defense won’t know where to look.

The next thing to analyze is how much the misdirection game will benefit from all of this. The Dolphins running backs are so great, and the misdirection game is already so good, that even with teams overplaying it, the Dolphins have still been able to move the ball enough to win six out of their last seven games. Without teams having the ability to overplay it, simply reading guards and penetrating at will, you can look no further than a single play in the Bills game to see how much the Dolphins stand to benefit.

Against the Bills, the Dolphins were faced with similar problems in the Wildcat that they've had in recent weeks. Buffalo attacked against it as much as any team we've seen this year, penetrating and hanging on the hips of our pulling guards. It didn't go anywhere. Even in our base running game, the Bills did the same thing a lot of the time. They attacked gaps and played our guards, trusting them rather than the numerous backfield keys to lead them to the play. On one play however, whether it was by design or the genius running instincts of Ricky Williams, the Bills plan backfired. As the Dolphins pulled to the left, the first line of the Buffalo defense followed and vacated, and Ricky Williams was free to run for a 14 yard touchdown to the right. Of course, the play was called back due to a bogus hold, but that moment shed light on just how much teams have been overplaying the misdirection, and more importantly, how much the Dolphins stand to gain by exploiting it.

By pulling their guards a lot this year, the Dolphins have gained a lot of advantages that football purists and innovators alike would be proud of. The Dolphins have even been clever enough to move their tackles. However, as they have mounted success doing so, defenses have used time-tested solutions to counter the pulling game. As I mentioned above, penetration can create a world of trouble for teams that like to pull. Still, on that should-have-been touchdown run by Williams, you saw that the Dolphins pulling game has been so effective that teams have had to compensate, and at times overcompensate to stop it. With Pennington at quarterback, the defense no longer gets the heads up about what to expect. It puts them into a bind: either play honestly against a superior offense and get beat by the misdirection game, as the Dolphins did to teams earlier in the season, or cheat and compensate to stop it, putting yourself at risk of not only false pulling, but now the arm of Miami’s best player and captain. Pennington at quarterback along with this multiple running back offense returns the most basic and important element of football back to the Dolphins: balance.

Moreover, now that it is clear that incorporating Pennington in a Wildcat-like offense, fueled by multiple running backs and misdirection, the Dolphins strengths this year, would be beneficial, the question becomes, how? There are only three games left, and the Dolphins playbook probably is what it is at this point. True, but luckily Dan Henning has been at work at figuring out exactly what would make this offense work best all year, and the formations and series vital to this new offense have all already been used. Now they just need to be refined and exploited.

Most notably, the formation that the Dolphins should rely on is their full house formation, where Pennington and the other backs create a diamond in the backfield. The ball can go to any number of backs in numerous different ways, but most importantly, the ball can also remain in Pennington's hands. Pitches, counters, inside handoffs, play action, leads, dives, traps, and anything else you can think of are all available in this formation. With our tight ends in the game, they are passing threats. Without them, you can incorporate multiple receivers. But the most important aspect is certainly the threat of Chad Pennington along with the three guys standing in the backfield. If the defense loads up like they do against the Wildcat, I like my chances with any of Ricky, Ronnie, or Patrick Cobbs in the passing game against a linebacker. It’s like daring, almost forcing defenses to put the game in Pennington’s hands.

Likewise, the formation that I dubbed the “Spread Wildcat,” where the Dolphins run a college-style spread offense with Ronnie Brown taking the shotgun snaps flanked by one or two other backs, can also be effective with Pennington running it, specifically the two back version. Pennington in the shotgun with two running backs allows for a plethora of misdirection running plays and also gives him the ability to pass. I know I said I do not support Pennington simply running the Wildcat, which I don’t, but this is a little bit different, a spread formation where he has two backs to hand the ball two as opposed to the usual one coming across the formation. This formation would be effective in a lot of the same ways as the full house, a more pass-geared formation though. With two running backs threatening the line and the possibility of a deep pass, safeties are in a huge bind here.

Additionally, the Dolphins finally have found a two back bread and butter run series, and it exemplifies this philosophy of keeping multiple running back misdirection with Pennington in the game, lending support to my argument that this should be the main approach of the offense. The series with quick pitch action along with the inside handoff to the up back has been very successful and is becoming our go to because it uses all of our strengths. It takes advantage or our multiple running backs who all carry the ball well, our speed game to the outside, our misdirection game inside, and our gifted fake-out artist, Chad Pennington. Most importantly, it keeps the ball in our quarterback's hands, opening up play action in a way the Wildcat never can. We saw this work for a touchdown against the Patriots. Look for the next step to be the pitch back throwing a pass, as teams begin to load up to find a way to stop it.

Notably, a key in the development of this series was finding a way to make the pitch play successful. Both David Martin and Anthony Fasano have been very inconsistent blockers, so the Dolphins intelligently adjusted to make Jake Long responsible for the reach block instead by taking the tight ends out of the game and running away from them when they are in. This completed the series by giving a legitimate outside threat along with the inside play, and it puts the linebackers in a very difficult bind. It's impossible to read our backs because there are too many weapons, and the Dolphins are now free to give false reads to linebackers who concentrate on our guards, making this a very effective series.

The fact it required eliminating the tight ends’ role in this series to make it more successful certainly relates to the argument for the replacement of the Wildcat. Part of the reason why we went to the Wildcat early in the season was because we had two strong tight ends, no receivers, and double tight was therefore our best personnel group. However, with the productivity falloff of the tight ends, their inconsistent blocking, and the emergence of our receiving corps, double tight is far from our best personnel group these days, so continuing to rely on the Wildcat, which employs both Martin and Fasano, is foolish. I am the biggest advocate of getting these guys involved in the play action game, but if they aren’t blocking anybody, there is no reason to keep running this offense where they are key blockers. This is just more supporting evidence for, and another benefit of, using a more flexible offense with Pennington as the quarterback and multiple running backs. Similarly, the overload was an important aspect of the Wildcat at the beginning of the year, but even that is unnecessary at this point, as your best two run blockers already line up next to each other in Jake Long and Andy Alleman. The evidence favoring a move to the proposed offense is overwhelming.

Overall, I think I have outlined a sound argument for where the future of the Dolphins offense should go, and how despite their issues they can use their strengths to become a very formidable offense as they approach the postseason. By studying the evolution of the offense, I pointed out why the Dolphins went to the Wildcat in the first place and also why it cooled off. Then, by examining the strengths of the Wildcat along with the current strengths of the team, I was able to make an argument for the future direction of this offense. After pointing out the numerous advantages of this offense, I discussed how, by using elements of the offense that are already in place, the new philosophy can be implemented. Finally, I used the evidence of a key series that Miami employs to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new line of thinking as already in place, and I am now making a plea for much, much more of it in the final three games and beyond.

I am tired of the Dolphins tipping off exactly what they are going to do by lining up in the Wildcat. It has become too easy to defend. Likewise, unless Miami is in their two minute offense, I have no desire to see the empty backfield anymore either. It too gives the defense way too much information, in this case allowing pass rushers to start their engines. With the strengths of this Dolphins offense, Chad and the backs, there is no reason for either of those formations. In fact, there is no reason to even see the singleback offense this year. The advantage is the multiple weapons and inability for the defense to get a key. The Dolphins must exploit it!

Essentially, the Dolphins need to capture everything that is excellent about the Wildcat and run it within the scope of their base offense. No, you can't have the extra blocker anymore, but you can have something so much more important: a quarterback. Not only that, but this particular quarterback is your best player and the most adept quarterback at making play fakes in NFL history, a perfect fit for this offense. Keep two or three runners in your backfield on every play and give the defense fits. Use the misdirection, send one guy wide on the quick pitch, come back with a tricky inside handoff, find a tight end on play action, get them on their heels and go at them with the power game...the possibilities and advantages you create are endless and all of this stuff is already in the Miami repertoire. If a team wants to overcompensate like the Bills, make them pay. There are a million different options that open up to the offense as we move ahead. I give Dan Henning a lot of credit, because this offense certainly has a lot of shortcomings and he has crafted around its strengths masterfully. However, this is the perfect point in the season for the offense to take the next step. The Dolphins have an amazing group of backs who work together brilliantly, and with the misdirection game that this offense has developed, they have this one advantage on any team that they face. With Chad Pennington in the picture, now is the time to exploit it.