10-25-2015, 09:26 PM
(10-25-2015, 04:45 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: Then why don't teams run shotgun as much as they run other formations, especially on first and second down?
Many teams run more shotgun than under center even on first and second down.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/fo-basics
Clearly, NFL teams have figured the importance of the Shotgun out for themselves. In 2001, NFL teams only used Shotgun on 14 percent of plays. Five years later, in 2006, that had increased slightly, to 20 percent of plays. Shotgun usage has risen steadily since then, shattering the halfway point in 2013 (when NFL teams used Shotgun 59 percent of the time) and then creeping over the 60 percent threshold in 2014. Before 2007, no team had ever used Shotgun on more than half its offensive plays. In 2014, 26 different teams used Shotgun over 50 percent of the time,led by Philadelphia which used Shotgun on an NFL-record 86 percent of plays. (That was actually a very slight decline for Philadelphia, from 86.0 percent in 2013 to 85.6 percent last year.) It is likely that if teams continue to increase their usage of the Shotgun, defenses will adapt and the benefit of the formation will become less pronounced. But it certainly isn't happening yet; the difference between success on Shotgun and non-Shotgun plays in 2001 was bigger than in 2008, 2009, or 2010.
