12olution Revisited: The Rise of the “Joker”

Positionless Offense is Here

It’s often stated that football is a cyclical game. Ways of thinking rise, fall, rise again, and fall again. Despite this unavoidable truth, ideas change as they resurface. Integrating lessons learned from previous cycles, tactics that return do so in modified form. Some evolutionary outcomes cannot be fully rewound, even as they are countered. As we discussed last year, offenses in the sport have encountered a problem. Defenses have adjusted to offenses that can spread them out. Previously, teams never invested enough, whether it be through the draft, free agency, or recruiting, in nickel and dime DBs to field those positions on every play. Because offenses still spent much of their 1st and 2nd down snaps with a fullback or 2nd tight-end on the field, the nickel was a sub-position in defenses. The rise of the spread exploited this weakness. This is not, however, the primary reason the spread was able to redefine how offense was played. That explanation is rather simple: Teams realized in general that passing was more efficient than running, and that having more pass catchers on the field leads to more offense. When they did run, it was better to run into a light box than a stacked one.

Defensive football has been overhauled in a way that has made the spread-only approach to offense difficult. There are defenses now built entirely around taking away open passing games and stopping the run from light boxes.

Despite the rise of spread defenses, the cat is never going fully back in the bag. Passing is more efficient than running, and being able to maximize the pass catchers on the field has become a non-negotiable. However, the natural way to counter these defenses is to play heavy, create extra gaps at the line of scrimmage with extra blockers, and run the football. So how can offenses achieve both at the same time with the same players?

Positionless players who can both block and run routes in space. A year ago, I thought that this would be where flex TEs take over the sport, and for some teams like the Green Bay Packers and Georgia, this is what is happening, but this role is not limited to the TE position.

Traditionally, the use of 2nd TEs and FBs in the run game has been to provide those extra blockers, with slot receivers coming on the field to provide an extra pass catcher on 3rd down. Historically, those three roles have been distinct but now, they have blended into a more positionless framework. Whether it’s a flex TE (Brock Bowers), blocking WR (Puka Nacua), or in some cases like the 49ers, the rare flex fullback, these players are used to give forward-thinking offenses access to their full playbook out of the same personnel grouping. Instead of having to substitute a slot or fullback into the game to do different things, the playbook is always open. I have begun calling this positionless role the “Joker,” as this card can represent any in the deck depending on how you want to use it. Some call it the “adjuster.” Regardless of what you call it, he forces defenses to defend both the spread pass game and account for extra gaps at the line of scrimmage without the luxury of substituting and matching up. Defenses now cannot key into certain tendencies based on who is on the field.

What position your “Joker” lists under depends on your roster. For many teams, the easiest way to find these players is through the TE position, as was the idea behind the “12olution.”

The early-2010s Patriots served as a prototype of this idea, with Aaron Hernandez (otherwise problematic) moving all over the field. He obviously aligned as a traditional TE quite often but spread out when they wanted to space the field and lined up in the backfield when they wanted to use a fullback. These teams did everything with both he and Gronk on the field, and teams could not match up with it.

In the modern day, Georgia has done the same thing the last couple of years with (less problematic) Brock Bowers.

If you’re a team like the Rams who likes to have 3 receivers on the field, this player will be a physical, blocking wide receiver. LAR lapped the field, as they do every year, in 11 personnel usage, with 93.1% of their snaps coming with 3 WRs on the field. Despite being completely predictable in using spread personnel groupings, the Rams still have one of the most effective power-run games in the NFL and spend a significant amount of time in condensed formations, which in theory should not make sense and confounded the NFL upon McVay’s arrival. Since McVay took over as Head Coach, the Rams have used one (or more) of their 3 WRs as a key blocker in the run game, but the Rams have found their best one yet in rising 2nd-year star Puka Nacua.

As his gaudy numbers indicate, Nacua is a good route runner and the focal point of the LA pass game.

He is, however, unique among alpha wide receivers in that he is also the hinge that allows them to run anything they want. In the first clip, they use him as a 2nd TE, and in the 2nd, as a lead-blocking fullback. Traditionally, run games are siloed into a 12-personnel section, an 11-personnel section, and a 21-personnel section, but the Rams, like Georgia and the Patriots before them, can access 2-back and 2-TE run plays whenever they want. When you think about it, the roles of Brock Bowers and Puka Nacua are functionally identical.

There is one team that has taken the joker idea to its absolute extreme. The San Francisco 49ers have constructed an offense that is almost entirely positionless. More like an NBA team than any other football team, the 49ers have 4 different jokers on the field at any given time.

Many have talked and written about what has become known as their “Death Lineup.” Technically 21 personnel, with Christian McCaffrey and Kyle Juszczyk as the two backs and George Kittle as the TE, the Niners ask McCaffrey to play both RB and every WR position, Kittle to play attached to the formation and in space, Juszczyk to play FB, TE, and align in space, and WR Deebo Samuel to play both RB and WR. Not only can they access a full playbook without substituting like these other teams, but they can force you into several nightmare matchups in both the run and pass game at a time. Combined with constant motion and shifting, it’s impossible to align against.

This is just a sampling of the variety the 49ers get from the Death Lineup. Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch have been building this for a while and have cut against the grain to get here. They handed out somewhat costly extensions to Samuel (a bit injury-prone and an obstacle to a necessary Brandon Aiyuk extension) and Jusczyzk (technically a fullback), while trading heavy assets for Christian McCaffrey, a running back on his second, soon-to-be third contract, who has a cap hit that will soon explode to $27 million with age 30 looming (though that figure is cuttable). It’s all risky business that flies in the face of modern team-building, but in this brief window, they have constructed a unit that cannot be defended if it is executing properly.

The 49ers can simply identify and put the famed “Shanoscope,” as The Athletic’s Robert Mays likes to call it, on their chosen matchups. They can make players who should be in space play in tight and take on blocks, and make players who should be in tight cover WR routes. 41 does his best, but Shanahan’s ability to make every counterpunch look the same as the punch punishes his guesses.

There are still times, however, when the 49ers want to get a little bit more speed on the field and get into 3-wide. In those situations, they have Jauan Jennings off the bench to play the Nacua role and still allow them to access the whole playbook.

What’s Next For Defenses?

While it seems like offenses are on the path to figuring out defenses once again, defenses are already adjusting. The counter to positionless pass-catchers on offense is positionless coverage players on defense.

The Ravens can play nickel against everything because they have a joker of their own in the spectacular Kyle Hamilton, who is great both in and out of the box and spends a lot of time aligned as the slot defender. Hamilton was key to the Ravens matching up with the 49ers death lineup.

Positionless defense, however, is also nothing new, and for that, we once again have to go back to Bill Belichick. Belichick has been doing this for decades. His defenses were always defined by hybrid players like Patrick Chung, who allowed him to comfortably defend the run with 5 and often even 6 defensive backs on the field. Whether offenses were in 11 or 12, these defenses never allowed themselves to be outmatched against the pass. The “DBs everywhere” type of hybrid-driven defense that he, and seemingly only he mastered, is likely going to become the meta at the pro and college level. It’s time for college and NFL teams to start looking at athletic guys who previously struggled to find a positional home as assets, instead of liabilities. For programs like LSU that have access to immense athleticism, the immediate and future possibilities here may be endless.