We’re being told the Tampa Two is like the Wishbone or Mouse Davis’s offense. Or maybe like that relic the West Coast offense too right? Thats pretty old, and there are defenses to stop that too…actually the Tampa Two was a West Coast offense killer at one time. And the West Coast offense was the death of Dallas’ Flex Defense and the Bear’s 46.
So times may change, but I don’t want to hear about the game has changed. Most people don’t remember the big game changing rules if you weren’t around in 1978. Thats when the game REALLY changed, The season was extended two games, and before that, it was a Wide Receivers responsibility to stay on his feet to catch a ball downfield. A DB could pick a WR up and throw him to the ground while the ball was on the way..no problem. It was a running NFL back then. All of sudden, you have “Pass Interference” That’s a game changer, that gave birth to Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Bernie Kosar, Jim Kelly, John Elway and others. The game changed, it became a passing league, but still, running the ball and defense mattered.
Two years ago Lovie Smith coached the 5th ranked T2 Variation. Last year the Carolina Panthers ran it. You just watched the Dallas Cowboys go into Seattle and win with it, Rod Marinelli, Lovie’s fellow assistant coach back in the day, running the defense in the Big D with Monte Kiffin up in the booth. That doesn’t mean Monte Kiffin couldn’t coach the Tampa Two. They didn’t fire him, they moved him up into the box.
And Remember how bad Dallas’ defense was last year? Remember all the Jokes? Not so bad now right? That’s AFTER getting rid of an all world linebacker who was not made for that system. Predictions were for Dallas to be a 5 win team, but the players were added who could run the system, and the players all bought in 100%. There are players on this team who are not playing the system right, either tuning out Lovie, trying to do too much, (that was one of the biggest problems with this defense. It requires you to do ONLY your job, try to do someone elses, you leave your gap open), or just the wrong players for the job.
If you want to know the truth, talk to the players who played in the system. Listen to Derrick Brooks, probably no one on earth short of Tony Dungy knows the T2 better.
Don’t get me wrong, Lovie doesn’t get a pass. But it’s NOT the system, thats for sure.
Final word…funny how no one thought the West Coast Offense was over when Jon Gruden was having problems moving the Ball in 2006. People realized…he didn’t have the right players.
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