Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt said on Thursday that 85 percent of the Patriots playbook as been installed and used this season. What does that mean?
It means that the majority of the run game, passing game, screen game and short yardage running has been installed, utilized and that the team has built off of it in weekly planning. It is not unusual to only use about 85-90 percent of your playbook in any given season.
“There’s some stuff that we haven’t gotten to; concepts and schematic things versus different coverages that we haven’t really scratched the surface yet,” he said. “But that will come in Year Two.”
So the Patriots still have several concepts in both the run and pass game that they have not utilized in any of their weekly plans that they can shelve until next season. Often times, that will happen. The average offensive playbook in the NFL is 600 pages. You will not use the whole thing in a season. There are concepts that you will hold off on using because you may not have the right personnel or it may not apply to any of the opponents on your schedule.
Many of the base run and pass game of the offense has been in since camp and utilized multiple times this season. The Patriots have run staple west coast run game runs such as Wanda, Zap, Toss and Insert Oscar.
Diagram 1: Wanda
Diagram 2 Zap
Diagram 3: Insert (Oscar)
In the passing game, base concepts of the offense like Coco Bow, Shallow Cross, Omaha and Spacing or Dragon Spacing have also been run a fair amount this season. So as you can see, it is easy to not get to some of the other stuff in the back of playbook when you have concepts that you like and have used consistently against certain opponents.
Diagram 4: Coco Bow
Diagram 5: Shallow
Diagram 6: Omaha
Diagram 7: Spacing (Dragon)
Having concepts in the bank that you can incorporate this off season and next season is a good thing. It means that the Patriots offense has volume and Van Pelt and the offensive staff can build off of what is in.
Assuming Van Pelt is back next season, he can add to the playbook and run a system that fits the offensive talent on the roster. From a continuity standpoint, Van Pelt returning would be important from a developmental standpoint.
The systemic carryover would be important for Drake Maye and the rest of the offense.