When I came up with this list, I was hoping to give what most coaches consider are warning signs that their offense is in trouble and they need to fix them asap. These are more of a reminder that something is broken and if you want better results, it needs to be fixed.
As we all know, the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again the same way but expecting different results.
Sometimes we fall into this pattern (I’m thinking of my times especially here) and need a bit of a reminder or jolt to step it up and “make it work.”
So here’s the list and also a special thanks to my awesome group of coaches who helped give feedback on the list before I hit publish!
17 Signs Your Offense Isn’t Working
1. You have to explain blocking assignments over and over and when you ask your players what they should do they say…
‘I don’t know?”
‘I don’t know?”
2. Backups have no idea at all what to do because it’s so complicated that only starters can figure it out.
3. Players don’t know who to block when they see something different then what you have been practicing all week.
4. You have to tell your scout defense to ease up or back off because the offense needs to gain confidence.
5. Your Quarterback thinks that the deepest receiver is always the best to throw to and guesses who will be open before every pass.
6. Your assistant coaches tell players different information.
Coach Matthew Sentes, who is the Offensive and Defensive Line Coach at Catholic Central High School in Lethbridge Alberta Canada, suggests that there is a problem if coaches contradict each other. He shared that he has been a part of coaching staffs where this is the case and the players get confused or even take sides of the coaches that they like more.
7. You are the only coach who knows the assignments for blocking the plays. Everyone else defers to you all the time.
8. To save time, you don’t spend any time practicing the skills that your offense is struggling with individually.
9. You can only run your plays effectively when the defense isn’t blitzing.
10. You can only run plays against specific defenses.
11. Your best athletes are not running with the ball every play.
12. Defenses know by your formation exactly what play you will be running. (this is the one that I could honestly see some disagreement on – when you become excellent at executing a play, it really doesn’t matter if they know or not!)
13. You are running way more different plays in practice that you never call in games.
14. Plays that don’t work keep getting called over and over and over…
15. Every week you are installing more new plays to run and leaving the old ones because they didn’t work. To clarify this, the point is that you should not be cleaning the closet of your offense each week and putting in an entire new one.
Coach Sentes also makes the following suggestion:
You should adapt your offense to what is working and what isn’t. If you aren’t adjusting to what is working, you won’t get better. It’s absolutely necessary to insert a play or two based on a certain defense, trick lay, injuries, etc. Another point that could be added is if coaches contradict each other. I have been apart of coaching staffs where this is the case and the players get confused or take sides of the coaches that they like more.
16. When your best player goes out you have no other way to gain yards.
17. Your lower levels of your program can’t run the same plays as your top levels run.
Don’t Panic!
OK…so if your reading this and your offense fits into a few…don’t panic. Every offense struggles with these things somewhere.
Hopefully they remind you of the areas you should be focusing on for improvement!
If you have any to add, put them in the comments below.
And make sure you share this list on your favorite social media so other coaches can be reminded as well.
Thank you for commenting and sharing.