Ross Tucker: Why the no huddle
I had been thinking about writing an article about the no huddle when I saw this one pop up today. The no huddle makes perfect sense for the Patriots. You have Brady. You have receivers that he trusts to make the right reads and get on the same page with him quickly. And they have they have the kind of versatile personnel that can run any kind of play.
Remember in 2009 when Rex Ryan had just taken over the Jets and the Patriots came out in week two running a no huddle with trainers and backups holding huge cards with play codes on them to try and get everyone on the same page? That’s what you have to do if you want to run the no huddle and you have Joey Galloway and rookie Julian Edelman instead of Deion Branch and Wes Welker.
As Eric Mangini said on WEEI last week the only way (repeat ONLY WAY) to get Brady off his game is confuse him. Because if he knows what you’re doing, you’re dead. The no huddle doesn’t give defenses time to confuse Brady. It doesn’t allow teams like the Jets to all be up walking around, disguising their intentions. They have enough to deal with just trying to get lined up and catch their breath.
I don’t know how much of the no huddle we’ll see in the coming games against the Bills and Raiders, but I know for sure we’ll see it a lot against the Jets.
“I equate it to the offense’s version of ‘blitzing’ the defense,” Saints coach Sean Payton said on Sirius XM NFL Radio on Monday morning, adding, “It allows the offense to change and dictate tempo, be unpredictable and thereby make the defense uncomfortable.”
Offensive coordinators are tired of trying to react to all of the different blitz variations that defensive coordinators concoct every week. They want to turn the tables and make the defenses adjust to what they are doing.