Aussie Rules Football borrows from NFL’s Spread Offense

Editor’s Note: Some of the terminology in this article is quite basic and crude for fans of both sports, it is deliberately written so fans of both games can understand the essence. It is also understood that the spread offense is historically only loosely linked to the NFL, despite what the headline suggests. Get in touch with me via email for a deeper discussion on either sport.

To the uninitiated or casual viewer, Aussie Rules Football and American Football have almost nothing in common. At a stretch you could suggest that they trace their early history back to a rugby influence. There is also the obvious overlap with punting, but that’s dubious given it’s the primary skill of one sport and close to the least valued skill of the other. The closest link may that at their most basic both are simply an elaborate version of the playground game Keep Away.

Aussie Rules, sheltered for much of its existence due to the fact it is only played professionally in Australia, has started to see external influences become more prolific with recent trends including the emulation of rugby’s rolling mauls, basketball’s zone defence as well as hockey’s rapid, high-volume interchange of players. Aussie Rules coaches now spend portions of their off-season traveling the world to visit with foreign sporting clubs, meticulously gathering information on sports medicine, high performance training and coaching techniques. Now, it seems, Aussie Rules coaches have latched on to an old offensive scheme from American Football to help remedy their biggest headache of the last decade; the defensive flood.

Over the last ten years Aussie Rules has faced ongoing criticism for defensive-minded play fueled by coaches like Sydney’s Paul Roos, Hawthorn’s Alistair Clarkson (who visited the San Antonio Spurs and Philadelphia Eagles last year) and Fremantle’s Ross Lyon. The modus operandi for these teams is to attempt to ‘flood’ or apply heavy defensive zone pressure on their opponents – a tactic that’s not attractive for television but highly effective at winning games. Flooding, likened recently to a rugby maul, involves pushing most, if not all of your 18 players into a small area of the ground, to restrict space and not allow the opponent room with which to effectively keep the ball, move it forward towards the goal, or ultimately score. It’s a defensive system that means the opposition will have less time to execute and most passes will be under heavy tackling pressure, the equivalent of having an effective pass rush that can get to the Quarterback.

American Football (mainly the High School and College levels) corrected similar challenges a number of decades ago, which ultimately resulted in the formulation of the Spread Offense. In the last five years the Spread Offense has found proficiency again at the NFL level and has created significant upheaval in the game as it was known. The basic idea behind the Spread Offense is to have four or five receivers on a play, with those receivers fully utilizing the width of the field from sideline to sideline while also dictating personnel matchups.

Most defensive groups are equipped to defend two or three receivers on any given play, but increasing that number to four or five can create significant personnel mismatches — often allowing one of the receiving positions to be paired against a defender who is less than spectacular at defending a receiver. In addition, defenders prefer to have backup behind them should they miss a tackle or get beaten to a catch — hence the ‘safety’ position is the last line of defenders between the offense and the end zone. In the example below, the Dallas Cowboys have used five receivers spread across the field. Notice how wide Philadelphia’s defense is, with just one safety protecting the deep part of the field, an uncomfortable scenario for most Defensive Coaches.

Below is a similar scenario in Aussie Rules. North Melbourne are in the blue and white and have just won the ball in their defensive half of the field. The player highlighted in yellow has possession of the ball and highlighted in the red are EIGHT possible options for him to use, spread across a majority of the field. The similarities between the two pictures are undeniable. With eight attackers moving and continuing to spread away from the ball carrier it creates time and space for the ball carrier, while also preventing time for the defenders to ‘flood’ back and set up a zone defense.

Having the defense spread thinly across the ground it creates less threat for the player looking to kick the ball down field (with play continuing immediately rather than stopping if there is a turnover). Most players at the professional level can kick (punt) between 50 or 60 metres to a team-mate, so spreading defenders thinly across the field is a significant tactical advantage. It can also easily manipulate pre-determined defensive match-ups (height, speed, weight, reach are all applicable) as players stream forward in waves; defenders scrambling to find any opponent to cover in all the mayhem. The result is the two elements that defenders in almost any sport hate; isolation and confusion.

Pro clubs even talk to the impact of the spread offensive gameplan on their twitter accounts…

The gauntlet has been thrown down to the defensive players and coaches in both sports to stop the spread from becoming a juggernaut. Influential innovation is part of the beauty of coaching and some US colleges are specifically building their defense to stop the spread. Aussie Rules will eventually follow and the answer may lie in a completely different sport, discovered by a coach on a chance off-season visit.

Followers of my blog will know I’ve long been an advocate of the infusion of sports into each other including a call for the NFL to more heavily recruit athletes from Aussie Rules. Perhaps recruiting is a slower developing phenomena that I’ll need to grin and bare, but it’s clear that the two sports are beginning to influence each other at a deeper level than simply punting. From where I sit as a coach of Aussie Rules and a long-time super fan of the NFL, I can argue that there is much, much more that the sports can garner from the other. The Spread is just the first, I promise the similarities are much more profound than just a game of Keep Away.