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Transcripts
Speaker B:
Thanks for joining us in another bonus edition of the book, and we hope you're enjoying your read.
Timothy Brown:
es were exceedingly simple in:
The forward pass was illegal, so play at books did not include downfield passes, play action screens, quick passes or draws. All they had were running plays up the middle, to the left or to the right.
They could run line bucks between the ends, reverses and criss crosses, or mix up which player ran the ball, including every lineman other than the center. Offenses seldom spread out horizontally.
They ran from tight formations almost all the time and mostly ran it up the gut trying to gain five yards and three downs.
Football was a field position game, especially in games involving evenly matched teams, with teams hoping the other guy would make a mistake in their territory to give our team a chance to score. Following that philosophy, teams often punted on early downs. When in their own territory, teams inside their 20 frequently punted on first down.
Outside the 20, they might try one run.
If they did not make much yardage, they would punt on second down hoping the other team would fumble the ball or make a short punt back to the original team. The other big difference was that the pace of play was like rugby.
As soon as one play ended, the quarterback called the punch play at the line of scrimmage and they snap the ball. They did that over and over during each of the 35 minute halves.
