The spread offense is now a new concept. It has its roots in Double Wing, Veer, Wing-T, Triple Option and almost any other classic offense. The philosophy is simple, use all 53 yards of horizontal field that you can to put more pressure on each individual defender. Or, more simply put, make the defenders have to do more than they are capable of.

A team running the spread wants to get 1 on 1 situations as often as possible, and then abuse the ones that give him the biggest advantage. This requires a few things on the offenses part, multiple players that are likely to be more talented than a defender and great play calling to keep the defense from guessing correctly.  A good spread team would have 3 or 4 good WR as compare to one or two great ones.

With that in mind we need to define exactly what the spread is. Many believe the spread offense requires 4 WR or 5 WR sets with a ton of speed and 60 pass’s a game. I prefer a more vague definition, one that presents an immediate, obvious threat to every flank on every snap. Think of this in contrast to your standard I-form offense. The “I” form only presents a pair of immediate threats on the weak side on a pass play, a WR deep with a back in the flats or a WR running an intermediate Curl/Out/Slant.  Thus, leaving the defense with only two immediate concerns.

The spread, run properly, presents at least 3 in the standard 4 WR or 3WR/TE set. They could go double verticals with a back in the flats. They could go one medium/one deep with a back in the flats. Both of those scenarios are immediately present, and thus the defense must focus with a minimum of three defenders capable of defending both flanks.

But the real beauty of the spread is the options an offense has. If the defense comes out in a standard 4-3/3-4 defense that leaves a WR against a LB, a battle the offense should win almost every snap. Or, they must bring the safeties up to play those WR, which the offense not only should win, but provides the defense with no deep help resulting in big plays. If the defense comes out in the dime (6 defensive backs) the offensive line (5) equals the number of defenders to stop the run (4 lineman plus 1 linebacker) giving the back plenty of holes to run though. The offense could gain an even greatest advantage by having a mobile QB and going to 5 WR sets which would leave a WR uncovered or nobody to stop the QB from running.

The spread takes talent to run and a lot of time in the lab to perfect the play calling and get in the rhythm the passing game requires. However, if properly run it becomes nearly impossible to stop. It can adapt to a ball control, west-coast offense style of offense or it can go vertical and become a Fun-N-Gun style of attack. It only requires patience and practice by the gamer.