allowably differentiability: Tanier: Did the Wildcat die, or morph?

It's not Tebow or Cam who runs once-popular formation, but the Jets

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Jets receiver Jeremy Kerley is one of the few NFL players still used in the Wildcat formation.

ANALYSIS

updated 11:51 p.m. ET Dec. 14, 2011

Mike Tanier

Remember the Wildcat?

It was the offense the cool kids ran back in 2008, and everybody loved it. Ronnie Brown at quarterback! Ricky Williams in motion! Chad Pennington at ? receiver? Dolphins coach Tony Sparano was the mad scientist who threw some NFL paint on a popular college offense (with roots that date back to the Wing T), and suddenly everyone was grooving to the retro-chic rhythms of Brown faking handoffs to Williams and plowing into an unbalanced line. Teams began scouting option quarterbacks like Pat White specifically to use in Wildcat packages.

Three years later, the Rams run two ugly little Wildcat-like plays to Steven Jackson on Monday Night Football, and they look almost embarrassed for doing it. The Cardinals unveil a direct snap play to cornerback Patrick Peterson, but when the rookie fumbles they quickly re-veil it. Sparano just got fired, and his brainchild was almost invisible in Miami this season. Brown is a much-maligned Eagles backup, Williams is a role player in Baltimore, Pennington is probably in traction somewhere. The Wildcat turned out to be a one-hit wonder that you only hear on the radio anymore when the DJ is trying to be funny.

Where has the Wildcat gone? What happened to it? Has it morphed into something else? Welcome to the ?Where are They Now? file of NFL strategy, where we try to trace the sudden decline of a tactic that appeared poised to be the next big thing.

Snapped out of it
When the Jets' offense suffered through an offensive slump a few weeks ago, Rex Ryan pressed coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to add more direct-snap plays to the gameplan.

?I think it?s tough to defend if you are not really focused on it,? Ryan said on the Jets variation of the Wildcat, which had been used just three times in the first 10 weeks of the season. Running backs Shonn Greene and LaDanian Tomlinson, and rookie receiver Jeremy Kerley, combined for seven Wildcat-type plays against the Redskins. Whether the plays were ?tough to defend? is debatable. Greene did score a nine-yard touchdown on one, but he was stopped short of a first down on third-and-2 on another. Kerley gained six yards on one play but lost a yard on another. As revivals go, the Jets Wildcat Renaissance was a non-starter, and the team used the wrinkle just three times against the Chiefs, gaining 11 yards in a game where a quick pitch to the water boy was likely to result in a touchdown.

To be precise, the Jets weren?t running a true Wildcat. The old Dolphins' strategy involved motion by a wing-back and an option for the ?quarterback:? he can hand off to the wing player for a sweep or keep the ball for himself. (See Figure 1, which was dusted off from the 2008 archives.) The Jets mixed direct snap plays to Green and Tomlinson, with no motion or options, with Pistol formations for Kerley. ?Wildcat? has become a catch-all phrase for direct snaps to non-quarterbacks, plays that teams tinkered with for years before Sparano unveiled his wacky monster.

No matter what you call them, though, these plays are a dying breed.

The table below shows the total number of direct snap plays run league-wide from 2009, when the Wildcat escaped Miami and went viral, through Monday night, with the average yards-per-play results.

Year	Plays	Yards Per Play
2009	337	4.83
2010	184	4.44
2011	59	3.64

Even projecting the 2011 data out for three more games, you get just 72.6, and the low yards-per-carry suggest there won?t be any upswing in 2011.

Besides the Jets, the only team that uses the Wildcat with any regularity is the Bills, who have allowed Brad Smith (a college quarterback) to carry 17 times for 62 yards and throw one interception from the formation. Only 12 teams have tinkered with the formation at all, down from 20 last season.

Even teams with ideal Wildcat personnel don?t use it much -- the Browns began snapping straight to shifty ex-quarterback Josh Cribbs before the Dolphins ushered in the craze in 2008, but Cribbs has taken just three direct snaps this season.

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