The Dumbest Play in the NFL that Always Works.

there is a magical mystical play called shovel option that's gotten more and more popular with each passing season in the NFL this play in some form or variation has been around since at least the 60s and it's been iterated on and tweaked over and over for decades to the point that almost everyone in the league has tried to run their own version of it but what's interesting about this play is that it pretty much only works for one team they've done studies you know sixty percent of the time it works every time actually to be more accurate 20 of the time it works every time unless you're the Chiefs when Kansas City runs the power option shovel it scores it scores a lot actually when almost everyone else in the league runs it though it is by far the worst play in football and yes I am directing this at you Zach Taylor please stop calling it call literally anything else I am begging you at this point but anyway back to my point today I'm going to go over the history of the power option shovel I'm going to talk about why it is the way that it is today with all of its different twists and variations and you know modern tweaks so to speak and also schematically I'm gonna go over what the Chiefs do differently than everybody else so that they can actually make this play work and not be you know total [ __ ] thank you to upside for sponsoring this week's show by the way if you want to save money on everyday purchases you can check them out in the link in the description below but more on them later for now go grab yourself a comfy chair go grab yourself your favorite drink rank because this is going to be a long meaty episode about football history and ridiculously nuanced low Red Zone tape uh this is gonna be an interesting one let's get after it Brian I'm gonna be honest with you that smells like pure gasoline first things first there's a common misconception that the goal line shovel pass is the chief's signature play or that it's the quote unquote Travis Kelsey played or whatever but that could not be further from the truth the Chiefs did not invent the play they're just better at it than everybody else going back through all the film and the data that I have available to me I found examples of other teams running it almost every year for the past 10 seasons and some of them even succeeding at it for instance going all the way back to 2016 where both Kyle Shanahan and Sean Payton ran it against each other in the same game in week three of that year and even the week before that the Cowboys ran it with Dak Prescott in his rookie year and the Buccaneers also busted it out in Jameis Winston's very first career start in Tampa in week one of 20 15. believe it or not when we started crowdsourcing examples of this play on Twitter last week one eagle-eyed Steelers fan even pointed out that Pittsburgh once ran it with Heath Miller a full decade ago now during the 2013 season Kansas City under Andy Reid meanwhile would not call their first shovel pass in a goal line situation for several more years until the very last game of 2018 which was Patrick Mahomes first year as a starter it was likely already in the Playbook of course that entire time they just never actually called it in that specific situation until Mahomes was the guy from there the Chiefs would of course go on to call this play the most out of any team by a wide margin over the next four years so I guess you could argue that they made the play famous so to speak but they certainly were not the first to run it in fact if we want to be super technical about it we can trace the origins of this play all the way back to the 1960s Houston Cougars under then head coach Bill Yeoman who was the patron saint of God's favorite offense the split back Veer now I want you to remember the key elements of this Veer option play because they're roughly the same thing as the modern day shovel option that everybody knows and loves but just in a different order element number one the dive key the quarterback's gonna open up towards the unblocked end man on the line of scrimmage and if that unblocked man does not collapse down on the dive immediately then the quarterback will give the ball and this run will hit up inside for a decent gain behind that double team however if the edge does crash down within the first two steps of the play Then element number two is that the quarterback will keep the ball and then he'll keep going to the edge to read the next furthest man outside as if it's a normal option play and then they'll try to get that second unblocked Defender into a two on one out in space if you ever watch Georgia Tech or Army run this over the last hundred years or so or if you've ever seen any rugby game ever this should be a pretty familiar concept to You Hell Andy Reed himself has run both option plays and shovel option plays out of split back formation even within just the last 15 years including during that famous Monday night Massacre of Washington by Michael Vick when he was still in Philly and even as recently as just last season Reed also showed a split back look pre-step and then motioned out of it sort of as an homage to his past now back to the origin story fast forward a couple of decades later after the dominance of the Veer in the 60s and 70s as the shotgun formation started to become more and more popular throughout the 80s 90s and 2000s you had coaches that wanted to create the same conflicts in a defense that the Veer presented but they wanted to do it from the gun and that then necessitated the start of the inverted Veer oddly enough according to Chris Brown of smart football who's one of the best people in this business the first instances that we can find of the inverted Veer making its way into college football was with Andy Dalton of all people when he was still at TCU in 2009 and then shortly after that Cam Newton was able to rumble his way to a Heisman Trophy by running the inverted Veer at Auburn in the NFL you can still see Echoes of the inverted Veer of that era even though it's not quite the same thing in the modern Ravens Run game where Lamar Jackson is going to be the dive player up the middle in a lot of situations while the running backs and receivers are going to be the threats to hit the edges in the same manner as say a pitch man would be in the original inverted Veer option again Greg Roman schemes are not entirely the same thing but they do share a lot of similar elements even before the inverted Veer showed up though as offenses over time twisted and morphed the increasingly popular single back shotgun spread and of course all the Run Concepts that came with that like shotgun power at some point they all made an entirely New Concept that Kansas State's head coach at the time Bill Snyder among others like to call the power option shovel based on my research I don't know exactly when this happened but it at least happened by the early 2000s if not sooner if the Veer in the inverted Veer are the distant second cousins of what we see at the goal line in today's NFL the power option shovel is the living Flesh and Blood you see either direct copies of this play or variations of this play all over the league right now even with the Chiefs themselves of course and you can still see all of the elements that made the Veer and the inverted Veer so dominant for so many decades there's still the quarterback threatening the dive up the middle while reading the mesh Point there's also the fast option in the flat that the quarterback can get the ball out to for an easy score if they think they have a numbers Advantage out there and that would be like the modern equivalent of an outside pitch man in an option scheme but you also have the backside shovel which is the star of the show so to speak and if that's blocked well at the point of attack and if the defense overplays the threats to the edge that receiver on the shovel should basically be able to walk into the end zone behind that pulling guard as if he's a running back on a normal Power run that's the goal here essentially it's like running power but without actually running power bill Yeoman Bill Snyder Paul Johnson and every service Academy coach in history has their DNA in this play and it's gorgeously designed but here's the problem for 31 out of 32 teams in this league it almost never works against modern defenses and the obvious question there is why is that why does this play not work most of the time even though it looks like it should work all the time well it's because at an individual level the margin for error for any offense running it is Razor thin because there are no fewer than three different players in any given defensive front that can basically shut down this design all by themselves there's the playside edge Defender the playside defensive tackle and the backside defensive tackle all of them individually can completely wreck this play on their own even if everybody else on the defense gets beat let's go one by one first up the play side edge we'll use this play that I referenced earlier as an example because it actually starts in that split back formation that enabled the Veer to dominate all those decades ago now ironically this is one of the times that this play actually failed for Kansas City and the reason that it failed is again because of that play side edge Joey Bosa now the Chiefs are under Center here so it's not quite the same thing as the power option shovel because you can't really run that without being in the shotgun but in order to still leave Bosa unblocked to try to bait him up the field just like a normal shotgun option play would have they simulate Mahomes moving to his right as if it's a Sprint right option play so again they're trying to draw Bosa up field and take him out of the play without having to actually allocate a blocker for him so that the pulling guard here can then wrap around and handle the linebacker at the point of attack which will then open up a lane for the shovel pass however unfortunately for KC here if that play side edge stays disciplined and doesn't fly all the way up the field and instead they wait for that shovel and crash down behind the puller and get in on the tackle it becomes much much harder for that receiver to then fight through contact and score so that edge player is key if they can just stay disciplined as the unblocked man and not get too aggressive but you might also have noticed that the playside defensive tackle from the one technique position also got in on this hit and that player as I mentioned before is also a big part of stopping this concept if you look around the league at a lot of the times that this play or plays like it failed it's because the play side knows tackle or the playside 3 technique or 4i or whatever alignment they're in it's because that play side interior defensive lineman was able to feel the block trying to wash them down and they were then able to fight back over the top of that block and rally to the ball it's the exact same technique that defensive tackles are taught to play against a normal Power run if they read a down block from one side especially as a nose tackle and they're not getting double teamed guess what that means that they're probably putting a pulling blocker behind that down block and that's where the ball is going so they gotta fight back over the top top of that block and do what a lot of defensive line coaches refer to as stealing back a gap it's the same thing on every single shovel pass because again those are designed to replicate power run schemes you feel the down block there's no double team so you get over the top of it and you help make the tackle with the edge player that's also crashing down inside over and over again I'm not kidding it is literally the same [ __ ] and those same rules apply to the third main defensive player that typically stops this concept the backside defensive tackle because they also will be playing this concept exactly the same way as if it were a power run being run away from their side so from a read and a technique perspective whether they're a backside nose tackle or a backside 3 technique or a 4i or whatever it doesn't even matter this is not anything that they haven't done before let's look at this failed fourth and two Opportunity by the Bengals offense back in week five which ironically is the play that inspired me to make this episode in the first place because I hate it just much once the Bengals are done motioning into their empty set the Ravens already know this play is coming because you have a bunch to the boundary there's one receiver tight to the core that's off the line of scrimmage on the other side they're in empty and this look just screams shovel pass off a fake Sprint out because that's just what teams run out of this kind of formation these days there's really no originality here so the Ravens are calling it out pre-snap and they definitely know what's coming on the end zone angle though what I mainly want to point out is how the interior defensive lineman play this especially Calais Campbell who's the backside three technique again they know what the likely blocking scheme is here especially with the different stances of the two guards basically holding up a neon sign that points out who's down blocking and who's pulling it's kind of hard not to see what's coming here the left guard will be blocking down on the one technique the center will not be helping on that one technique at all because he has to get out of there and cover a lot of ground to do what most offensive line coaches consider the hardest block in football which is a back block all the way on a backside 3 technique let alone when that three technique is you know coleus freaking Campbell and then of course the Right Guard who's damn near standing straight up will be pulling around to try to be the lead blocker for the receiver on the shovel pass as the one technique knows tackle slashes inside and penetrates because he knows he can because there's not going to be a double team you can see Campbell play this back block very patiently because of that pre-snap read he knew that he just had to feel for that block and then step into it to pressure it with his near foot and near shoulder like he's been taught since Pop Warner and from there since he's not trapped up field by any sort of over aggressive penetration you know he didn't try to shoot that Gap and then get pinned by the back block he could fight back over the top of that block and then meet the receiver at the catch point to help disrupt the play not to beat a dead horse but once again this is the exact same read and technique for how he would try to stop a power run this just happens to be a pass play instead I know that there was a lot of discussion about Lyle Collins and if you missed an assignment on this play because you saw the coaches talking to him on the broadcast after it failed but he actually did his job here his only role is to just step inside and help the center land that back block and then he has to get his eyes outside to help against the backside defensive end if they happen to beat the tight end he is not supposed to get out on the second level he is not supposed to be blocking Marcus Peters none of that is his job and if you want to know how I know that it's because I've literally seen and charted almost 50 [ __ ] reps of this play over the last two and a half seasons and not once not one time has the backside tackle been responsible for getting up to the second level to block a DB that is just not how this play is designed so please do not blame Lyle Collins for it truthfully if you want to blame anybody blame Zach Taylor because he insisted on calling this play in the first place even though it has a monumentally high failure rate to begin with since the start of the 2020 season 40 nine shovel passes have been attempted inside the five yard line and there have only been 14 touchdowns scored on those attempts which is a touchdown success rate of roughly 28.6 percent six of those 14 touchdowns alone are from the Chiefs so one team has 42 percent of all touchdowns on this play and Casey's own touchdown success rate is also about 42 percent on their own attempts that by itself is an insane stat but here's the kicker for the rest of the league combined this play over the last two and a half years has only worked 22.9 percent of the time when you factor in that across all other types of passing plays inside the five their total touchdown success rate is roughly 36 percent statistically speaking you're actually lowering your chances of scoring if you call one of these shovel pass Concepts instead of and I'm not even exaggerating here literally any other type of passing play if you are a coach and you call this you are actively making your offense worse that is you know unless you're Andy Reid in that case you're probably fine all right so that is an abbreviated history of the play and how it's had kind of a Renaissance in the NFL over the last six to seven years and also that's why despite that Renaissance it's still kind of a bad play call it doesn't really work that often but you might be asking yourself okay well if it's a bad play call what are the Chiefs doing that's so different how are they able to take an objectively bad play call and make it successful well I'm gonna show you but first things first I want to note that making these types of videos is oddly very expensive they take a lot of hours to put together this one's probably about two weeks worth of work and I wouldn't be able to do these kind of historical deep Dives and really Nitty Gritty tape studies without sponsors like upside supporting me upside is a completely free way for you to save money on everyday purchases like gas groceries or even dining out all of those things are super expensive these days obviously and it takes me over eighty dollars just to fill up my gas tank at this point so that sucks but upside can help to at least make it hurt a little bit less all you have to do on the app is claim an offer for whatever you're gonna buy check in at that business pay as you normally do with your credit or debit card and then you're gonna get cash back just for going to that business to buy something that you were already gonna buy so it's really easy to use and save money with and if you want to try it for yourself you can download and use the app totally for free and with promo code filmroom you'll get five dollars or more cash back on your first purchase of 10 or more thank you again to upside for helping to make this show possible and with that let's take a closer look at the sheer Evil Genius that is Andy Reid when looking at the Chiefs offense and why they're more successful at this type of play than everybody else what you first need to understand is that they don't run it like everyone else across the entire league over the last three seasons 80 percent of All Gold Line shovel passes have come from shotgun like I alluded to earlier but for the Chiefs individually only 57 percent of their attempts have been from the gun they've mixed in a lot more under Center looks than every other team and their success rate from under Center has also been much higher than their success rate from the gun at a whopping 50 percent half of their shovel pass touchdowns have come from under Center on just six attempts and that's a big factor in why they've been able to make it work additionally from these under Center looks where Mahomes is either faking a sprint out or faking a bootleg type of play those types of actions that involve more Dynamic movement with the quarterback also tend to influence defenses a lot more than just faking a normal handoff from the gun you can look at this play against the Ravens from the 2020 season as an example watch how coach Reed combined the threat of speed to the edge with Dynamic movement from Mahomes as well as just a lot more convincing of a deception in order to create the lane for the underhanded shovel pass to hit inside with Tyreek Hill lined up in the backfield and then going out to the flat obviously the defense is keying in on that as the intended design of the play or at least what they think the intended design is but the bootleg of Mahomes combined with a little bit of Chip help from the fullback that all gives the impression that Patrick is supposed to be out in space with a lead blocker trying to hit Hill in the flat that's what everyone on this defense believes is going to happen The Edge thinks he's won here he truly trusts that he just beat the fullback and that he's not intentionally being drawn up the field so he takes himself out of the play pretty much willingly and then additionally to that you've got two safeties and a linebacker all convinced that Tyrique is getting the ball out in the flat because to them why else would you line him up in the backfield unless he was the intended target that's how a defense generally thinks about these things you know that if something's off in the alignment it's for a reason so they all get fooled there as well Plus on top of that look at the offensive line here there's no pole for the backside guard they double team the nose tackle instead so that nose is not trying that hard to fight back over the top and get front side to take down the receiver so that helps to seal off that side of the running lane and then on the front side of the lane the play side guard and play side tackle execute a gorgeous double team on the three technique so that they can also bury him and seal him out which then allows the tackle to get up to the second level and seal out the other side of the running Lane so by the time a Holmes gets his eyes around to the unblocked Edge pressure and then flips the ball to the fullback there is an incredibly wide open Lane for him to run through every single individual element that we talked about earlier that can and will ruin this play they were all accounted for the edge was baited into flying up the field the play side interior defensive lineman was basically banished the shadow realm the backside interior player was taken out with a double team and then everyone else that was left over was too busy chasing the most convincing decoy in the NFL that is why this play and all of their different variations for it actually work for Kansas City they don't run it like everyone else likes to run it and when they do run it everything is so meticulously designed to deceive and to make defenses fall prey to their own Tendencies and hell even in the few instances where they do run these shovel passes the quote-unquote normal way they'll do something very abnormal along with it so that they can still get away with it like I don't know making Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelsey pretend to be confused so the defense thinks that nobody knows what the play call is and then all of a sudden they'll surprise snap it and run a normal shovel pass off a normal Sprint Outlook with the pulling guard and all the typical stuff that we talked about earlier is the acting job even necessary to make this play work I don't know but it's [ __ ] hilarious and to me that's what matters because I mean if you're gonna call this play at this point with how low of a success rate it has you at least need to do it in a different way to make it appear new and you know throw some style points in there while you can beyond all of that though what really gets me the most about this is that whenever Kansas City finds a design that works they never run it the same way twice even year over year I'm talking over the span of a half decade they'll do the same concept sure but never out of the same formation and never out of the same Personnel grouping every single time they call a shovel pass whether it's overhand underhand from the gun under Center it does not matter it is a self-contained isolated incident that you will never ever see on film again so good luck preparing for it if you want to know one of the main reasons why Andy Reed is a Hall of Fame coach that is why he can take an objectively statistically bad play tweak it over and over and over again and somehow make it usable in short the man is just diabolical alright uh hopefully this helped teach you guys something new today including the history of the shovel option and why basically everybody sucks at running it and maybe for some of you while you're watching this the thought did cross your mind you know this episode seems exceptionally Petty by Brett standards is he the type of person that would take 70 hours of his life in almost two weeks and dedicate it just to making an episode solely that he can convince Zach Taylor to never call a particular play ever again as long as he lives is Brett that crazy yes I am Zach please for the love of God call literally anything else ISO into a 13-man box put Cordell Volson in the [ __ ] Wildcat I don't care call anything else this isn't working you're o of three and you know what you're probably gonna be oh of six by the end of the year call anything else it's time to stop your family is worried do something else all right that's it

Channel: Brett Kollmann

Views: 411,995

Keywords: chiefs, patrick mahomes, bengals, andy reid, ravens, travis kelce

Id: E9ea_d1L2WE

Length: 22min 59sec (1379 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 21 2022