There are a few different movies that, if I am flipping channels and I happen to find on television, that provide “put the remote down” moments. “A Few Good Men” is one, and thankfully TNT and TBS seem to have that on an alternating loop.
Another one is “Days of Thunder.” Debuting in 1990, this film dives into the world of stock car racing. The main character Cole Trickle, portrayed by Tom Cruise, is an open wheel driver who lost his sponsorship, and is looking to move into NASCAR. Thanks to an impressive test session he gets himself a ride.
However, his introduction to stock car racing is anything but pleasant. He struggles to finish most races, and clashes with his crew chief Harry Hogge, played by Robert Duvall. There is a great scene where Trickle pulls into pit road during a caution lap, and Hogge tells him to go back out on the track when the pit stop is over and hit the pace car. When Trickle asks why, Hogge replies “Because you’ve hit every other goddamned thing out there, I want you to be perfect.”
There’s also this moment, when Trickle wants to make a pit stop in another race, but Hogge tells him that the crew is busy:
But this is a football website, not a NASCAR website, so we need to transition from stock cars to huddles. There is a moment in the movie that is playing out, in a sense, in training camps from Foxborough to New York, Tampa Bay to Indianapolis.
After the above montage, with Trickle struggling to acclimate to life in NASCAR, the downtrodden driver is at a bar after another disappointing finish. Hogge, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two men, asks Trickle to tell him how they need to set up the car to make it easier for Trickle to drive. “Is she running loose or tight? A turn here, take some wedge out, we’ll win some races.”
To which Trickle replies: “I can’t do that. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about…I’d like to help out, but I can’t. I don’t have the vocabulary.”
Hogge’s answer?
“Well… we’re just going to have to figure one out.”
There are some NFL coaches playing the Harry Hogge role as training camps progress.
The most obvious example of this is Tom Brady in Tampa Bay. After two decades in largely the same offense – as we will see in a moment – Brady is now learning a new system. Doing it, mind you, in the midst of a global pandemic that eliminated minicamps and OTAs. Kalyn Kahler, from Bleacher Report, wrote a great piece on Brady learning Bruce Arians’ offensive system. In the piece Kahler draws upon Carson Palmer, who played under Arians with the Arizona Cardinals, to illustrate some of the challenges that Brady faces. In a sense, the vocabulary is one such hurdle:
Early in their time together in Arizona, Palmer said Arians kept calling a specific defensive coverage, “Cover 5.” Palmer had never heard that term before, nor had any of his Cardinals teammates, who were also new to Arians’ coaching. “What the hell is Cover 5?” Palmer remembers everyone thinking at the time. “Does he not know what he’s talking about?”
He and Arians had several back-and-forth arguments about Cover 5, only to realize each time that they were talking about the same thing, a man-to-man type of coverage, but using different words. “That drove me nuts,” Palmer said. “All of his defensive terminology threw me at first. We would get in these knockdown, drag-out arguments and then realize like 35 seconds in the conversation we are both talking about the same thing. … So yeah, that’s gonna be really tough on Tom unless Tom is of that verbiage from New England.”
And with 45 years of coaching experience, Arians is firmly set in his ways. “I realized right away, he was not going to change,” Palmer said.
But beyond what to call a certain coverage, Brady needs to learn a new offensive vocabulary. For two decades the veteran quarterback was running largely the same exact offense. Here is just one of countless examples. This is taken from the 2003 New England Patriots’ playbook, in the section covering two-man route concepts:
13 years later, here is that combination in the 2016 Patriots’ playbook:
Topper, or double slants, is just one example of the continuity in vocabulary that spans Brady’s time in New England. While there have been changes or additions to the playbook during his time with the Patriots, the terminology, even when things are added, stays constant. Take a play that anyone who watched Super Bowl LIII might recognize: Hoss Juke. This is from New England’s 2011 playbook:
Then, from their 2016 playbook:
The consistency in terminology – vocabulary, to continue with the “Days of Thunder” theme – makes adding new plays and schemes easy on Brady. The language has become second nature. When Josh McDaniels comes into the huddle or the meeting room and talks about making changes to Hoss or Topper or tweaking Indigo or Peel, Brady knows exactly what he is talking about, because he has been using those terms himself for decades.
But now, Brady needs to unlearn the vocabulary from his past, and learn a new system. Without the benefits of minicamps and OTAs. For example, one of the two-man route combinations in the Patriots playbooks he is used to is Peel, which is a post/wheel combination:
That led to designs such as this play:
This is the Peel Ice concept from New England’s 2016 playbook. It combines the Peel (post/wheel) on the right with Ice (in/crosser) on the left. This gets to some of how New England’s naming conventions work, with a name for the route combinations built into the playcall. (For those who are curious about “snowmobile,” that is the no-huddle term for this design).
Now with Arians, Brady needs to learn a new name for post/wheel: Wheelie. This is from the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2010 playbook, when Arians was their offensive coordinator:
Now luckily for Brady, there is actually some overlap in the terminology, which will make life easier on him. Another two-man route combination in New England is Indigo, which combines an in with a go route:
Low and behold from Arians’ playbook:
Now, the difference is that in New England, Indigo might be paired with another named concept for the backside of the play, such as Tosser or Peel or any other named convention. Here, Sticks and X In tell the tight end and the backside receiver what to do.
These are just some of the naming conventions that Brady will need to unlearn, and learn, over the coming weeks. He’ll need to do this without minicamps, and OTAs. Those are the periods when offenses install these designs and refine them, and then teams use the rest of training camp and preseason games to refine each play and get the timing down during higher leveraged situations. Instead, they’ll be transported back to their time in college, when the first high leveraged situation you will see is in Week 1.
And you’re hoping that you’ve got everything down right.
But Brady is not alone. There are quarterbacks in new cities, or quarterbacks with new offensive coordinators, that are having to learn new vocabulary before the games begin. Take Daniel Jones, who last year played under Pat Shurmur. Now he has Jason Garrett as his offensive coordinator, and is learning his third system in as many years.
That is three different sets of vocabulary over that period of time, and now Jones has to learn that without the benefit of all the traditional aspects of pre-season that we have seen in the past. Garrett has raved about Jones so far, calling him a “football guy” during a recent press event:
There’s no question he is a football guy. He loves football. He’s always so prepared. He’s always studying his stuff. He always has great questions and wants to get better. My experience has been, when you have that kind of approach and that kind of attitude, if you have some ability, you’re going to keep growing and getting better every day, and he’s certainly done that.
“The thing you just like so much about Daniel is just his approach. He clearly has ability. He’s someone who’s big; he’s strong; he’s athletic; he has a really good arm. He has all the tools you’re looking for. But the thing that really jumps out is the approach that he takes every day. Like I said, he’s a ball guy. He loves ball. He works very hard at it and he’s always trying to refine his skills. He’s always trying to gain more knowledge and find a way to become a better quarterback, individually and for our team. That’s what you get most excited about.
But as with Brady, Jones needs to unlearn terminology from the past, and learn a new set of vocabulary in Garrett’s offense.
However, that might be easier than you think. In something that highlights how some terminology is constant from team to team, look at this quick passing concept from a recent Dallas Cowboy’s playbook:
There, on the left, is Tosser, the double slant concept we started the piece with from New England’s 2003 playbook.
Maybe this will be easier than we thought for these quarterbacks?