How the Patriots and Chiefs Brought College Offense to Pro Football

On Saturday during NCAA football, you’ll see a lot of shotgun formations, spread fields, and option plays.

On Sunday night when the New England Patriots host the Kansas City Chiefs for Sunday Night Football, you’ll see many of the same things.

Coaches from those teams will often watch college football during the day on Saturday and then talk about integrating concepts and plays they saw during their offensive unit meetings that evening.

The Patriots and Chiefs have not been shy about introducing college concepts into their pro-style offenses and that trend has started to be embraced by an increasing number of NFL teams.

The Eagles also use a spread offense and when they played the Patriots in the Super Bowl, the fast-paced teams combined to run 143 plays and rack up more than 1,151 yards.

The final score of that game, 41-33 in favor of the Eagles, could be an indicator of how Sunday night’s game will turn out.

“We’ve done it here off and on for a long time,” said Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. “Spreading teams out has become much more the norm in the National Football League than it isn’t, and we certainly want to be able to do a lot of things well and right offensively. When we choose to do that, there’s a lot of people that have to do a lot of things right in order for it to go and be productive.

“When you spread out,” he continued, “the offensive line doesn’t have a lot of people in there near the tackles. You sometimes tell the defense what types of protection systems you’re using. So, there’s a lot of things that go into it.”