With 1 word, Patriots’ no-huddle an NFL marvel By Greg A. Bedard | GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER 09, 2012 JIM DAVIS/GLOBE STAFF Tom Brady calls out the play — with center Ryan Wendell all ready to roll — as the Patriots’ no-huddle offense lines up quickly while the Broncos’ defense attempts to adjust. FOXBOROUGH — Just one word can be powerful. Saying, “Help,” lets someone know a person needs assistance. “Sorry,” can immediately heal some wounds. “Stop,” could save someone from harm. Yes, just one word can be potent. The same holds true for football and the Patriots. When the Patriots’ offense is at its best and running roughshod over opponents — like getting out to a 31- 7 lead in Sunday’s 31-21 victory over the Broncos — it’s when they are going with the fast version of their no-huddle offense. And against the Broncos, the Patriots ran it faster than ever. It was breathless with 89 offensive plays (second in team history for a non-overtime game since they had 94 in a 28-10 loss to the Steelers in 1989) and a franchise-record 35 first downs, the eighth-highest total in league history. The NFL never has seen anything like it, and it may never be the same. How did the Patriots run the offense that fast? What was the key? One word. Not one word to describe it. The Patriots operate their no-huddle attack most often using one word as the play call. More accurately, they use six one-word play calls a game. That word tells all 11 players on offense everything they need to know. Formation. Blocking scheme. Direction on run plays. Routes for receiver on passing plays. Shifts in formations. Snap count. Possible alerts and play alterations. One word. “I think the point of it is to try to get everyone going fast,” quarterback Tom Brady said recently. “So as fast as you can get the communication to your teammates, everyone can be on the line of scrimmage, then the better it is.” The future of NFL offenses has arrived in New England. And it’s thanks to the college game. Back to college One-word play calls are not unique to the NFL. Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s eyes were opened his very first year in the NFL – 1975 with Ted Marchibroda’s Colts as a special assistant/errand boy — when he saw firsthand how a coaching staff named certain concepts. “You learn to make words that are easy to say, one syllable and distinct,” Belichick said. “At the Colts, all our strong-side patterns were score, strike, sting, smash. And the weak-side patterns were whirl, whisk, wheel. And it was one word, usually one syllable, told everybody what to do [he says as he snaps his finger].” Most NFL offenses fall into two philosophies for play calls: a numbers system for the routes, or the West Coast offense and its extended verbiage. “Flip right, double-X jet, 36 counter, naked waggle, X-7, X-quarter” is the length of a typical play call in the latter system. The Patriots’ system is a blend of both that leans heavily on verbiage. Regular play calls include a word that combines two or three concepts. For example, “crunch” signifies a crossing route, with another “under” route run beneath it. A typical play call would be “39 crack blow.” Three words tell the tale. “We have a really heavy terminology-based offense,” Brady said. “So everything is really memorization with us, which is actually really hard, I think, for the guys that come in here because things usually don’t make a lot of sense.” Somewhere in NFL exile, former Patriots receiver Chad Johnson, who came from a numbers-based scheme with the Bengals, might be nodding. The Patriots, like other NFL teams, have decreased play calls for emergency situations down to one word. “Clock” is used by everyone for a spike to stop the clock, and each player knows where they are supposed to line up. The Patriots expanded that for other plays needed in a pinch. “A lot of times it was situational,” Belichick said. “Like we were in the hurry-up and you have to get the ball out of bounds, whatever it is. But sometimes we’ve had that where one play means this is where we line up, this is the play we run, this is the snap count it’s on, and we’re going to either try to catch the defense off balance or we don’t have time to have a big conversation about this. It’s line up, snap the ball, and we’re running a sideline route to get the ball out of bounds or something like that.” But that was the extent of the Patriots’ quick verbiage with shortened play calls. Why didn’t anyone think of taking the next step to extend those calls to an entire offense? Well, Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh did. In his seminal out-of-print book Finding the Winning Edge published in 1998 — Belichick has called it the coaching bible — Walsh had a section on page 308 titled, “Determining the Future Dynamics of Offense in the NFL.” First bullet point: “Teams will huddle only when the clock is stopped.” Second: “Teams will use single-word offensive audibles.” “Doesn’t surprise me,” Belichick said. “But when you talk about Bill, that’s Paul Brown. When you think about how far ahead of the game Paul Brown was back in the ’40s and ’50s, all the things he did and the way he practiced, the way he did it, and then everybody has done it since then, has really stood the test of time. I don’t care what school you came up through. Everybody pretty much does it the way Paul did it.” So Walsh, and likely Brown, had an idea offenses would move faster and faster. So did somebody else. Two years ago, a New England native with an affinity for visors and fast-moving offenses walked into Gillette Stadium to talk football with the Patriots’ staff. Genius of the NFL, meet the genius of college football. Up to speed Chip Kelly has the University of Oregon ranked No. 2 in the country. His spread offense is dazzling and seemingly unstoppable. This season, his Ducks have averaged 52.3 points per game (fourth in Division 1) and 541.6 total yards (seventh). The Ducks have surpassed 40 points in 34 of 46 games with Kelly as head coach, including all five this season and eight straight games dating to last season. “Chip Kelly is a mastermind,” said Ravens tight end Ed Dickson, who played at Oregon for Kelly. STEVE DYKES/GETTY IMAGES The Patriots drew inspiration for their no-huddle from Oregon coach Chip Kelly. Not bad for a guy from Manchester, N.H., who split his four-year career at UNH between quarterback and defensive back. Kelly’s offenses, while coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Wildcats from 1999-2006, were just as prolific as when he became Mike Bellotti’s offensive coordinator with the Ducks in 2007 before ascending to head coach in ’09. That’s because Kelly is obsessed with speed. Forget time of possession. It’s all about total numbers of plays to Kelly. What he’s really looking for is yards and points per minute. Fast might be an understatement when describing Oregon’s offense. When they’re really going, they get plays off in five seconds. Oregon fans will boo the chain gang moving the sticks on the sideline because they are holding up the offense. Oregon players tell tales of defenders saying that if the Ducks go any faster they’re going to vomit or pass out. Kelly’s practices are the stuff of legend. There is no need for wind sprints because no one stands around. At all. Not the players, not the coaches. Music is blaring. The defense sometimes plays with 25 players so the offense can get more precise. It’s dizzying by design. The games are actually tranquil. “I remember the first day he came as offensive coordinator, we started one of his drills,” Dickson said. “And he said, ‘I’m going to show you how fast I want to go. Your two-minute that you’re running here is going to be nothing compared to what I teach you.’ It was insane. I thought he was insane. I was like, ‘Nobody moves that fast.’ The only way you’re going to simulate that speed, you have to practice that way.” If you want to see what’s next on the pro level, look to the colleges. That’s what Belichick does, with his alliances with coaches such as Nick Saban (LSU and Alabama), Urban Meyer (Florida and Ohio State) and, now, Kelly. That’s why when Kelly walked into Gillette Stadium two years ago — and he’s been there three times total — ears perked up among the Patriots’ coaches, including Belichick. Kelly had become friendly with former Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien while both were rising in the college ranks. The UNH coaching staff would visit Brown, where O’Brien was coaching, for pickup basketball games and to talk X’s and O’s. Kelly told the Patriots he was moving to a no-huddle that only used one word to signify everything involved in a play. Sideline calls take too long. Wristbands too. One word is all that is needed. “The things they’re doing now, they’re even faster,” Dickson said.