The Way of It, Part Two: A Series of Fictitious Conversations Demonstrating the Evolution of Football Strategy

San Francisco, 1979.

Across the bay from Oakland, two men watch from the sidelines as players in red-and-gold practice uniforms charge around the field. 

"You want the coaching job?” Eddie DeBartolo demands. “Sure you do.”

“I do,” Bill Walsh agrees.

"You know I inherited a mess from the old owner. My 49ers are the joke of the NFL,” says DeBartolo. His thick, heavy brows descend over his eyes. “You know why?”

There is a pause. Walsh watches the linemen re-enact blocking formations again and again. Their efforts are audible from the sidelines.  “It’s not a lack of effort,” he says.  “Or a lack of ability.”

“Yeah, not for the players, but I need a coach with the ability to spot match-ups. Madden’s strategy just won the Super Bowl for the second time. Now he is an announcer for crying out loud.” DeBartolo’s frustration is obvious as he runs his hand across his dark hair, which immediately springs back up again. “Match-ups! It’s all the rage now. We stink at finding match-ups. Whaddaya got, Walsh?"

Bill Walsh’s hair is as white as DeBartolo’s is dark. "The way I see it," Walsh replies, "The real match-up is between me and the other coach. I’ll keep track of what the other coaches do in different situations. Based on his tendencies from past games I can predict his moves in his game against me. Then can I design plays that take advantage of the most frequent tendencies of the opposing coach in those situations."

A wide receiver leaps up in an attempt to snatch the ball out of the air but he has mistimed his jump and the football sails between his hands.

"Convince me,” says Bartolo.

“We’ll need to hire some people to work on keeping track of every play that other coaches run in different situations. For example, I’ve noticed that coaches tend to revert to the same plays over and over again when they’re close to scoring. If you know what they tend to do, you can run a defensive play that will take advantage of whatever they usually do in that situation. the individual match-ups won’t matter as much because you’re concentrating on the bigger picture, you see?”

Eddie DeBartolo is beginning to look convinced. “You’d need to sort through a lot of situations to make that work, though.”

“Oh, yeah. First down on the twenty-yard line; first down on the goal line; second down and short to go on the goal line; second down and long to go.” But Walsh is far from discouraged. He watches the 49ers players but his mind is absorbed by his idea for how to give them an overall advantage. “We’ll keep track of other coaches’ tendencies in all the situations we can think of. Then I’ll divide the areas of the football field into zones, because their location on the field affects their decisions too. For example, what I call the 'Red Zone' is the twenty yards closest to the goal line. We compile the data across the NFL as a continuous trend and give more weight to recent games.”

“That… is going to take… forever.” DeBartolo shakes his head. “Just how the hell are we going to keep track of all those numbers in all those situations for all those zones, and for all the different teams?”

“Computers!” Walsh replies happily. “Those new gadgets can track all that stuff for us. With that information, I can beat anybody."

"Okay, you’ve got the job. So what kind of quarterback do you want? You want someone who can throw deep? I can get you somebody who can throw deep."

Walsh shakes his head. "No. I want someone who will follow my statistical advice. There’s a kid named Joe Montana who suits my plan…"

******

“The Way of It” sets up the evolution of thought in football. For a long time it was a game of systems or formation, which Madden called a ‘gimmick’ and which he claimed was only the surface of the real, ‘deeper’ game. Thus Madden came up with a new strategy, creating a game of individual match-ups. 

Walsh came along and expanded the picture to include overall tendencies of different teams, so instead of simply looking at this player-by-player and game-by-game, he viewed the statistics as ongoing trends and made plays accordingly. No one else had begun to think like Walsh yet, however, so his 49ers had a huge advantage in the NFL. For a while, it was as if he had caught a glimpse of another dimension that other teams could not see.

According to our fictitious Walsh, Joe Montana suited his plans because Walsh wanted to run what he called "percentage plays." These are plays that have the highest chance of gaining five yards or more with the least risk. Walsh did not need to risk everything on a forty-yard pass if five yards was a sure thing according to the statistics. He needed someone willing to be patient. At the time, most quarterbacks were not patient enough for that (and many still aren't) because there was (and still is) a long-standing snobbery in the NFL about what a quarterback "should" do. This mindset dictates that a brainy, talented quarterback should stand out by throwing long passes.

Walsh did not need or want that for his new iteration of the 49ers. He needed somebody who did not want to be a flashy quarterback as much as he wanted to win games. Joe Montana was happy to complete a lot of short passes and his patience was rewarded with the Super Bowl.

Next we will have a "conversation" with Pete Carroll and see how the Seahawks come into this discussion.

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"The Way of It" is a collaborative effort between Ada Fetters and Michael Howard.