The Four Quarters of Football

A football game has four quarters: 8 minutes each in youth football, 12 minutes each in high school, and 15 minutes each at the college and professional levels. 

A football team has four aspects that make it a team: Offense, defense, special teams, and coaching.

A football year has four separate parts: Off-season, preseason, regular season, and playoffs. 

These are all common parts of football that must be understood by every coach and player on a team.  There are, however, four more quarters that make a football team successful and competitive all year round.

They are: Off-season preparation, Mid-season preparation, Game Day preparation, and Playbook preparation.



Bill Walsh

 A successful offense (and subsequently a successful team) must be more than adequate at mastering and utilizing these four quarters of preparation in order to compete.  The concept is simple: prepare for everything and everything will fall into place.  As mentioned in my introduction, Bill Walsh is one of the greatest minds in football history.  His philosophy on winning: "Let the score take care of itself."  Walsh was a full believer that with enough preparation and studying, he wouldn't have to be stressed during games.  He believed that if he and his team were well enough prepared, the wins would come nearly effortlessly on Sunday because of all of the work they put in Monday through Saturday.  After three Super Bowl victories (and a fourth for the 49ers a year after he retired) it is hard to argue with the results.

Bill Walsh and Forming the perfect Offense

The closest thing the world has seen to a perfect offense was the San Fransico 49ers' "West Coast Offense" as created by legendary coach, Bill Walsh.  Here are some base sites that I will be working from to bring you information on start of createing the perfect offense.

http://www.westcoastoffense.com/practice%20and%20game%20planning.htm

http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2007/08/bill-walsh-method-for-game-planning.html

Bill Belichick is arguably the greatest coach in football today.  With three rings and countless winning seasons, he has shown time and time again how to be a successful coach.  This is something that Belichick said about one of Bill Walsh's books: "Finding the Winning Edge":

"If I were an owner, first of all, I would read that book. Then I would make that book required reading for my head coach, general manager or any other key executive in my football operation." – Bill Belichick

This blog will only get you so close to the perfect offense but like anything else in football, studying and self preparation are the keys to winning.  Looking forward to our work together!

Final Outcome

The goal of this page is to find the perfect offensive scheme in professional football.

Let me make something clear: No offense is perfect.  It all depends on execution as well as the execution of the defense playing against you.  The perfect offense is not unstoppable but it is very hard to adjust to.  Here are the keys:

1. Solid scheme that works against any defense
2. Situational awareness that allows for teams to adjust on the fly
3. A base that allows it to be successful with every kind of player

For this the research will need to include:

1.  A close study of common defensive sets and allignment and how to beat them
2.  Real examples where situational football was properly or improperly executed.
3.  A basic playblook  in which all types of football players(speed, strength, etc) can be utilized.

This will include everything from training to the last minute of the game, guiding you as a coach (or a player) to a successful season.

Knowing what you read

The blogging world has become massive, almost a society in itself on the planet named "Internet."  With so much information available and so many blogs started daily, there is a question of whether all of it should be considered creditable and how much of the blogs that are read daily is completely false. 

The problem should be, however, that we as humans are simply to skeptical.  While there may be a few topics here and there that some individuals have taken the liberty to write lies in order to play a prank on the internet world, I don't believe that the majority take part in these actions and in fact I believe that it is only the smallest faction of internet users that actually do this.  What must be understood is that just because one blog says something doesn't mean that another blog has the same answer.  In the end, the majority will have the proper conclusion.  It is up to you the reader to make the effort upon deciding what is real and what isn't based on how much research you actually do.  For every fraudulent blog is two hundred creditable ones.

With that in mind, this will be a creditable blog for two reasons: I am a football enthusiast and fan.  There is a big difference between, for example, a "Patriots fan" and a "football fan" in that I love football in general.  While I am from Boston and the Patriots are my favorite team, I respect the sport and I understand and can associate myself with every team from the professional to the youth level.  The second reason is that I do my research.  As stated above, there are a lot of uncredible sources out there but there are more credible sources and in the end, this is all an opinion as I search for the perfect offensive scheme.

Hope you enjoy!