Reddit Reddit reviews Football Scouting Methods

We found 10 Reddit comments about Football Scouting Methods. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Football Scouting Methods
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10 Reddit comments about Football Scouting Methods:

u/rodandanga · 15 pointsr/nfl

He was a scout and teacher at Navy from 1956 to 1989. He wrote a great book Football Scouting Methods

It's a good read, even if the formation stuff is a bit outdated.

u/Teddyismydawg · 13 pointsr/footballstrategy

For what it’s worth, I haven’t worked in coach/scouting myself. Everyone I’ve talked to though says Steve Belichicks Football Scouting Methods is the Bible of scouting.

https://www.amazon.com/Football-Scouting-Methods-Steve-Belichick/dp/1891396757

Makes for an interesting read.

u/Jurph · 10 pointsr/nfl

I agree entirely. My wife bought me this book and Jaworski's The Games that Changed the Game and they made great off-season reading for me.

Kirwan's book is about the tactics of football: how players handle each other physically, how small groups of players work together to create mismatches, gaps, and opportunities, and how offenses and defenses work to bluff each other about their intentions.

Jaworski's book is about the history of football strategy: the long arms race of papers, rocks, and scissors that offenses and defenses have thrown at each other in the last fifty years. One of Jaws' chapters covers the Patriots-Rams Super Bowl, where Belichick's game plan eliminated the Rams' best weapon; as long as Belichick is in the league, understanding what he did in that campaign will be useful 'military history'. If you follow an AFC team (or are a Belichick fan) then that chapter is worth the price of the book.

I would also add Chris Johnson's The Essential Smart Football which is somewhere between the other two: each chapter generally focuses on an offensive or defensive scheme (a play, a formation, etc.) and gives examples of how it works, illuminates what it is intended to defeat, and handles it all with the same conversational tone that Michael Lewis adopted for Moneyball. (Johnson, like most sports writers, is an unabashed Michael Lewis fan.)

A few odd-ball recommendations:

  • Any of Harold "Tubby" Raymond's books about the Wing-T at Delaware. Delaware is a I-AA school but Tubby's offensive work was innovative and led him to an amazing win-loss record. Many of his innovations live on in today's NFL and you can see shades of it in (among others) Kubiak's zone-blocked offense. Belichick's father Steve coached the Naval Academy, which traditionally has played against Delaware for years. You can bet your ass Belichick has one or more of these in his library. Rich Gannon played under Tubby, and Joe Flacco came through the Delaware system not long after Tubby's retirement. (I need to re-read one of these now that I understand the game better.)

  • Football Scouting Methods by Steve Belichick, was long considered the definitive text on scouting an opponent before a game. Bill Belichick uses this as his 'gimme' answer when asked what his favorite football text is. (Full disclosure: I haven't read this yet. I came across it while looking for a Tubby Raymond book.)

  • The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara is the definitive fictionalized account of the Battle of Gettysburg. Coaches and leaders everywhere are urged to read it for its lessons on leadership, especially how different personalities clash in a stressful environment with imperfect information. Your favorite team's coach has read it; your opponent's coach has read it; you should read it too.

  • Darker Shades of Blue, another perennial text for leaders and coaches. Deals with the 1992 Fairchild AFB crash of a B-52H, and the organizational cancer that quietly established the conditions for the preventable deaths, which occurred when a pilot who was frequently scolded for 'hot-dogging' decided to show off during what should have been a routine fly-by. One of the men aboard was taking his final B-52 flight before retirement and his wife and child were on the ground watching the crash. If your team's locker room prizes integrity and not letting bullshit slide -- if you've ever said "Boy I'm glad my team doesn't have a toxic locker room" -- then your coach may have read this document. It's a great read.
u/tatramountain · 5 pointsr/nfl

I don't know. One one had, he's kind of young (only 42), but he's won a superbowl ring and there are only so many NFL HC jobs available.

On the other hand, most coordinators have gone on have little success outside of NE (weiss, crennel, mangini, mcdaniels). Bill O'brien is the only guy who really has gone to any sort of success (penn state and texans).

People think they're hiring Belichick jr. But Belichick has been coaching in the NFL for as long as long as Patricia has been alive (ok, technically, belichick started in 1975 and patricia was born in 1974, but the point stands). That, and Belichick started breaking down film when he was 10 and his dad literally wrote the book on scouting.

That said, NFL coaches typically make $4-5 million/year and get 3-5 year contracts. It'd be tough to turn down that kind of fully guaranteed money.

u/iammattchambers · 4 pointsr/Texans

I actually don't think it's a gross oversimplification. The two offenses are undoubtedly similar in both assignments and terminology. But don't take my word for it, take BOB's - He's said multiple times on the Texans podcasts that the patriots may have a different term for a specific route combination or protection call, but that we run "basically the same offense." This is why when we brought in former Patriots WR DeAndrew White last year, BOB said:

>"His assignments, he knew. He was in a similar offense to this before at the Patriots."

And it's not just DeAndrew White. There's a reason why the Patriots have signed our WR's in the past. Keshawn Martin, Nate Washington, Demaris Johnson all played in NE for a time after they played with us because of how similar we are. This NESN article about Washington's signing with the Pats says the same thing:

>Washington knows New England’s offensive system from his year with the Texans, playing under head coach and former Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien. The Patriots had success trading for Martin, another former Texans receiver, last season. They also briefly brought in ex-Texans receiver Damaris Johnson last season.


Beyond the similarity, I just don't buy that they're going to learn a ton from Stephen Anderson about us anyway. There's a reason why PatDStat said of this exact rumor, "If the Patriots are using Anderson for “info” the Belichick has fallen off as a coach this past off-season."

Make no mistake, the Patriots have studied all of our DW4 tape front and back already. If BOB has developed any playcalling, personnel, or situational tendencies with Deshaun, the Patriots know about them by now. Steve Belichick, BB's dad and great coach in his own right, harped on film study so hard in his book that if you're going to lose to anyone, it better be off of plays and gadgets not previously shown on tape, which you can prepare for ahead of time.

As for what's not on tape, Anderson probably doesn't have much to offer there either. By all accounts, Stephen Anderson didn't practice much at all with DW4, because he couldn't come close to sniffing 1st or 2nd string. He wasn't in the gameplan meetings for Week 1, and he wasn't with the 1st & 2nd teams working on installation. He was a back up TE fighting for a chance to make the squad as a 4th stringer. Do you really think he had the chance to take note of every player on squads and plays he wasn't a part of?

u/SolomonG · 2 pointsr/nfl

Football Scouting Methods, by Steven Belichick

His father, not him, but still considered the book on scouting by many. A large part of Bill's knowledge comes from growing up in a football environment.

u/djimbob · 2 pointsr/Patriots

Obviously while fans would rather read a biography, it would be so cool if he did something like Football Scouting Methods: 2nd Edition by Bill Belichick.

u/JimboLodisC · 2 pointsr/Patriots

as long as they've read this book, that's my only condition