The Lions' Pride

I think it's possible, but doubt we will see it that often due to his lack of starting experience. Biggest part of the play being the ability to read the defenses, which tends to come with experience. If we do, I think it bodes well for our offense, being that it could mean OB has a reason to put that trust in Bench.

This being said, I hope it means he also has faith in our backup, because losing a starting QB to injury is never a good thing...unless you are the Niners.

Chip Kelly came to New England to teach them his offense.... they use the speed and attacking style based off of what Chip did.... OB took that offense here...

I think I remember reading that OB isn't a fan of the zone read, but you never know.

I would think that if OB's offense is working fine without it he wont mess with it.

I am not saying it is play for play.... I have understood OB took pieces of that and has used it in his offense. He also was spoken glowingly of CK.

I think you can pretty much guarentee it. In his 7 or 8 plays against Virginia, Bench ran a zone read two or three times and successfully. That is a no-brainer piece of the offense that Bwnch has plenty of experience with from his HS days. I'd definitely expect this early in the season and will help provide an additional weapon while Bench continues getting game experiences. I think the running game in general will be huge for the first few games.

Not so sure about that. Look at Jim Harbaugh - he runs a pro offense too, but he's also smart enough to take advantage of his QB's skills. He didn't exactly run zone reads with Alex Smith, but with Kaepernick, he actually helped to evolve the notion with the FB/TE reading blocks as well as QB reading the defenders. Good coaches use the skills of their QB's and it's obvious that Bench is a good runner. I think BOB would be limiting himself significantly if he didn't use some read options during the year. Especially given a young QB who may not have the full playbook down - it's a relatively easy play to learn, but not an easy play to defend (as we saw Ohio State trample us with it last year).

Also, I saw an article not that long ago about injuries for running QB's vs. pocket QB's that indicated the injuries to running QB's aren't as high compared to pocket QB's as one would think. With a pocket guy, he's sitting back there all day, and they can get crushed pretty hard. Running/mobile QB's can often avoid hits, run out of bounds, etc.

The attached article seems new to me, so probably not the one I saw, but it's a good one. They said that the "only gameplay variable that explains injuries with any statistical significance is sacks."

There are not that many similarities between the offenses other than clearly Kelley impacted thinking around tempo for many coaches.

BOB uses verbiage, tempo and formation changes that he learned from Kelly. None of that has to do with the read option.

I think it's really just semantics here, but for the most part we are in agreement. My point was simply that he has to prove he has the ability to actually 'read' the defense, in order to instill the confidence in OB to run it.

IMO, OB is a coach that isn't going to force pegs into the holes of his offense if they don't fit. His goal is to first look at the talent he has and THEN find the best way to get the most out of it. If Bench is the best QB and OB sees an opportunity to use his running ability to create something with some read option in the playbook, I'm sure he'll add it. Other factors like how prepared the back up is, the specific opponent and their weaknesses, and the ability of the other 10 guys to execute their responsibilities on the zone read plays also need to be considered.

I don't, but I'm sure some here do.

That was part of the reason I was worried about Ferguson, he'll be here for a long time and potentially forces a transfer from Bench. Not that a two year guy wouldn't have, but if Bench doesn't win the job he's gone. JMO though.

EDIT: And he'd probably be a four year backup, if not five (if he would stay as long as he could), due to Hack coming in as well.

I agree that it won't, but it's always nice to have quality backups.

I guess if we can develop Whipple/some-other-walk-on he'll be the 3 guy.