Who invented shotgun in football

Las Vegas Raiders. Gobert, Turner among 4 fined in Jazz-Pacers fray. Utah Jazz. CP3 pep talk spurred UC Riverside buzzer beater. UC Riverside Highlanders. Giants extend manager Kapler's deal through ' San Francisco Giants. Tiger needs to play well to return, Thomas says. Baylor's Oklahoma test, Purdue's upset chances at Ohio State and more to watch in Week 11's biggest games. Florida State Seminoles. Adelson: How UConn football became the biggest loser in realignment.

UConn Huskies. Baltimore is in a two-back set with a single tight end on this play. The defensive end circled in orange is the read key for Jackson during the hand-off exchange. During the handoff exchange, the H-back lined up by Jackson's side will cross the formation and the read player's face, looping around the edge to meet the outside linebacker at the second level. Assuming Jackson makes the correct read and the H-back can get around the edge in time, Jackson should be sprung free out of this look.

Click here if you are having trouble loading the image. As designed, Jackson keeps the ball because the defensive end read key shuffles inside to defend the running back. Jackson is able to get to the edge and pick up 8 yards without even taking a hit.

While arc read can be plenty effective out of shotgun, putting the running back farther away from the defensive end via alignment and path can coax the defender into following the back instead of playing the mesh point. Later in the Cincinnati game, the Ravens doubled down on their heavy-personnel pistol formations with a "diamond" look in a third-and-short situation.

Pistol diamond, or "full house," puts one running back behind the quarterback with two other running backs, tight ends, or H-backs on either side of him, creating the diamond alignment. This formation is specifically great in short-yardage situations because the abundance of players throughout the backfield presents the defense with a handful of potentially moving blockers and run gaps.

Again, the Ravens turn to arc read, but this time with an added blocker to the outside. In essence, the play becomes more of a sweep than a true arc play, but the goal remains the same: read the end man on the line of scrimmage and take out linebackers with an H-back coming across the formation. Though the play does not go for an explosive gain, Jackson picks up enough to move the sticks and keep the drive alive. To layer on top of this newfound creativity in the ground through the pistol formation, the Ravens have also opened up their play-action passing game a bit.

No, their play-action is not necessarily more successful because the team is running the ball more effectively, but adding the pistol to the team's arsenal adds another wrinkle and formation for defenses to think about.

When Mornhinweg turns to deep shot plays out of the pistol, the results can be devastating, and it appears the Ravens are only scratching the surface in that department. This play-action play blends a high-low levels concept to the left side of the formation with two vertical routes from the tight ends to the right side, not unlike one of Peyton Manning 's favorite concepts back in the day.

In theory, the short in route should be taken any time it is available pre-snap. This is much different than an "under center" snap, where the quarterback would have to drop back before being in position to throw.

The shotgun developed from the old single wing formation. It was used very little in professional football and the NFL , though the New York Jets used it some to help gimpy-kneed quarterback Joe Namath avoid the rush. Roger Staubach and the Dallas Cowboys were the next to employ the formation with any frequency and they made it to the Super Bowl using it. After the success the Cowboys had, other teams started using the shotgun.

It caught on in the s and 90s when the NFL had evolved into more of a passing league, and now almost every team has it in its offensive arsenal, and use it at some point, though they normally take most snaps under center.

It is a very popular formation in college football. Tim Tebow and Urban Meyer popularized it at the University of Florida; the team won the national championship with it and Tebow won the Heisman Trophy.

The formation is very effective with a quick, agile quarterback who has the ability to run as well as pass. However, the formation also gives quarterbacks a wide view of the field and more conventional, drop-back quarterbacks have also used the shotgun with great effect. The "pistol" formation also has the quarterback taking a deeper snap from center.

However, in this formation, the quarterback lines up only about 3 or 4 yards behind the center, with a running back behind him. The formation also has weaknesses. Combining elements of the short punt and spread formations "spread" in that it had receivers spread widely instead of close to or behind the interior line players , it was said to be like a "shotgun" in spraying receivers around the field.

The alignment of the players also suggests the shape of an actual shotgun. Formations similar or identical to the shotgun used decades previously would be called names such as "spread double wing". Short punt formations so called because the distance between the snapper and the ostensible punter is shorter than in long punt formation do not usually have as much emphasis on wide receivers.

A typical Shotgun formation—many variables can be implemented, but this is the basic setup many teams use. The shotgun evolved from the single wing and the similar double-wing spread; famed triple threat man Sammy Baugh has claimed that the shotgun was effectively the same as the version of the double-wing he ran at Texas Christian University in the s. In the latter part of the s, the Philadelphia Eagles, under Hall of Fame Coach Earl "Greasy" Neale, implemented the shotgun formation in their offensive attack with quarterback Tommy Thompson.

The formation was named by the man who actually devised it, San Francisco 49ers coach Red Hickey , in Tittle largely because he was mobile enough to effectively run the formation.

The shotgun was briefly used by the New York Jets during the latter part of the Joe Namath era, as documented in the Sporting News article "Joe and the Booyah Tribe", to give the bad-kneed, and often immobile quarterback more time to set up plays by placing him deeper in the backfield.

But the formation was not again used on a regular basis until the season, and then only by the Dallas Cowboys , which used the shotgun frequently with Roger Staubach at quarterback.

The Cowboy shotgun differed from the 49er shotgun as Staubach generally had a back next to him in the backfield making runs possible , where Brodie was normally alone in the backfield. Since no other NFL teams used the formation during this time, some believed it had been invented by Tom Landry. Instead, Landry simply dusted off the old innovation to address a pressing problem: keeping Staubach protected while an unusually young and inexperienced squad 12 rookies made the Cowboys roster jelled.

The team ended up in the Super Bowl, in no small part due to its new use of the old formation. The shotgun became a "signature" formation for the Cowboys, especially during third down situations.