To Read Option, or Not

[donofriose]

Should not be a staple of the offense, but would be a good play to use on 2nd on 4 or short 2nd downs. Obviously the less hits Griffin takes the better. In my opinion he should only keep it if there is a wide open field and the DE crashes down, otherwise if its a staple of the offense teams will just start going right after griffin and making sure to hit him, even if it costs them a flag every once in a while, similar to what the Patriots did to Tebow when they tried to do it against the Pats. The Patriots just sent a DE only responsible for Tebow and every time he handed it off right away he would be hit.

[Lotus]

Absolutely read option. Kyle should spend the next few months evaluating his offense to add new wrinkles, making it version 2.0. Keep both the pistol and the read option but don't stand pat in terms of scheme.

[BigHairedAristocrat]

Originally Posted by donofriose

Should not be a staple of the offense, but would be a good play to use on 2nd on 4 or short 2nd downs. Obviously the less hits Griffin takes the better. In my opinion he should only keep it if there is a wide open field and the DE crashes down, otherwise if its a staple of the offense teams will just start going right after griffin and making sure to hit him, even if it costs them a flag every once in a while, similar to what the Patriots did to Tebow when they tried to do it against the Pats. The Patriots just sent a DE only responsible for Tebow and every time he handed it off right away he would be hit.

Your first sentence conflicts with your second. RGIII is more likely to take big hits on drop back passing situations than he is running the option from the pistol. The threat of both he and Morris running, along with Griffins ability to sell the fake handoff, creates a momentary hesitation in defenders, buying him more time to get rid of the ball (avoid tacklers) than he'd have in a pure dropback pass situation. If you want RGIII to take less hits, you want him to run the option more, not less.

The read option is also the #1 reason why Morris gets so many yards on running plays, creating more 2nd and 3rd and short. Its all about the THREAT of RGIII running.