[LongTimeJetsFan]

The Jets have made it widely known that they’ll be using the Wildcat this year. But what if they actually won’t be using it at all?

They’ve hired former Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, who four years ago bedeviled the Patriots with the surprise unveiling of the NFL’s version of the alternative attack, which works best when the players in the base offense remain on the field. In September 2008, the Dolphins slapped it together in the week preceding a game in New England — and they scored four touchdowns on six plays with Ronnie Brown taking the snap in shotgun formation, Ricky Williams lining up as a flanker who would come in motion and either get the ball on a handoff or (in that specific game) not get the ball on a handoff, and quarterback Chad Pennington split wide as a receiver.

Since then, it’s been used by several other teams, even though there has been a sense in more recent seasons that the Wildcat has run its course. In other incarnations, the Wildcat entailed actually removing the starting quarterback from the field and using a different signal-caller. The Eagles did it with Mike Vick (to the chagrin of Donovan McNabb). The Jets did it with Brad Smith. Even the Dolphins did it with Pat White, a second-round draft bust taken only months after Miami’s starting-quarterback-stays-on-the-field Wildcat wowed the league.

Tebow has worked with a similar, but different, approach during his two seasons in Denver, lining up in shotgun with a tailback to his side. The base play is a simple read-option, with the ball going to the running back if the defensive end on the side of the tailback comes wide or staying in Tebow’s hands, with the quarterback running to where the defensive end was if he bites on the handoff and crashes toward what would have been the point of attack.

From that basic look, Tebow can also pass after faking the handoff, as he did on the only play from scrimmage in overtime against the Steelers in January.

If that’s what the Jets will be using, it’s not the Wildcat. So what will the Jets be using?

There’s a reason, in our view, for the Jets to be so secretive about their practices entailing what they’re calling the “Wildcat.” There’s a reason, in our view, for the Jets to have not even broken out the Wildcat (or, as the case may be, the “TeBone”) in preseason games. And there’s a reason, in our view, for the Jets to be spending so much time talking about how preparing for the Wildcat will suck time away from preparing for the base offense.

We (and, really, for something potentially as harebrained as this I should say, “I”) think that, when the Jets host the Bills on September 9, what they use as the “Wildcat” package will neither be the Wildcat nor the Tebow read-option base offense.

Consider this. The Bills new quarterbacks coach is David Lee. He’s the same David Lee who was the quarterbacks coach in Miami in (yep) 2008. Though Sparano gets the credit for the Miami version of the Wildcat, his offensive coordinator (Dan Henning) called the attack that accounted for 28 points in the 38-13 thrashing of the Pats “the David Lee Special.” (That’s straight from Tim Layden’s Blood, Sweat and Chalk, easily the best modern compendium of football analysis.) It was Lee who had pitched the “Wild Hog” offense he’d used at Arkansas with Darren McFadden to Henning on the flight home from a 31-10 loss at Arizona only a week earlier.

And it’s Lee who now is working for the team the Jets will face in Week One and Week 17.

Chances are that David Lee knows how to stop the David Lee Special. Chances are that the Jets won’t be using it.

Last year, Pats coach Bill Belichick showed not once but twice that he knows how to shut down the Broncos TeBone offense. And, as always, the Jets play the Pats twice. Chances are that the Jets won’t be using the attack Tebow ran in Denver.

Then there are the Dolphins, who have plenty of guys on defense who were on the team when Sparano ran the show and Lee coached the quarterbacks and the Dolphins used both the true Wildcat and the short-lived and ill-fated Pat White version of the read-option. Since the Jets also will face Miami twice per year, chances are that the Jets won’t be giving the Dolphins any looks that they may have seen in practice over the past few seasons.

So if it’s not the Wildcat or the TeBone per se, what will the Jets be using? Maybe it’ll be the true single wing, a shell-game of an offense with a direct snap to Tebow and guys like Shonn Greene as the tailback and John Conner assuming the role of what was/is the “quarterback” in the offense, lined up not far behind the gap in the two tackles of the unbalanced line — and ready to blow up whomever stands between Tebow or Greene and the secondary.

Throw in Santonio Holmes as the single wingback in the “single wing,” and Holmes can play the role of Demaryius Thomas getting single coverage, if/when Tebow fakes a handoff and musters a reasonably accurate throw.

The point is that the Jets are smart enough to know that the teams they’ll face in six out of 16 games are smart enough to know how to defend the Wildcat and/or the TeBone. With Mark Sanchez leaving the field and Tebow entering from the sideline (unless the big secret is that the Jets plan to use Tebow as a fullback or tight end in the base offense), the Jets need a genuine element of surprise.

The surprise could be that, once Tebow enters the game, the offense that opposing defenses see will be nothing like what they expected to see.

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I've been thinking along the same lines. Who knows what they're up to.

[The 1985er]

It's not gonna make a difference.

[The Dark Knight]

After last night, I wouldn't mind seeing it on 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1. Yeesh!

[BeastBeach]

His logical assumption there isn't far fetched but it isn't far-fetched that other teams have already come to that conclusion as well. I think teams are well prepared for the possibility of the Jets letting Tebow do what he did in Denver

[BIGREX]

we need Tony Soprano ,we got the Wrong Tony ..

[dcm1602]

I think the secret plan is actually to cut Tebow right before we play the Bills

And catch the whole world by surprise

[Bannon]

I very much think they are installing an offense that is not the Wildcat, but is rather a tailor made offense for Tebow's strengths. I think it will be exactly the offense that a head coach would go with if he had to win with Tebow. Only to the extent it can be stopped with certain personnel or schemes, the Jets have the base offense with Sanchez.

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[dcm1602]

I dont see how they can catch anyone by surprise.

I mean with Tebow in you know you need to defend the run, and defend the deep ball.

Defenses might as well take your chances letting him throw to the middle of the field since hes just as likely to complete it to the other team as his own.

[onefanjet]

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What if the Jets won’t be using the Wildcat at all?
Posted by Mike Florio on August 19, 2012, 2:20 PM EDT
tim-tebow2 Getty Images

The Jets have made it widely known that they’ll be using the Wildcat this year. But what if they actually won’t be using it at all?

They’ve hired former Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, who four years ago bedeviled the Patriots with the surprise unveiling of the NFL’s version of the alternative attack, which works best when the players in the base offense remain on the field. In September 2008, the Dolphins slapped it together in the week preceding a game in New England — and they scored four touchdowns on six plays with Ronnie Brown taking the snap in shotgun formation, Ricky Williams lining up as a flanker who would come in motion and either get the ball on a handoff or (in that specific game) not get the ball on a handoff, and quarterback Chad Pennington split wide as a receiver.

Since then, it’s been used by several other teams, even though there has been a sense in more recent seasons that the Wildcat has run its course. In other incarnations, the Wildcat entailed actually removing the starting quarterback from the field and using a different signal-caller. The Eagles did it with Mike Vick (to the chagrin of Donovan McNabb). The Jets did it with Brad Smith. Even the Dolphins did it with Pat White, a second-round draft bust taken only months after Miami’s starting-quarterback-stays-on-the-field Wildcat wowed the league.

Tebow has worked with a similar, but different, approach during his two seasons in Denver, lining up in shotgun with a tailback to his side. The base play is a simple read-option, with the ball going to the running back if the defensive end on the side of the tailback comes wide or staying in Tebow’s hands, with the quarterback running to where the defensive end was if he bites on the handoff and crashes toward what would have been the point of attack.

From that basic look, Tebow can also pass after faking the handoff, as he did on the only play from scrimmage in overtime against the Steelers in January.

If that’s what the Jets will be using, it’s not the Wildcat. So what will the Jets be using?

There’s a reason, in our view, for the Jets to be so secretive about their practices entailing what they’re calling the “Wildcat.” There’s a reason, in our view, for the Jets to have not even broken out the Wildcat (or, as the case may be, the “TeBone”) in preseason games. And there’s a reason, in our view, for the Jets to be spending so much time talking about how preparing for the Wildcat will suck time away from preparing for the base offense.

We (and, really, for something potentially as harebrained as this I should say, “I”) think that, when the Jets host the Bills on September 9, what they use as the “Wildcat” package will neither be the Wildcat nor the Tebow read-option base offense.

Consider this. The Bills new quarterbacks coach is David Lee. He’s the same David Lee who was the quarterbacks coach in Miami in (yep) 2008. Though Sparano gets the credit for the Miami version of the Wildcat, his offensive coordinator (Dan Henning) called the attack that accounted for 28 points in the 38-13 thrashing of the Pats “the David Lee Special.” (That’s straight from Tim Layden’s Blood, Sweat and Chalk, easily the best modern compendium of football analysis.) It was Lee who had pitched the “Wild Hog” offense he’d used at Arkansas with Darren McFadden to Henning on the flight home from a 31-10 loss at Arizona only a week earlier.

And it’s Lee who now is working for the team the Jets will face in Week One and Week 17.

Chances are that David Lee knows how to stop the David Lee Special. Chances are that the Jets won’t be using it.

Last year, Pats coach Bill Belichick showed not once but twice that he knows how to shut down the Broncos TeBone offense. And, as always, the Jets play the Pats twice. Chances are that the Jets won’t be using the attack Tebow ran in Denver.

Then there are the Dolphins, who have plenty of guys on defense who were on the team when Sparano ran the show and Lee coached the quarterbacks and the Dolphins used both the true Wildcat and the short-lived and ill-fated Pat White version of the read-option. Since the Jets also will face Miami twice per year, chances are that the Jets won’t be giving the Dolphins any looks that they may have seen in practice over the past few seasons.

So if it’s not the Wildcat or the TeBone per se, what will the Jets be using? Maybe it’ll be the true single wing, a shell-game of an offense with a direct snap to Tebow and guys like Shonn Greene as the tailback and John Conner assuming the role of what was/is the “quarterback” in the offense, lined up not far behind the gap in the two tackles of the unbalanced line — and ready to blow up whomever stands between Tebow or Greene and the secondary.

Throw in Santonio Holmes as the single wingback in the “single wing,” and Holmes can play the role of Demaryius Thomas getting single coverage, if/when Tebow fakes a handoff and musters a reasonably accurate throw.

The point is that the Jets are smart enough to know that the teams they’ll face in six out of 16 games are smart enough to know how to defend the Wildcat and/or the TeBone. With Mark Sanchez leaving the field and Tebow entering from the sideline (unless the big secret is that the Jets plan to use Tebow as a fullback or tight end in the base offense), the Jets need a genuine element of surprise.

The surprise could be that, once Tebow enters the game, the offense that opposing defenses see will be nothing like what they expected to see.

[reverseapachemaster]

If they aren't running the wildcat then there's no reason to acquire tebow. We already had a backup with better skills.

[Cman55]

Originally Posted by reverseapachemaster

If they aren't running the wildcat then there's no reason to acquire tebow. We already had a backup with better skills.

Agreed. No wildcat, no Tebow unless of course we're thinking in purely PR/Media terms. Hell, it may be that the only marginally effective offensive plays we have will involve the wildcat.

[dcm1602]

Originally Posted by reverseapachemaster

If they aren't running the wildcat then there's no reason to acquire tebow. We already had a backup with better skills.

The point was were not going to run the classic wildcat, and that were going to basically reinvent it.

Its still going to be built around the concept of tebow running the ball, but somehow different.

I mean if you look at what Tebow did last year with the Broncos that wasnt a wildcat offense, it was a read-option offense.

So Tebow is still going to run the shit out of it, it could just be in a way that hasnt been done before.

Who knows, the whole article is speculation anyway

[Br4dw4y5ux]

So here's the flaw in the entire argument: you don't need to prepare for the Jets to shut them down, they do a good enough job of shutting themselves down at this point. All you need to do against the Jets is make sure not to take too many penalties or blow coverages up the field.

Anybody who is looking at this Jets offense as something that really needs to be game-planned against hasn't been watching the game particularly closely.

How hard was it to shut down the Dolphins last year? Same thing.

[LongTimeJetsFan]

Originally Posted by reverseapachemaster

If they aren't running the wildcat then there's no reason to acquire tebow. We already had a backup with better skills.

Did you read the article? The idea is that maybe they're selling wildcat wildcat wildcat and instead they're going to use Tebow for something different that no one is expecting.

[Bannon]

Originally Posted by Br4dw4y5ux

So here's the flaw in the entire argument: you don't need to prepare for the Jets to shut them down, they do a good enough job of shutting themselves down at this point. All you need to do against the Jets is make sure not to take too many penalties or blow coverages up the field.

Anybody who is looking at this Jets offense as something that really needs to be game-planned against hasn't been watching the game particularly closely.

How hard was it to shut down the Dolphins last year? Same thing.

I think under this theory, all the talk about "force opponents to spend some prep time" is just that, talk. Smokescreen. Instead, they're installing a changeup offense that can come in every week for a touchdown -- a blitzkrieg, hurry up offense with Tebow in shotgun.

I mean, it's a simple thought that has occurred to a lot of people -- why doesn't somebody build an offense (or part of one) around what Tebow does to people in the last 2 minutes. When he can afford to spend the energy on 6 to 8 carries (depending on the defensive alignment), he's almost impossible to stop (at least for one drive, for sure).

[hornblower]

Maybe it's about time for an NFL team to run a different type of offense. Most are the same and rely on a QB and spreading the field. The defensive rules discourage physical play. The Jets lack receivers but have two QB's with different skills. Why not be creative and use them both? It may be fun to watch.

[Jeremy2020]

Originally Posted by hornblower

Maybe it's about time for an NFL team to run a different type of offense. Most are the same and rely on a QB and spreading the field. The defensive rules discourage physical play. The Jets lack receivers but have two QB's with different skills. Why not be creative and use them both? It may be fun to watch.

What? Tebow takes the snap and to overcome his inability to throw a decent pass..he laterals to Sanchez who throws a pick 6?

[hornblower]

Could be but why not try something different. Either that or don't watch.

[Apple Jack]

Exit wildcat. Enter TebowCat? JetCat? JetPack? JetStream? TCat?

[NewEnglandJet]

hah when I first read this article I was going to message the link to you longtime...seems your conspiracy theory could very well be true