| 29 June 2010
An interesting question arose recently on the Chicago Sun Times from a Bears fan to Neil Hayes. The question was about how the Bears offense compares to the offense of the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts for many years have had an electrifying passing offense, led by Peyton Manning on the field and offensive coordinator Tom Moore on the side lines.
The question was as follows:
Q: I know that Martz's offensive system is based on the old "Air Coryell" scheme. Is this in any way related to the offense that Tom Moore runs (or used to run, before his retirement) in Indianapolis? I know that both rely on the quarterback throwing to a specific spot on the field, rather than to the receiver himself. If not, what are the differences? ---- Chris.
The answer as I found is quite unique compared to other offenses currently in the NFL that have roots in past systems like Martz's Coryell based scheme.
For this article I worked with the editors at 18to88.com, the Bloguin.com Indianapolis Colts blog as well as the Blitzburghblog, the bloguin.com blog for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The guys on 18to88 helped with the information regarding the Colts' current offense, and the Blitzburgh blog helped with this article on Moore's time with the Steelers working with Chuck Noll.
To put it simply the answer to the question is, Tom Moore's offense is all his own, he is the grandfather of his offense and the person who has developed and tweeked it over the years.
Moore is Don Coryell in that he has developed and tweeked his own offense over the years to fit the personnel of the players on hand and is the first person to implement this offense anywhere else in the NFL.
Starting with the Pittsburgh Steelers and NFL hall of fame coach Chuck Noll back in 1977, Moore was the wide receivers coach during the last of the Steelers' two championships. Moore with Noll worked together to form one of the best passing attacks in the NFL that was consistently among the most productive in the NFL.
Moore was the receivers coach that worked with hall of famers Terry Bradshaw at QB and hall of fame WRs Jon Stallworth and Lynn Swann. In an era when Noll was his own offensive coordinator, Moore was the man designer and implementer of the Steelers' passing attack. We know this because this article here says as much, and Noll was most famous for being a defensive minded coach and got his start in the NFL as a defensive coordinator.
From receivers coach Moore took over the Steelers' offense as it's coordinator until 1989. Thirteen seasons essentially running the Steelers' offense and from there Moore went on to have success with the Detroit Lions with Barry Sanders and other stints with the Vikings.
Moore has over the years added in certain other offensive philosophies, (most notably the Run N Shoot offense he ran with Detroit in the mid 90s,) but the offense with the Colts is one he developed specifically with Peyton Manning.
There are aspects of the Run N Shoot in Moore's offense today, but the current system isn't a carbon copy of it. In the old Run N Shoot the offense relied a lot on WRs going in motion to take advantage of the defensive sets. Moore's offense currently doesn't utilize a lot of motion by it's receivers, rather it relies on Manning and the receivers to make sight adjustments and audible to take advantage of the defensive alignment.
The aspect that is similar to the run n shoot is how Manning gets the defense to tip it's hand to him so that the Colts can adjust their play accordingly.
Manning is known for his wild arm waving and pointing and yelling in his cadence, all of it is a show for the most part to get the defense to show their defense prior to the snap of the football. This is why the Colts often will go no huddle, but won't go true hurry up offense as Manning will use the entire play clock to go through his cadence to get the defense to set up so he can attack accordingly. The wide receivers in turn read what Manning reads and can change their routes accordingly without adjusting the formation.
Which gets back to the uniqueness of Moore's offense, the Colts can run each and every one of their passing plays out of the exact same formation without having to change a thing. If the defense shows a Cover-2, then Manning can attack that defense without changing the formation to get the defense to audiblize again. If Manning sees a blitz, the receivers and Manning adjust accordingly, (Run N Shoot) to attack the blitz.
Martz's offense on the other hand looks to use a lot of motion in his formation to attack a defense's weakness. Both Martz's offense and Moore's offense will often look to go deep first, before taking a check down route which is in true Coryell fashion. Martz is a great offensive mind but the development of his offense isn't completely original in comparison to Moore.
Strangely enough though Tom Moore isn't always considered in the same breath as other great offensive minds in the history of the league. Martz is considered an offensive genius but you don't hear analysts mentioning Moore in that same class as Walsh, Coryell and others. Moore has been the guy behind Manning's development and success over the entire scope of Manning's hall of fame career. Moore is in that same class, based on the long time success of his offenses and the fact that the development and implementation of it is all his own.
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