A few years ago, on the NCAA football franchise of video games, I decided to experiment with the offense a bit. My passing game was devoid of a star quarterback or star receivers, so I decided to go with a vast majority of running plays, but with putting a running back, wide receiver, or even a corner in at quarterback.
The results were pretty successful, as video games (and especially college video game defenses) don't really adjust themselves to load up on the run with three or four receivers in the shotgun.
I'm not going to take credit for some sort of pre-Wildcat formation, because, as I was "creating" this video game offense, as then-Springdale (Ark.) head coach Gus Malzahn was employing the real thing.
When Malzahn went to Arkansas as offensive coordinator, along with his two best players (not shady at all), Darren McFadden and Felix Jones became the poster children for the formation that, even in a college football world with 55 passes for one quarterback in a game, spread-option plays and zone reads galore, stood out as unique.
If you've been watching NFL storylines for the past few weeks, you know what happens next. Malzahn and the two best players leave after a year, the formation stays at Arkansas, and then goes to the Dolphins with quarterbacks coach David Lee (Malzahn's successor).
Yet, the Dolphins' lost yesterday with just seconds to go after Matt Schaub ran in on 4th-and-2 for the Texans. The Wildcat produced a couple of memorable plays, including a Chad Pennington 53-yard touchdown strike to Patrick Cobbs where Pennington was lined up wide and ended up with the ball behind the line of scrimmage courtesy of Ricky Williams via Ronnie Brown.
That was not my favorite play of the day from the formation, though.
In Atlanta and Chicago's are-you-kidding-me game, Jerious Norwood took a direct snap from the Wildcat on the Falcons' first play from scrimmage in the second half and went 21 yards. The run probably isn't going to be on the highlight shows today and tomorrow, what with Matt Ryan's awesome performance and continued superb play as a rookie starter, Jason Elam's goat-to-hero turnaround and the Bears' stealing the game at the end only to have the rug taken right out from under them.
However, Norwood's run was a needed temporary spark to the usually superlative Atlanta running game that had just 75 yards on 30 carries Sunday.
And those two aforementioned games were just a couple of the four in the early window of games that had last-second finishes.
A fifth, the Cardinals' upset of the Cowboys three hours later, was just a downright ugly display by Dallas. Yes, they showed resolve by coming back from down 10 points with three minutes left, but were out of sync on both sides of the ball for what seemed to be most of the other 57 minutes.
Three weeks ago, the consensus was that the Cowboys were Super Bowl favorites after bulldozing the Packers at Lambeau. Now, with the story of Tony Romo being out for four weeks, which time includes a trip to Giants Stadium, and playing in the NFC East gauntlet, Dallas might well miss the playoffs, something that would undoubtedly see offensive coordinator Jason Garrett become head coach.
After Week 1, I wrote how no one really had any clue what to expect from this season after seeing vulnerability from so many of the good teams from recent years. I wasn't sure how I felt about that at the time.
Five weeks on, we still don't know much. But not knowing anything has turned what could have been a season with parity at all-time disappointing level into a fun league to watch with a bunch of very solid clubs.
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