Previous posts cover what I’ve said since about 1983–how easy it was to beat the bears’ 46 defense due to its vulnerabilities.  These posts have also discussed the fact that Mike Ditka recently said this, and national publications talked about this after the 1986 or 1987 season.  It is how Jay Schroeder beat the bears in the first round of the 1986-season playoffs.  Here are two articles that discuss similar strategy to what I’ve always said.

The first article is by Kevin Clark, and was in the February 3, 2015 Wall Street Journal.  Please pay particular attention to why coaches don’t do smart things and to the last sentence, as these things are exactly what I’ve said.

Only Bill Belichick could look at a team that lost by 35 points and decide he has to steal their ideas.

A year ago, the Seattle Seahawks vaulted to the top of the football world by dismantling Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos, 43-8, in Super Bowl XLVIII. The Seahawks did it by forcing virtually all of Manning’s throws to be short, harmless tosses. That was all that Seattle’s fortress of a defense would allow—little passes in front of them that went for negligible yardage.

So when Belichick and the New England Patriots needed a strategy for Sunday’s Super Bowl, he chose seemingly the most irrational one possible: an attack based on those short, seemingly harmless tosses.

It wasn’t the most brilliant game plan in history, but it may have been the most practical.

New England’s dinking and dunking down the field was the football equivalent of driving cross-country because you’re afraid to fly. It took the Patriots forever to get to their destination, but they got there. Although the interception Seattle threw at the goal line—an unforced error unlike any in sports history—gave New England the victory, it was the Patriots’ counterintuitive offensive approach that got them in position to win in the first place. That strategy enabled them to overcome a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit against one of the greatest defenses in NFL history.

In fact, Tom Brady , the game’s most valuable player and perhaps the greatest quarterback in history, was historically conservative Sunday night. There have been 88 quarterbacks to play in the Super Bowl. Only six of those had a worse mark than his 8.86 yards per completion. All of those quarterbacks lost—including Peyton Manning.

Given the many strengths of the Seattle defense, though, Belichick’s ploy made sense. What do you do when your opponent has built a defense that prevents you from throwing deep, eliminates the popular “back-shoulder” sideline throw” and basically walls off the outside of the field? You swear off huge chunks of a typical football game plan. Sunday’s Super Bowl was about a team admitting its limitations.

About three years ago, the Seahawks decided that big, physical cornerbacks, who were undervalued in the speed-obsessed NFL, were the way to stop the league’s best passers. Cornerback Richard Sherman became a star, and Seattle’s roster of 6 feet-and-over cornerbacks provided no room for wide receivers to operate.

But wide receiver Julian Edelman knew things would be different on Sunday. “You’re not going to run fades on them. I’m 5-10; they’re 6-2,” Edelman said. “Coach kept on saying, ‘You’ve got to use your quickness.’ ”

That is exactly what happened. Time after time, Brady would find receivers over the middle of the field for one of those short, quick passes that the Seahawks would allow. Then the receiver—Edelman, Brandon LaFell, Rob Gronkowski or Danny Amendola—would simply dive ahead and get a few yards where they could. It wasn’t particularly glamorous.

New England avoided throwing at Sherman, which could be considered an act of football cowardice. Counterpoint: The Patriots didn’t care. Edelman knew that such routes would work on the Seahawks’ big defensive backs, since they couldn’t move as quickly in tight spaces as the Patriots receivers.

So the question becomes: Why haven’t other teams successfully employed Belichick’s plan? That is complicated. NFL coaches can be stubborn, yes, but there is also the belief that if you are good at something, you shouldn’t abandon it, no matter the circumstances. So teams that rely on throwing outside and deep—common in today’s NFL—tend to do so despite the odds.

There were always whispers about how to beat the Seahawks. The San Francisco 49ers, for instance, knew that they could annoy the rival Seahawks by shifting to those sleek speedsters, but then that would complicate the 49ers’ blocking schemes. So they never really made much of an effort.

There were routes that coaches around the league privately knew could get those big cornerbacks gasping for air—double moves that require a few jukes—but the quarterbacks would need to hang in the pocket to deliver those passes, a tough task against the ferocious Seahawks pass defense. The Patriots decided it was best to get the ball out quickly Sunday night.

Of course, the lasting memory from this game will be Malcolm Butler’s game-saving interception for New England—or, rather, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll’s inexplicable decision to call for a pass from the goal line in the final minute instead of a run. But when NFL strategy aficionados study this game, they may see the end of an era.

Since the Seahawks burst onto the scene in 2012, every team was looking to get taller. Receivers who looked like power forwards became trendy, as did cornerbacks who were 6 feet and up. But on Sunday night, Belichick and Brady unveiled the blueprint: if a team is great at something, don’t give them a chance to execute it.

The second article was on the WEEI 93.7 FM website: