What might an Eric Studesville offense look like in Washington?
Eric Studesville is scheduled to interview with the Commanders for the vacant offensive coordinator position, here’s a look at what his offensive system could look like in Washington.
The Washington Commanders are scheduled to interview Miami Dolphins assistant head coach/running backs coach Eric Studesville for their vacant offensive coordinator position today, per ESPN’s John Keim. The 55-year-old Studesville has a lot of experience coaching in the NFL, having been on a variety of coaching staffs in various jobs since entering the league as a coach back in 1997.
With so many stops around the league, it’s tough to predict exactly what kind of offense Studesville would run given his experience in a multitude of systems. But his most successful job and his most recent job have some crossover that might give us an idea. He won Super Bowl 50 under Gary Kubiak in Denver, who is a disciple of the Mike Shanahan system just like current Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel. Given that link, I think it would be likely that Studesville would look to run an offense in a similar fashion. So what would that offense look like?
Well, the foundation of any Shanahan system has always been the zone run game. Wherever you go around the NFL, anyone that comes from the Shanahan tree builds off a foundation of the zone scheme and the Dolphins under Mike McDaniel and Eric Studesville were no different.
Here are some examples of zone runs from the Dolphins last season. The first two plays are both wide zone or outside zone runs while the third play of the clip is an inside zone or tight zone play. A key feature of these runs is the use of a fullback. Modern offenses in the NFL rarely use a fullback, but the Shanahan tree coaches typically install the zone scheme with a fullback involved at least initially before evolving into other personnel. So if Studesville does get the job in Washington, expect the Commanders to look to add a fullback at some point this offseason.
For those that don’t know, the zone blocking scheme involves the offensive lineman all stepping together in the same direction looking to get horizontal movement from the defensive front. A simplified version of the zone blocking rules are if the individual lineman has a defender in their play side gap, they will look to block them and wash them down the line, if they don’t they’ll climb up to the second level to block a linebacker. The running back steps in the same direction as the offensive lineman and looks to attack the edge initially, but if he can’t get there he’ll make one cut and get vertical.
On the first play of this clip, the running back cuts his run all the way back behind the right tackle, but on the second play he stays more on the left side of the line and works more towards the edge. The third play is an inside zone run, where the aiming point for the running back changes more inside rather than attacking the edge. But overall it looks fairly similar and is a nice counter punch to the wide zone run.
If Studesville gets the job, expect the wide zone to be at the base of everything the Commanders look to do offensively. However, while the transitional Shanahan offense was based purely in the zone scheme, in recent years Kyle Shanahan and Mike McDaniel have evolved it to incorporate some gap scheme runs too.
Here are some clips of their favorite gap scheme run, counter. Instead of the offensive line all blocking in the same direction, one side of the line blocks down on the defenders, pinning them inside, while the guard pulls from the other side of the line and looks to kick out the edge defender, opening up a lane for the running back.
On the first play of this clip, we can see a counter scheme with the fullback involved. The right guard pulls to kick out the edge defender while the fullback follows him and wraps around to block the second level defender. On the second play of the clip, the Dolphins switch to a shotgun formation with no fullback involved. However, the scheme is still a counter scheme with the right guard pulling to the left side of the line to kick out the edge defender.
The third play of the clip is yet another variation. The Dolphins line up in the shotgun again, but this time the left guard pulls to the right side to kick out the defensive end on that side of the line, while the tight end follows behind him and wraps around to block a second level defender. That all comes together to open up a huge lane in the middle of the defense for the running back to attack.
Studesville has worked under coaches that prefer both gap and zone running schemes, so he could go either way or indeed look for a diverse combination of the two. My guess would be he looks to work a similar system to the one McDaniels is running in Miami. The foundation would be zone scheme primarily, but the gap scheme runs like counter and power would be installed too just to add an option against certain fronts that are tough to run zone schemes against.
What Miami did so well last year off of those run schemes was build into the play-action game. The staple play-action concept in the Shanahan system is known as drift and last year the Dolphins ran it off both zone run fakes and counter run fakes.
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