Spread offense

[Tormaz]

Has anyone ever tried to run a spread type offense where you use only formations with 3+ WR?

Would there be too few formations?

I am interested in trying this but was wanting to get some opinions on it.

[QuikSand]

My thinking is that it's a pretty close call on workability. You *must* be able to use all six multi-WR formations pretty liberally to not get completely shut down by the familiars -- meaning a QB who knows all six ( at the very least, five) is essential. That can be a major impediment right there.

If you do run it, I fear that in FOF it's hard to extract the benefits that we see from a college spread offense... so, it seems that you're not really getting much benefit from the system. If you try to run from a multi-WR formation a good deal, you might get some modest edge from forcing defenses into nickel personnel (maybe getting a few more pass-inclined DL and LB on the field?) but overall that doesn't seem to make a huge difference. My guess is that a formation like 4-WR is just hard-coded as a plus modifier for passing and a minus modifier for running in the FOF code, so any gains you get from matchups and positioning (like in real football) just don't materialize.

It's difficult to do meaningful testing on small elements of a gameplan, so I find it hard to try to reach firm conclusions. My initial thinking is that this sort of unconventional offense doesn't really yield the sort of benefits that one might think it could, if executed with proper personnel. In FOF, there is fairly little chance to really benefit from a fooled or confused defense, I think, and without that sort of edge, I think the spread loses a lot of its value.

[TheMeat]

I completely agree with Q here. I was really in love with the idea of running an offense with no Fullback useage whatsoever. I spent a lot of time testing gameplans in SP and trying to implement them in my small MP league and I met with very little success. Not that my offense didn't produce, it did, and not that my team didn't win, it did, but i got worse results with my 3wr offenses than with a regular offense. In fact I would say that I saw noticeable improvement in my statistical output and in team success when I took all 3wr formations out of my gameplan and just used standard personnel.

Now keep in mind that I simmed out maybe 50 seasons with a stacked SP team so that is a very small sample, and with a very talented team because my MP team was also very talented. And i didn't make any charts or graphs so I couldn't tell you exactly the variations I saw but just based on my observations of that I would say that unless you have specific talent (ie-very good 3rd WR and very poor TE) or your opponent has a very bad nickleback I would avoid using anything more than the recommended amount of 3WR. I would also say that the weak and strong 3wr formations seem to be completely poisonous as turning them up had noticable and consistently negative effects on all facets of my passing game.

Currently I use no 4wr or 5wr packages, and no strong or weak 3wr, adjusting to a little more singleback but mostly just upping the standard formations. I use a pass-pass-pass offense, heavy on the short-medium game and have been dominating my MP league for about 4yrs running.

As always, someone who has played a few thousand more seasons than I have could add something to my opinion, or correct me on something but that is my current outlook on the situation.