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I watched the Browns exhibition game against the Giants primarily to see how well Josh Harris would do. Frankly, I thought he looked uncomfortable under center which was one of the things scouts were concerned about with him and any quarterback coming out of a spread offense program. I have been wondering why no NFL team uses the spread offense the way BG, Utah and a number of other successful college program do?

It seems to me if that type of offense can put up the kind of yardage and points it does on the college level it should have similar success in the NFL. I know some teams run a version of it but none seem to base the majority of their offense on the spread. There must be a reason but I can't figure what it could be.

I suppose it might be the fact that to ultimately be successful in the playoffs you need to be able to run the ball. And that is especially true as the weather gets colder and the conditions deteriorate. But, on the other hand BG conistently gains close too or exceeds 2000 yards rushing each season.

I think Josh could be a very successful quarterback in the NFL but maybe it would take a team that exclusively, or primarily runs a BG type offense that allows him to fully utilize his skills which made him a very successful college quarterback. Any thoughts?

A running game out of the spread would be very ineffective in the NFL. The reason is the incredible increase in team speed across the board on NFL teams as opposed to college teams. Also, there is consistently more pressure on the QB in the NFL than in college. If you sat back and passed all day (because your run game would be ineffective), NFL teams would blitz you all day and people would get hurt. A sidebar to this issue is the option offense. The option has been very succesful for some teams in college but you never see option in the NFL. The reason again is team speed and discipline. The spread offense is great but against top quality NFL defenses, it will fail to consistently put up huge numbers. Maybe an offensive genius will come along and reinvent the NFL game with a new version of the spread but in it's current form, I think Indy's offense is as close as we'll see to a BG spread.

To add to what J4H said, and he's very close to being right, our offense is predicated on short passes. DBs & LBs in the NFL are so fast that you cannot hit those short passes without the threat of the deep pass.

Going with what J4H said, it would be very tough to run from our offensive sets in the NFL. Thus, NFL defenses are going to pin their ears back and pass rush you. It's very difficult to get your receivers deep when you've got 4 or 5 guys going out for passes and leaving so few in for protection.

I think this pretty much becomes the problem. If you cannot run the defense won't respect it and will be pass rushing you to death. Since they're bringing a superb pass rush it makes it difficult to hit the deep stuff, so the secondary isn't worrying about that. That only leaves the shorter routes, which are our bread & butter anyways, but in the NFL it would be very difficult to consistently gain the yardage we do with those routes. Defenses are just too smart.

The Run'n'Shoot was the closest thing to our offense, and it went out of style rather quickly. It wasn't predicated on the short passes so much, but did involve a lot of 3-4 WR sets. It put up some gaudy numbers for awhile, but defenses figured it out, and it just didn't work anymore.

OK so why hasn't anyone run a no-huddle a la the Buffalo Bills in the NFL? That drives me nuts.

Falcon30 wrote:OK so why hasn't anyone run a no-huddle a la the Buffalo Bills in the NFL? That drives me nuts.

Because the lineman are too fat now and can't handle it.