I'm an old guy, so I remember the 80s, when Lindy Infante was the Browns offensive coordinator. In point-of-fact, Infante pre-dated Bill Walsh's West Coast 49ers, and introduced much of what Walsh made famous. But, you know...he coached in Cleveland, so...
Anyway, Infante had a short quarterback with a pop-gun arm named Brian Sipe, and a series of really good running backs. I can't remember the exact time-span (and am too lazy to check), but if I'm right these included the Pruitts and Mack/Byner.
Lindy helped Sipe succeed by giving him more protection, a lot of second and third and shorts, and more targets.
Sipe threw to the running backs a LOT. Most of these were flat-passes and dump-offs: Infante himself described them as "long handoffs". (Greg Pruitt was a burner, so he went downfield more, sometimes from the slot.)
Unlike with most teams, these were often designed plays--not check-downs. However, the standard m.o. was that a back looked for leakage to block, and if he saw none, he peeled out for a pass.
Infante also had Ozzie Newsome at tight end. The various wide recievers weren't superstars by any means. Reggie Rucker was released by the Dallas Cowboys and scooped up as a free agent. Dave Logan was a very tall former basketball player who could come down with Sipe's high, arcing "deep" passes.
Some of this should be sounding familiar to you.
There's no Ozzie Newsome here, but I insist: Rob Housler may well be a sleeper. To remind you, he was injured early in his carreer, and Bruce Arians has little use for a pass-catching tight end in his offensive system.
Wide reciever is similar, except that Hawkins and Gabriel are blistering fast playmakers from the slot. It's not at all true that this offense has no playmakers. They don't have a stud number one wide reciever, but they do have speed, ok? Please try to remember this.
Duke Johnson isn't exactly Greg Pruitt, but close enough. He's not as fast, nor quite as explosive, but he's thicker and stronger. He will do the same things in this offense that Pruitt did for Sipe and Lindy.
And by the way: there's another playmaker, ok? Get it?
In this PD article, Flip talks about trying Crowell and West from the slot, as well. That part is different than Infante's, and is interesting.
Many safeties could cover them, but they're too fast for most linebackers. I believe this deployment is partly a decoy, however, intended to pull run-defenders outside the box, and possibly to prevent blitzes.
The common thread remains: DeFellipo doesn't want defenses to have a clue or a key, and wants to dictate defensive personnel to force favorable matchups.
A defensive coordinator seeing two backs and one tight end in the huddle will usually have to use his base defense (call it 3-4 or 4-3).
When one of the backs goes to the slot instead of remaining in the backfield, one of the guys who normally stacks the box has to move outside to cover him.
If it's Duke Johnson or, for that matter, Malcom Johnson, this could be a problem for them.
I say Malcom Johnson because the defense will be reluctant to put a safety on him--it needs to be a linebacker. If it's a run, Johnson will block him. He could also go in motion, letting the quarterback see who goes with him, or if they're using zone--and he's now a potential lead-blocker with a head start.
The West/Crowell part, I don't know about. They're really not built that way, and my guess would be that putting them in the slot is sort of a "change-up" Flip plans to use from time-to-time, and not as a staple.
Those guys, however, will be scary with a flat or dumpoff pass in their hands, and here we return to Infante's logic:
The defensive line and some of the linebackers are engaged or committed shortly after the snap, and the congestion is inside. One guy might mirror the running back as he peels out, but he can't attack him for fear the pass will go over his head.
There's space between them, so that when the pass is thrown, the running back will usually have the ball and a few steps before the mirror has to try to take him down in space.
The guys inside have to see the dumpoff, then get off their blocks to try to beat him to the edge. They'll often over-commit, and the running back will cut back on them, too--scraping his mirror off.
Infante would tell you, this is how he got the ball to running backs in space, with open field in front of them. More often than not, Earnest Byner would be at least two yards upfield before the first would-be tackler even got near him.
The defensive linemen were non-factors, the linebackers lost in traffic (and sealed out by design), and once the back is out of their range, only little people can try to tackle him.
All of this will make it hard for defenses to preplan anything, and sometimes make them hesitant.
Flip said that he'd run the ball a lot, and I believe he should. But the stats might not reflect it, since those "long handoffs" are recorded as passes.
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