Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look

by Pat Kirwan

And fans can’t get enough of the NFL. It’s 12 months a year of coverage now.

The lack of football savvy can also be attributed to the fantasy football boom.

Watching a football game doesn’t have to be a reactive experience. Every play doesn’t have to be a mystery.

If he’s not careful, a coach will wind up preparing a little for everything he could possibly face rather than learning his opponent’s true tendencies and preparing to take away the things that team does best.

Whether a team is on offense or defense, the last two minutes of both halves tend to be the most critical points of a game, but often precious practice time is spent trying to install everything to fit every contingency.

Too many words create too many opportunities for mistakes. I prefer using the fewest number of words to tell the maximum number of people what to do.

Still, too many scouts will downgrade a quarterback prospect for throwing off his back foot. In a collapsing pocket, it’s actually an important skill to have.

What makes a running game great is having a back who can make the first defender miss.

No longer does the run set up the pass; today, the pass just sets up more passing.

The hybrid tight ends of today’s NFL—guys who can block a front-seven defender and create matchup problems in coverage for their quarterbacks to exploit—have added a dimension to offensive football that hadn’t existed before.

Keep this in mind as you’re watching from the stands or your sofa—the number of steps a quarterback drops is usually half the number of steps a receiver will take before the ball is delivered.

The first thing you should look for is the stance of the linemen. If the tackle is down in a three-point stance, you can anticipate a running play (unless the down and distance suggests otherwise). If they’re standing up in a two-point stance, you can predict with a high degree of certainty it’s going to be a pass or a draw.

If the helmets are raising upward, it’s probably a pass—or a draw, which depends on selling the threat of a pass.

It starts with finding a nose tackle who will command a double-team; a 3-4 defense works best when it forces one of the guards to help the center on every play.

Blockers counter rushers with their own variety of protection techniques. From the location of the spot where he sets up to the timing of getting his hands on his man, each tackle has his own bag of tricks.

Before the snap, count the number of defenders in the box who may be rushing.

If you’re watching your team and they’re not getting to the quarterback, make sure they’re at least getting their hands up to try to make a play.

It’s easy enough for a fan in the stands or at home to identify which coverage a corner is playing before the ball is even snapped. Just look at the hips of the cornerback: if his ass is toward the sideline, he’s playing zone.

Too few realize that special teams plays—kickoffs, punts, field goals, and extra points—account for 20 percent of all plays in an average NFL game. A team runs about as many special teams plays in a game as it does running plays.

If you look at a team that plays a 4-3 defense, runs a spread offense out of primarily 11 personnel, and has a vertical threat tight end, you can predict they’re going to suffer some special teams issues.

in the NFL, 25 percent of the games are decided by three points or less.

When the head coach can be outvoted 2–1 in matters of football significance, a team has a fundamental problem.

Ultimately, the GM’s role should be to take care of everything that doesn’t land on the head coach’s plate, from handling the complexities of contract negotiations to hiring the non-football staff (coaches should maintain control over their coordinators and assistants). He can’t be seen as outranking the head coach, especially in the eyes of the team.

The key to making successful deals is to avoid negotiating in the heat of the moment, but draft day is full of adrenaline, anxiety, pressure, and egos. The NFL is full of panic traders, guys who feel compelled to pull the trigger on something. Jerry Jones has been known to overpay on draft day for something he sets his mind on.

You can legislate protection of the quarterback, but that won’t protect him. The league can’t presume that the quarterback is safe because of something written up in a competition committee meeting.

The Cover 2 defense, for example, creates a huge opportunity for the kind of helmet-to-helmet hits that often result in concussions. In man coverage, a defender chases his guy around the field and tries to tackle him. There is little space between the defender and the target, and without space, there’s no velocity in the hit.

When the active roster is released, see if your coach is going with seven offensive linemen and five safeties. If he is, you can feel comfortable he is someone who studies and considers the way injuries affect the game.

Clarity, as you see, is not a virtue of the NFL rulebook.

Anything that we’re doing the same way it was being done before the year 2000 needs to be rethought.

Good receivers, according to STATS, have a drop ratio of one every 30 targets.

Blank templates and interactive versions of these charts are available at realfootballnetwork.com.