Originally Posted by flippy
Plays Bruce Arians doesn't know about, part 1: BOSS
by prophicide on Jun 10, 2010 7:10 PM
"Take the Super Bowl for example. There were seven catches or six catches Santonio [Holmes] had that were running plays when [there were] safeties blitz that are unblockable, and you have runs called. So it's not a 'number' of runs because we threw the ball out there and got a bunch of yards. 'Oh, that's a good pass.' No, that was a running play. That happens quite often. And what we do, we take some short screen stuff and treat that as [part of the] running game."
Remember this Bruce Arians interview? Everyone thought this was a confusing excuse for not running the ball. Arians seems to believe he has discovered a heretofore unappreciated flaw in running attacks. I think that with the personnel the Steelers use, aborting running calls is the correct decision. Arians' mistake is his conclusion that calling an audible when runs are likely to fail is the solution. Obviously this does not lead to a balanced attack and allows other teams to make the Steelers one-dimensional. In fact, it essentially cedes the decision to the other team, instead of imposing our will.
The Steelers should have a great running attack with excellent blockers Kemoeatu, Colon, Miller, and hopefully Pouncey, and a featured back in Rashard Mendenhall. I couldn't find a good highlight of an individual play from his breakout game against the Chargers, but Kemo and Miller threw most of the key blocks on his long runs. However, the rushing attack often gets frustrated when defenses play the run. Mendenhall recently stated publicly that he prefers to run behind a fullback. Hopefully Tomlin hears him; we are taking several fullback candidates to training camp so our use of a fullback most likely depends on one of those players being viable.
BOSS stands for Back On Strong Safety. A self explanatory play, the fullback's role is to pick up the "unblockable" strong safety and clear the way for the running back to reach the second level. The team that made the best use of this play last season were the Cleveland Browns.
The Browns O-Line has two great players in Mack and Thomas, but the rest of the line drags the unit down to average at best (very hard to do considering the quality at C and LT). However, it was enough for Jerome Harrison to break off over 250 yards rushing, with a little help from a fullback.
Look at these highlights from Jerome Harrison's monster 286 yd game last year against the Chiefs in week 15. Some of you may remember the footnote of him breaking the Cleveland Browns record for rushing in a single game set by Jim "F***ing" Brown. The fullback, number 47 Lawrence Vickers, slams into the line of scrimmage with an audible grunt and makes a key block on both plays.
[url="http://www.nfl.com/videos/cleveland-browns/09000d5d8151d28e/WK-15-Can-t-Miss-Play-Harrison-for-the-win"]http://www.nfl.com/videos/cleveland-bro ... or-the-win[/url]
[url="http://www.nfl.com/videos/cleveland-browns/09000d5d8151c7d4/Harrison-8-yard-TD-run"]http://www.nfl.com/videos/cleveland-bro ... ard-TD-run[/url]
This play isn't B.O.S.S. (supposedly it's a Counter-F but I'm no expert), but still a great play from Vickers: [url="http://www.nfl.com/videos/cleveland-browns/09000d5d8151bf90/Harrison-71-yard-TD-run"]http://www.nfl.com/videos/cleveland-bro ... ard-TD-run[/url]
[url="http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2010/6/10/1512117/plays-bruce-arians-doesnt-know"]http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/20 ... oesnt-know[/url]
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