The League Went Wild for Tight Ends This Offseason and It Might Be a Trap
Alright 12s, let's talk some football. We're still a bit out from kickoff, but the chatter around the league this offseason has been something else, especially when you dig into how teams are building their offenses. Here’s the deal: a ton of teams in the NFL are running what they *think* is the next big thing, the Kyle Shanahan or Sean McVay offense, right? But what they’re actually doing is a watered-down, predictable version that’s already got defenses licking their chops. We’re talking about nearly 50% of the entire league, outside of McVay and Shanahan themselves, caught in this trap!
The Microsoft Clippy Offense Is Real
You know how some folks say they “use AI” but it’s really just glorified search? The NFL is seeing the same thing with offensive schemes. Shanahan and McVay? They’re the real innovators, constantly ripping apart and rebuilding their offenses, stretching them into new, stronger forms every single year. They’re like those super-secret FBI agents using AI to pinpoint a criminal's exact location, always ahead of the game.
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But then you’ve got everyone else, and for a lot of them, it's like running the Microsoft Clippy version of these schemes. Remember Clippy? Cute at first, then just… predictable. These teams are essentially trying to copy McVay’s or Shanahan’s playbook from last year, or even the year before, instead of evolving their own. Last year, McVay went heavy on 13-personnel, meaning lots of tight ends. So what did the rest of the league do this offseason? They went absolutely bonkers trying to find tight ends!
Defenses Are About to Cash In
This is where it gets dangerous for the copycats. My take? Part of why defenses have started looking so dominant these past few years is precisely because these imitation offenses became so painfully predictable. It’s not just about running a scheme, it’s about tailoring it to your specific personnel, making it dynamic. When you just copy last year's parlor trick, like using a big receiver as a blocker to pretend you're in 12-personnel when you're really in 11-personnel, that trick eventually becomes boring. And predictable. Defenses figure it out.
Mike Macdonald, Brian Fleury, and our Hawks have to be paying attention to this. It’s not enough to run a scheme that worked for someone else; you have to make it your own, keep defenses guessing, and evolve constantly. If you're not molding your system, if you're not stretching it beyond its current form, you’re just giving the league a static target to hit. We need to be that dynamic, unpredictable force on the field, not another Clippy. As the season gets closer, we need to see an offense that is built for Sam Darnold, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and Rashid Shaheed, one that constantly morphs and adapts. The league is watching to see who truly innovates and who gets stuck in the past. We need to be on the cutting edge, the Seattle way.
This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.