Kyle Shanahan has long been considered one of the sharpest thinkers in football. The results confirm it -- he'll call plays in his third Super Bowl in eight years on Sunday -- and a great article from the Wall Street Journal explains the how and the why.
The thesis of the piece is this:
Years after offensive coaches figured out how to make defenses defend every blade of grass through spreading the field, Shanahan, and his cohorts from his dad's coaching tree, have figured unlocked a more effective way to do so -- by packing everyone into the middle of the field.
The WSJ accessed data from NFL Next Gen Stats, which shows that the 49ers' offensive formation stretches just 19.9 yards from end to end, the tightest alignment in the NFL.
By aligning its wideouts so close to the middle of the field, Shanahan forces defensive backs to work inside-out, rather than outside-in. In placing opposing defensive backs at the front of an island of green space behind them, Shanahan actually opens the middle of the field.
Tight formations are also more threatening for the run, which in turns opens the play-action pass game.
The advantages to lining up like this are numerous. For one, defenses have a pretty good idea of what’s coming out of spread formations: 79% of those plays end up in a pass, yielding just 6.7 yards per attempt. Condensed formations, though, are nearly even, resulting in passes 49% of the time. While that’s a low number in a pass-happy league, offenses are rewarded by gaining 7.7 yards per pass—a full yard more. That’s aided by teams being able to credibly threaten to run the ball, allowing them to use play action 44% of the time, while that’s used on just 7% of spread passes.
Shanahan's offensive architecture, along with elite talent around him, have allowed seventh-round pick Brock Purdy to lead the NFL with 9.6 yards per attempt.
Among 2023-24 playoff teams, the Los Angeles Rams ranked just behind San Francisco at 20.2 yards from end to end, followed by Miami (21.6) and Houston (22.4), with Green Bay in sixth (22.9). All five head coaches hail from the Mike Shanahan coaching tree, and all six teams that ranked among the most-condensed offenses (Detroit being the other) reached the divisional round.
That's not to say the only offenses are trying to pack all 22 players in the middle of the field. Kansas City is right at the league average of 24.6 yards, while Buffalo and Philadelphia were the least condensed offenses in the NFL. Baltimore also ranked among the NFL's widest offenses. (All of those teams happen to have quarterbacks that pose significant run threats to opposing defenses, a mitigating factor here.)
On the whole, though, the article points out that, after years of stretching players from sideline to sideline, NFL offense are now inching closer and closer to the middle of the field.
Back in 2016, spread formations—ones with at least 30 yards between the two widest offensive players—accounted for 46.1% of snaps, while condensed splits made up just 11% of plays. Spread offenses were indisputably king.
But in each season since then, those trends have gone in reverse. Spread formations have receded and condensed ones have increased. Last year, for the first time since Next Gen Stats began comprehensively logging this data, tight splits actually overtook the spread. Over the same time span, the width of the average formation has shrunk dramatically, from 28.3 yards to 24.6.
For coaches at the lower levels, it's some food for thought to go with dips and wings as they watch the game on Sunday.