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Arizona: How a working "pure" Air-Raid would change the NFL.

Let’s start with what the Air-Raid is. The Air-Raid as envisioned by Hal Mumme and Mike Leach was a reinterpretation of LaVell Edwards offense from BYU. It operated on two principles (1) simplicity; and (2) threaten ever part of the field, on every play if able. What resulted was a passing explosion that changed the Big-XII forever, and is slowly taking over the rest of offense at the NCAA level.

The reason that the Air-Raid dominated was not because it was a good offense. There have been plenty of good offenses that haven’t changed any level of football like the Air-Raid. It was because of the simplicity. High-School and College programs for years have had to replace a quarter of their players every year. The elite QB leaves, and there is nothing you can do a bout it, until the Air-Raid. The Air-Raid has a four day install that you can purchase off the internet; https://tonyfranklinfootball.com/ . College teams have installed the Air-Raid, for the first time, for their bowl games only… and won.

Quarterbacking is a crapshoot, but the quality of the passing game and quarterback play basically defines the ceiling of a football team at any level. Before the Air-Raid teams either had to (a) ride quarterback roulette, or (b) focus on systems that did not emphasize the man behind the center. The clearest example of answer (b) was Alabama, which, when Nick Saban first arrived ran through a series of game managing QBs while total roster talent led running back after running back to the Heisman Trophy. While in the world of mortal football programs, great coaches, like Mike Price at Washington State, would have to hope that they struck gold at QB roulette and wipe away the offensive talent gaps.

It was the Air-Raid that harvested the efficiency of the passing game while making QB play much easier. The combination of a simple offense which threatened the whole field, when combined with offensive formations that forced the defense to declare its intentions pre-snap, simplified QB play and ended QB roulette. Now every team could have high level QB play, because the offense made the game easy for the QB. And it’s the simplifying of the game for QBs that make the Air-Raid revolutionary.

If a pure Air-Raid system ever "clicks" in the NFL... not just the occasional stolen Mesh play here or there, but a ground up offense that competes at or near the top level of the NFL it will break the economics of football as we know it. Currently, the going rate for a franchise QB is "the highest payed player in NFL history." The reason is because the difference between the top tier backups, Foles, Fitzgerald, or Case Keenum, and the bottom tier franchise QBs like Alex Smith or Kirk Cousins is the difference between being competitive and not. However, if the job of playing QB at a high level can be simplified then QB salaries will begin to reflect their actual value towards total team production.

At its heart, at the meta/strategic level, the NFL is a game of resource allocation. Everyone has the same amount of money, the same number of roster spots, and even close to the same revenue. Now go play and see what happens. The big problem with this game of resource allocation is the importance of QB play to American Football. Because the types of talent differentials that teams like Alabama, USC, Michigan and Texas long relied on in college football are impossible to maintain in the NFL, every pro football franchise has been stuck playing QB roulette.

There is exactly one coach in modern football that has succeeded at the top level of professional football without a semi iconic QB to run his system, and that coach ain’t Bill Belichick. Joe Gibbs led Washington to 3 Super Bowl Championships, with three different quarterbacks. He’s the one. The only one. Everybody else is trying to find lighting in the bottle. Have the one-win campaign during Peyton Manning’s senior year of college, find a Brady or a Wilson who… might work as a backup… then BAM!! luck, or even rarer find Kurt Warner or Tony Romo on the UDFA market. But, there is no consistent measure to identify who will succeed at the position. If there was Brady wouldn’t be playing for New England, Wilson wouldn’t be playing in Seattle, Rodgers wouldn’t be playing in Green Bay, and nobody ever would have drafted Rick Meier or Ryan Leaf.

Now, imagine for a moment, if the game of QB roulette suddenly stopped? What would team building and salary cap allocation look like? That’s what the Air-Raid can do for pro-football. The first team that can run an offense that succeeds with a $10 mil a year QB will change the NFL forever. The Air-Raid ended the cycle of QB roulette in college football. Could the Air-Raid end QB roulette in the NFL?

Further reading: http://smartfootball.com/offense/the-air-raid-offense-history-evolution-weirdness-from-mumme-to-leach-to-franklin-to-holgorsen-and-beyond#sthash.mLvRicIO.dpbs