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In recent years, it became easy (and sometimes even appropriate) to mock Al Davis and his beloved Oakland Raiders. From the poor on-field results and questionable personnel moves to Davis' infatuation with speed and his seemingly never-ending quest to find a modern version of the "Mad Bomber," Daryle Lamonica, the past few years have been ugly. And nothing, perhaps, was uglier than the Raiders' ill-fated selection of quarterback JaMarcus Russell with the first overall pick of the 2007 NFL draft. Russell had a strong arm, but he ate and robo-tripped sipped sizzurp until he became persona non grata in the NFL. But none of this should overshadow what Davis built and also what he left behind, even if at the end he seemed to be grasping at the shadows of the Raiders' past success. Among his greatest contributions is the least well understood: the vaunted Raiders "vertical passing game."
Davis picked up the aerial bug from passing-game guru Sid Gillman when he was one of Gillman's assistants with the San Diego Chargers in the 1960s. Gillman, the "Father of the Modern Passing Game," introduced several innovations to the air attack, the first of which was timing. Gillman preached meticulous practice to sync the precise timing between quarterback and receiver, or, more precisely, between the quarterback's dropback and the receiver's route. If the quarterback took a five-step drop, the primary receiver had to run his route based on a precise number of steps, such that quarterback would throw the ball before the receiver had turned to look for it. The secondary receiver in the quarterback's progression ran his route a split second after the first receiver, so that the quarterback could look for the first receiver, reset his feet, then look for the second and still throw before that receiver turned to look for the pass. Nowadays, this emphasis on timing is so universal — in theory if not entirely in practice — that it's difficult to believe how influential Gillman was in establishing it. His second insight was to understand pass defenses and how to defeat them at a level far beyond the old command to "get open." Defeating a man-to-man defense, then as now, is about identifying a receiver who can get open versus a particular defender. Zones, on the other hand, require more thought. Gillman realized that the key to defeating zones was spacing between receivers; specifically, if a defense had only four underneath defenders, then five stationary targets — even five trash cans spaced evenly horizontally across the field — are uncoverable. The defenders are outnumbered. Thus, the idea of the zone "stretch" was born.
When Davis left Gillman's staff he took Sid's playbook — and, more important, his ideas — with him.1 But Davis wasn't content to stretch the field horizontally; he wanted to get vertical. If Gillman could get a trash can open against a zone, Davis tested how good he'd do if he added his favorite ingredient: speed. Gillman, of course, used "vertical stretches" — passing concepts that spaced receivers not left to right, but deep to short — but for Davis they became the centerpiece of his offense. Indeed, this is what Davis meant when he brought the "vertical game" to Oakland. It was not a matter of throwing deep bombs (though it was sometimes), but was instead the science of stretching defenses to their breaking point. With receivers at varying depths, a small defensive error often meant a 15-yard pass play for Davis' offense, and a serious mistake meant a touchdown.
Davis continued to tweak the Gillman offense by adding more formations, adding options for running backs in the passing game, and generally expanding the possibilities of what an offense could do with the football. This was innovative stuff, so much so that it had an outsize effect on a young Raiders assistant coach by the name of Bill Walsh, who went on to craft his own multi-Super Bowl-winning offense with the 49ers that looked a lot like what Davis had created in Oakland. As Walsh explained in his book Building a Champion:
"[Al Davis'] pass offense included an almost unlimited variety of pass patterns as well as a system of calling them, and utilized the backs and tight ends much more extensively than other offenses. … To develop an understanding of it took time, but once learned, it was invaluable."
Davis picked up the aerial bug from passing-game guru Sid Gillman when he was one of Gillman's assistants with the San Diego Chargers in the 1960s. Gillman, the "Father of the Modern Passing Game," introduced several innovations to the air attack, the first of which was timing. Gillman preached meticulous practice to sync the precise timing between quarterback and receiver, or, more precisely, between the quarterback's dropback and the receiver's route. If the quarterback took a five-step drop, the primary receiver had to run his route based on a precise number of steps, such that quarterback would throw the ball before the receiver had turned to look for it. The secondary receiver in the quarterback's progression ran his route a split second after the first receiver, so that the quarterback could look for the first receiver, reset his feet, then look for the second and still throw before that receiver turned to look for the pass. Nowadays, this emphasis on timing is so universal — in theory if not entirely in practice — that it's difficult to believe how influential Gillman was in establishing it. His second insight was to understand pass defenses and how to defeat them at a level far beyond the old command to "get open." Defeating a man-to-man defense, then as now, is about identifying a receiver who can get open versus a particular defender. Zones, on the other hand, require more thought. Gillman realized that the key to defeating zones was spacing between receivers; specifically, if a defense had only four underneath defenders, then five stationary targets — even five trash cans spaced evenly horizontally across the field — are uncoverable. The defenders are outnumbered. Thus, the idea of the zone "stretch" was born.
When Davis left Gillman's staff he took Sid's playbook — and, more important, his ideas — with him.1 But Davis wasn't content to stretch the field horizontally; he wanted to get vertical. If Gillman could get a trash can open against a zone, Davis tested how good he'd do if he added his favorite ingredient: speed. Gillman, of course, used "vertical stretches" — passing concepts that spaced receivers not left to right, but deep to short — but for Davis they became the centerpiece of his offense. Indeed, this is what Davis meant when he brought the "vertical game" to Oakland. It was not a matter of throwing deep bombs (though it was sometimes), but was instead the science of stretching defenses to their breaking point. With receivers at varying depths, a small defensive error often meant a 15-yard pass play for Davis' offense, and a serious mistake meant a touchdown.
Davis continued to tweak the Gillman offense by adding more formations, adding options for running backs in the passing game, and generally expanding the possibilities of what an offense could do with the football. This was innovative stuff, so much so that it had an outsize effect on a young Raiders assistant coach by the name of Bill Walsh, who went on to craft his own multi-Super Bowl-winning offense with the 49ers that looked a lot like what Davis had created in Oakland. As Walsh explained in his book Building a Champion:
"[Al Davis'] pass offense included an almost unlimited variety of pass patterns as well as a system of calling them, and utilized the backs and tight ends much more extensively than other offenses. … To develop an understanding of it took time, but once learned, it was invaluable."
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