WCF Film room: Teams finding success in a copycat league with these three west coast offense staples part 1 - Counter end around

The Shanahan fake counter end around seems to be a copycat favorite so far this year.

Every so often, an offensive revolution occurs that forces team defenses to adapt and adjust. The forward pass from heavy wing formations, the advent of the shotgun in the 1930’s, the West Coast Offense in late 1960’s, the spread offense of the late 2000’s, and the use of run-pass options in the late 2010’s, all were adaptations of the defenses that were evolving and adjusting to various formations, concepts, and personnel groupings.

No team exclusively runs Bill Walsh’s “west coast offense,” just like no teams are exclusively Air Coryell or “run-n-shoot or Erhardt-Perkins. While the teams that run these in principle still tend to call their offenses by those terms, they all incorporate the best elements of other schemes as well.

525 F Post and Arches/Seam Puma

For example, a staple of the Air Coryell offense is “525 F Post.” The play is a staple of the offense, and you can listen to Ernie Zampese talk through some cut-ups below.

The “525” tells the receivers and tight end what to run. “5” routes are 15 yard comeback routes on the outside by the wideouts. “2” tells the tight end to run a 6-8 yard shallow cross. “F Post” tells the F to run a post route from the back field. The F also has the option of running up the seam if he can’t get across the face of the seam/hook defender.

From Norv Turners’ 1996 Washington Redskins playbook

This gets to the crux of the article. The NFL, really all levels of football, is a copycat league. Teams are borrowing from the best and discarding the rest. And if it works, why not? A browse through the later west coast offense playbooks of Gary Kubiak, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, etc., all reveal similar plays from other offensive schemes, most likely because they work and have seen their teams on the worst end of certain plays (more on that later) or because they’re meticulous in their film study, constantly looking for new concepts they can adapt to their own scheme.

The play in the new hybrid west coast offense run by the above coaches is “Arches” (Kubiak/Shanahan) or “Seam Puma” (McVay). But the concept is the same, a shallow crosser by the Y tight end and the “arches” or “quick seam” route by the #2 receiver in the pattern on that side.

Arches from Gary Kubiak Texans install 2012.

Arches from Kyle Shanahan 49ers install 2018.

Seam Puma from Sean McVay Redskins install 2014.

It truly is a copycat league.

In 2020, it’s no different. Teams are finding success with plays other teams have have highlight reel footage of already. Some of the concepts showing up again this season are the “Shanahan reverse” of 2019, the Kansas City Chiefs “wasp” passing concept that was made famous for being the catalyst that shifted the tide of Super Bowl 54, and the Shanahan “leak” concept off of play action both from the F and Y positions, a play that Shanahan has been calling for more than a decade. In part 1 here, we’ll just be looking at the fake counter end around and will look at the other concepts in later articles in this series.

Fake counter end around

The Shanahan reverse became an interesting way to get 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel more involved in the game. Deebo is a versatile receiver who was nearly a 1000 yard receiver in his final year at South Carolina and he only he didn’t eclipse 1000 yards because South Carolina’s offense asked him to run a lot of tap pass fly’s from behind the line of scrimmage. It only made sense that Shanahan utilize some of that athleticism and toughness in his running game.

Last season, the 49ers ran this play three times for 93 yards and a touchdown with each play going for at least 30 yards (31 yards against New Orleans, 30 yards and a touchdown vs Seattle in week 17, and 32 yards against Green Bay in the NFCCG).

In 2020, not only have the 49ers run it, but several other teams as well have run it as well, and with varying degrees of success. In week 3 against the New York Giants, the 49ers ran the play for a touchdown to rookie receiver Brandon Aiyuk.

The play begins with Kendrick Bourne and Aiyuk in cut splits into the boundary to the left of the formation with Bourne motioning over to the wide side of the field next fullback Kyle Juszczyk in a wing position and tight end Ross Dwelley on the line at the end of the formation.

The Giants are in a single high coverage shell and the motion confirms to the 49ers that it’s zone coverage, giving the 49ers an advantage on the run as there is no capable force defender to set the edge with the corner in deep third responsibility pre-snap.

The play starts out looking like “16 counter,” a gap scheme base running play in Shanahan’s offense. Juszczyk and Brunskill move in the direction of the counter to sell the motion to the left side of the formation as the defense crashes toward what appears to them to be the point of attack.

As soon as Aiyuk gets the ball, Juszczyk reverses course along with right tackle Mike McGlinchey and center Ben Garland. The trio get out on the edge where they meet little resistance only really have to contend with the safety and corner. Aiyuk navigates the traffic and sprints 19 yards to his first career touchdown.

The 49ers are quick to snap the ball as soon as Bourne sets after his motion to prevent the Giants defense from changing responsibilities on the fly and keeping them in cover-3. The direction of the offense out-gaps the defense to the edge and the rest is history. As an added bonus, Juszczyk throws a crushing block on linebacker Blake Martinez, who has not fared so well against Shanahan offenses in his last four games against the 49ers (three with the Packers defense and now one with the Giants).

The Cardinals added nice wrinkle to their version of it by letting quarterback Kyler Murray keep the ball after he faked the zone run hand off and then faked the end around. If you watch closely on the end zone view of the play, you can see Murray actually tosses the ball up and lets it leave his hands before grabbing it and turning up field. Just another element of the defense to have consider as they hesitate to pick a direction.

So far Kansas City, Cleveland, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh have also run it. Cleveland scored from 50 yards out when Odell Beckham Jr. took the reverse down the sideline untouched through the Dallas defense in week four. In week five against the Eagles, Steelers receiver Ray-Ray McCloud had a 58-yard gain that set up a touchdown a couple of plays later.

Part 2 will look at the Chief “wasp” passing concept.