West Coast offense 101
JANUARY 19, 1999

by BILL WALSH The Sporting News


One of the common misconceptions of the West Coast offense is that it began as the name implies -- on the West Coast. In truth it began in Cincinnati, when I was working as an assistant on Paul Brown\'s Bengals staff from 1968-75.

Paul came to me one day and said we needed more motion in our offense, that we needed to be more creative in our thinking. Despite having some talented players, at the time our offense ranked somewhere in the middle of the league and wasn\'t scaring many teams. So I put more man-in-motion plays in our playbook, using players like quarterback Ken Anderson, tight end Bob Trumpy, wide receivers Chip Myers, Isaac Curtis and Charlie Joiner, and running back Essex Johnson. I later took the offense with me to San Diego, to Stanford, and then to the 49ers, but it began in Cincinnati.

By definition, the West Coast offense is characterized by short- and medium-range passing used as part of a ball-control attack. One of the things the offense does best is set up the deep pass, but the deep pass is not used as often in the West Coast as it is in many other offenses.

Being a very structured offense, it requires more discipline on the part of the players to run the West Coast than just about any other offense. The players have very little opportunity to free-lance.

One big advantage of the West Coast offense is that it can help a team that doesn\'t run the ball well. Short, quick passes are the best way to deal with having a weak ground game, and a team can get away with running the ball only one time out of every four plays if it gains 7 or 8 yards per run. The running backs have to be able to catch the ball to play in the West Coast offense. In the ideal setup, the wide receivers would catch 15 passes a game, the running backs would catch 10 and the tight ends would catch five.

It did not surprise me that four of the six highest-rated quarterbacks of 1998 played in a West Coast-style offense: Randall Cunningham, Steve Young, John Elway and Neil O\'Donnell. They excel in it because they are great touch passers, which is key in a passing scheme that relies on the precision of the quarterback\'s throwing rather than the strength of his arm.

Although the offense will raise the completion percentage of just about any quarterback, some are better suited to running it than others. Joe Montana was a master, and so is Young. I think someone like Ryan Leaf, who is a fine athlete, would excel in the West Coast offense, even though at 6-5, 240 he is a much larger man than Montana or Young.

The size of the quarterback is not as important as his athleticism. Kerry Collins is the same size as Leaf, but I have doubts about his ability to excel in this offense. Mobility is key to West Coast success, and Collins just isn\'t real mobile. He also isn\'t what I would call a good \'touch\' passer, a requirement in an offense that calls for a lot of short and medium passes.