The wildcat is just the old single wing, and it's not smash mouth football, it's misdirection. That's all. And the reason it works isn't your offensive line, it's Ronnie Brown. Your offensive line is, Long and Carey aside, subpar, which makes it average to above average overall. When Richie Incognito is an upgrade then you're in trouble. John Jerry should be great, though, and Thomas is still young and doesn't have much football experience, so your line should be great in a year or two - Just not now. The wildcat is all about outnumbering the defense at the point of attack - Removing the QB and using an unbalanced line give you an advantage in the numbers game. Misdirection runs (traps, counters) are also about providing a numbers advantage. There's nothing negative about this, though, and a lot of people seem to portray it that way. You're scheming to hide a personnel weakness. That's called good fucking coaching. Also, you're wrong, Kurt. Miami's wildcat doesn't use drive blocking. They use tight splits to shrink the field for the defense, then use seals and traps on the interior with pulls and track blocking on the edge to define the running lane. All Wildcat runs are, at their closest to the center of the LoS, off tackle. The power runs are your usual powers and counters, hitting the five holes. Their Jet sweep hits the 9. The defenders at the 1 and 3 holes are always forced inside and the defender at the 7 hole is the main target of the play. [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZz3WOlem8s[/YOUTUBE] From there you can link to a variety of wildcat plays. You can see in every single one that the interior line gets NO push. The power of the wildcat is the clog in the middle made by the interior and play side offensive linemen corralling the defensive linemen to the inside - This is helped by the tight line splits. What this clog accomplishes is the stopping of backside pursuit. This defines the off side of the hole. The play side of the hole is defined by the play side TEs (which, due to it being single wing and thus unbalanced, are usually linemen anyway) and the pulling linemen (yes, that's plural, because they'll often pull two linemen) beating the man in the 7 hole (if its off-tackle, they need to force him outside, if it's a sweep, they need to force him inside) and moving up-field to block the second level. Ronnie Brown only has three places he will go in most wildcat plays: Strongside 5, weakside 5, and weakside 9. The sweeping back (Williams, right?) will hit the strongside 9 but in the event of overpursuit will have the ability to bounce inside to the strongside 5. That's it. That's all that can happen. It is a limited playbook based on a GIMMICK. Now, hold on a second, Quack, what is this gimmick? Everyone always says that the wildcat is gimmicky, what are they referring to? Well, I'm glad you asked that question, Quack. In order to understand the gimmick, we need to look at the wildcat from a defender's point of view: Interior defenders need to hold the 3 gap against the seals and the defender on the nose has to fight the trap and push his lineman straight back (which isn't actually straight back since it's a trap block but ignore that for now) into the play gap. This is the biggest fight. But why does this matter so much? Why don't normal defensive strategies of linebacker flow work here? I'm glad you asked: The combination of the traps, seals and track blocking creates a wall of blockers on the play side - In short, the blockers are getting down field, making it necessary for the flow defenders to make one quick read and devote themselves 100% to flow - That is, running across the field as fast as they can. Now let's think back to the holes that the running backs will hit - They're all outside. And because of the jam in the middle slowing down flow and the constant threat of the counter play (which is run quite a bit) as well as the double read on the sweep hand-off, the concept of defensive flow is entirely eliminated. That's right, the concept upon which most modern defensive plays are predicated on is thrown out the window. But Quack, I still want to run a standard defense against the wildcat! Now let's go back to what the Patriots did against that power play: Weakside linebacker read counter and couldn't get play-side in time. Middle linebacker overpursued. Even if he didn't, the play was guaranteed four yards, though, so this really is a terrible example of a way to defend the wildcat. Ever wonder why the Patriots have gotten killed by the wildcat time and again? So what happens now? What is the key to stopping the wildcat? You hold your gaps. It's that simple. Defenders need to fight their instincts and just hold their gaps. If the defenders hold their ground then there are no holes and the blocking of the wildcat play breaks down very quickly - Remember those trap blocks? A trap block is a delaying tactic. When you throw a trap you are saying "Here, you can go this way, I just don't want you going this other way". If your back doesn't get downfield, though, then you've just handed your running back off to a defensive tackle. So what happens when all the gaps are filled? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pelu5IzJtHs#t=3m0s Now, there's a mistake here: David Harris and Bart Scott both float rather than go into alley pursuit. They couldn't have both been covering the tight end, so one of them was supposed to do something else, but that's beyond the point. The point is that every gap was filled. We can see it again here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pelu5IzJtHs#t=4m50s Now, Ronnie Brown got that touchdown. That's not what we're looking at this play for. We are looking at this play to see what happens when you fill every gap against the wildcat. And what happened? Ronnie Brown made something out of nothing. There were defenders waiting for him (though at that point they should step up and tackle the man because his forward momentum would have carried him into the end zone regardless) and he slipped through a crack to make a play and gain a whole . . . Two yards. Maybe three if that gosh darn goal line wasn't there. The point is that the wild cat is a scheme predicated on the defensive coaches thinking they can play normal defense and the defensive players fighting their instincts. This can be extremely difficult for the opposing team. A wild cat team isn't saying "we're going to run over you", they're saying "you can't play our game". They are betting that the opposing team is not as disciplined as they are. Often, they're right, but what makes it truly viable for the Dolphins is having one of the best backs in the league in Ronnie Brown to run it. Confusing this strategy with the "smash mouth" concept, however, is ridiculous and exposes how little you know about the scheme you're praising. Nothing to be ashamed of, though, because most of the people arguing that it is stupid are equally as misinformed.
