Is the Wildcat the Wing-T, Double Wing or a Single Wing? (1 Viewer)

[SaintsInDome2006]

Was looking at the stats for Patrick Hillis recently and it occurred to me that fullbacks are the forgotten skill position in the NFL. Often great athletes, when given the chance they just seem to perform well. Once FB's were real, active ball toters in the NFL. Basically the position has become almost vestigial in terms of offensive utility and it would make sense if some NFL coach decided to start using the position as something of a backfield TE. The H-back formation, I think, came close to this but not quite and never caught on?

Then it occurred to me if the wildcat offense is really a revival of the double-wing, or would it be the Wing-T, or would it be a single wing?

It's definitely just a revival of a very, very old football formation on the pro level and players and coaches have just forgotten how to recognize and handle it, which is kind of funny. It's also funny to me that supposedly professional commentators who are often these days just former players themselves don't recognize it themselves, or maybe it's just that in this multi-billion dollar sports world they cannot bring themselves to say the words "The Miami Dolphins and their Double-Wing offense rolled into Cleveland today.... " seeing as how the last time an NFL team ran it regularly might have been the 1929 Chicago Cardinals or something like that.

 

[Buffaloes]

Peyton Hillis

And I think teams are finding ways to stop the plays out of the formation. CBS showed a week-by-week breakdown of total yards gained from the formation for Miami and it was lower and lower each week. Even Denver's porous defense was able to shut it down completely last week.

 

[Bri]

single wing is old, wildcat is a variation of single wing.

some good links in discussions around here when it happenned.

 

[32 Counter Pass]

The Wildcat formation is closest to the single wing approach, but I haven't seen anyone utilize reverse pivot fakes or misdirection the way the single wing emphasized.

One of the most effective ways to stop it at the nfl level is to commit 8 to the box and assigns gaps to each defender, forcing he ball handler to throw. (This tactic is not so effective at the college level because the players at QB are better throwers.)