I posted this here about a year ago & thought it would be a good re-read.
THE MIND: Martz teaches science of offense
September 6, 2006
BY SHAWN WINDSOR
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
Former Rams quarterback Kurt Warner says Mike Martz's system "changed my life." It helped turn him into a two-time NFL MVP. (CHRIS LEE/St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Offensive coordinator of 2000 Super Bowl champion Rams. Architect of league's best passing offense, directed by league MVP Kurt Warner. Promoted to head coach for 2000 regular season. Posted 51-29 record and made a second Super Bowl appearance. Missed last 11 games of 2005 season because of heart ailment before he was fired.
The prospect had little foot speed and an average high school arm. He was neither elusive nor brawny. At night, when he looked down the football field, he couldn't detect color beyond 20 yards. He saw moving smudges, a blur streaking across the grass.
He was uncannily accurate despite this.
This ability, more than 30 years ago, would help trigger the design of the NFL's most radical and perhaps most sophisticated offense.
But Mike Martz -- the Lions' new offensive coordinator -- wasn't concerned about NFL offenses then. He was after something more fundamental. It was 1975, and Martz, who was in his mid-20s, had just finished graduate school at San Jose State University, where he'd studied biomechanics, and had become convinced that the key to any decent quarterback was balance.
So when he became an assistant offensive coach at San Diego Mesa Community College the following year, he went looking for a guinea pig.
He found Steve Fairchild, a marginal local prospect with night color blindness and a nimble mind. Their relationship became a blueprint for Martz, one that he would use the next three decades, turning a succession of unheralded quarterbacks into stars.
By the time Fairchild left San Diego Mesa two years later, he'd set national passing records. Long before Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner became a household name and Martz's superstar pupil, the quarterback coach found the seeds of his philosophy under the California sun.
Martz now brings those seeds to Detroit. His hiring last spring brought hope to a forlorn fan base, and the possibility that, finally, the Lions might be able to develop a quarterback.
"It's gonna take time to groove 'em up," Martz said of his new pupils. "But I'm learning something about them every day."
And they are learning what he demands.
"It's frustrating because you can't do it right way," Lions starter Jon Kitna said. "But I'm trying to make the process as fast as possible."
That process started with Fairchild, whom Martz wooed to Mesa.
"Right when I talked to him, I knew," Fairchild recalled recently. "It was one of those things, when you know when you are lucky to be somewhere."
Martz talked to Fairchild -- now the offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills -- about running a cutting-edge offense: four receivers down the field, timing patterns, flooding the defense with an aerial wave. Most importantly, he talked to Fairchild about balance, footwork and point of release.
Martz saw a chance to explore his theory. While in grad school, he began analyzing the discus for biomechanics study, and asking himself questions. What was the release point when the disc found its truest flight? How did the weight shift in the thrower? What about the lines of force, and all the variations that might slow its flight?
"I figured that the key to the discus was the same as throwing a football," Martz said. "It's all about balance."
To be balanced the way Martz envisioned, he had to break down everything Fairchild learned in high school about dropping back in the pocket. Instead of a traditional, methodical, three- or five- or seven-step drop, the young coach wanted a more fluid retreat, one that allowed the quarterback to fire as soon as his last step was taken.
Fairchild was the first to apply the approach. When he left Mesa two years later, he'd thrown for more than 5,000 yards and was named the most valuable player in junior college -- twice.
"Everything I have in football I owe to Mike," Fairchild said.
In fact, Fairchild, who later coached under Martz with the St. Louis Rams, is trying to impart pieces of Martz's teachings in Buffalo. But Martz took something from the relationship, too, something now bubbling up in Allen Park, home of the Lions' practice facility.
Because Fairchild struggled to see color at night, his brain compensated by feel, literally sensing where he needed to throw the ball.
When Martz discovered Fairchild's gift, he began rethinking the quarterback-receiver relationship. From then on, his quarterbacks would learn to throw to a particular place on the field, depending on the defensive scheme. Once the ball was in the air, it was the receiver's job to get to that spot.
That, essentially, is what he teaches NFL quarterbacks today.
Balance and geometry.
"It is radical, no question," Kitna said. "I'm thinking, 'Where's this been for the last 10 years?' "
But those lessons are not for everybody. Nor, some say, is the often-abrasive teaching style of Martz.
Even in the San Diego days, Martz was fond of screaming. He was and is a perfectionist, a demanding football savant who doesn't tolerate those who can't precisely execute the vision swirling in his head.
It is football field as laboratory.
The question, then, is will the experiment work in Detroit?
Martz and 'muscle memory'
Dan Orlovsky, the Lions' backup quarterback, believes it will.
"It's difficult," he said. "Say you're married for 15 years and, all of sudden, you get divorced. It's a shock. That's what it's like."
But then, he continued, you look back and you see the difference between how you used to do it and how Martz wants it done.
"There are times when it's frustrating," he said. "You make the right read, get the ball out ... "
And Martz still yells.
Because your footwork wasn't right, and you weren't properly balanced, and the ball came out a touch late, with less velocity, because you dipped your shoulder at the end of your drop to gather yourself, and that cost you a fraction of a second, and took your eyes away from the field for just long enough that the ball wasn't exactly where it needed to be at the moment the receiver got there.
Yet Orlovsky is certain that with more reps, more time and more Martz in his ear, he will unlearn everything he was ever taught and drop back without thinking about his feet, his shoulders, his arm. He will just dance from the center and let it fly.
"Muscle memory," he said. "That's what this is about. But it's not going to happen in 15 weeks."
Orlovsky knows that Martz's way of doing things turned unknowns such as Trent Green, the Chiefs' quarterback, and Marc Bulger, the Rams' quarterback, into Pro Bowl performers.
And he knows that Martz took a little-known, out-of-work quarterback paying the bills stocking grocery store shelves and turned him into a two-time NFL MVP.
Kurt Warner met Martz in the off-season of 1999. Martz had just been hired to run the offense, his second stint with the Rams. Warner already had been there a year.
"And from day one, it was all about my footwork," Warner recalled last month in Chicago after his Arizona Cardinals played an exhibition.
"He wanted a rhythmical drop, where every step was the same, so that you didn't have to shift your weight when you planted."
For months, Martz broke Warner down.
"As much as it was frustrating early on, with him yelling at me, when I got it down, it changed my life," Warner said.
Martz felt that with the increasing speed of the game, every split-second gained could make a difference. So before he addressed any other part of his offense, Martz tore down his quarterbacks. And when Green went down with an injury that year, Warner had gotten it. At the end of the season, he was the Super Bowl MVP.
The coach is doing the same thing here. Footwork and balance. His current quarterbacks may not possess Warner's preposterously quick release, but Green and Bulger didn't, either.
As long as a quarterback can withstand Martz's demands, he can learn, and he can improve his balance.
"I've made huge strides in how I deliver the football," Kitna said.
Which begs the question: If Martz can turn a solid veteran such as Kitna into a frontline quarterback, why can't others?
"It's a hard thing to steal off the tape," Fairchild said. "You can steal the concept, but you can't steal the rhythm and the timing. You can try to steal it but be so far off and not even know it."
For now, the alchemy remains in his head, shaped by biomechanics, the discus, night color blindness and any number of other three-dimensional schematics hard-wired into his synapses.
"We are growing right now," Martz said at the end of training camp. "We have to look at these guys and teach them. A year from now, it's going to be a lot different."
This summer, that vision has come pouring out in Allen Park. Sunday, a region gets its first true glimpse.
For the record
*
Mike Martz's head-coaching record with St. Louis, including the Rams' and Lions' rankings in total yards for those seasons:
Year W-L Playoffs Rams
Off. Lions
Off.
2000 10-6 0-1 1 25
2001 14-2 2-1* 1 16
2002 7-9 None 9 30
2003 12-4 0-1 7 32
2004 8-8 1-1 6 26
2005 2-3 None 6 27
Total 53-32 3-4 -- --
* Lost Super Bowl to Patriots
ON THE OFFENSIVE
The Rams' passing and rushing yards per game in those seasons, with NFL rank:
Year Pass Rk Rush Rk
2000 343.3 1 115.2 17
2001 306.4 1 126.7 5
2002 280.0 2 87.8 30
2003 267.9 2 93.5 30
2004 288.4 4 101.5 25
2005 271.9 2 95.9 22
Previous stops
*
1983-91
Arizona State
Quarterbacks and receivers coach from 1983-87 and offensive coordinator in 1984 and from 1988-91.
1992-96
Rams
Offensive assistant for first two seasons. Spent 1994 as quarterbacks coach before two seasons coaching wide receivers.
1997-98
Redskins
Quarterbacks coach for two seasons under Norv Turner. Helped develop eighth-round draft pick Trent Green into NFL starter.
1999-2005
Rams
Offensive coordinator of 2000 Super Bowl champion Rams. Architect of league's best passing offense, directed by league MVP Kurt Warner. Promoted to head coach for 2000 regular season. Posted 51-29 record and made a second Super Bowl appearance. Missed last 11 games of 2005 season because of heart ailment before he was fired.
I posted this article as more of an insight to Warner than anything else. Martz was/is a mastermind when it comes to offense. He was a horrible headcoach. The 2 are not mutually inclusive. I feel the same about Buddy Ryan, great defensive mind, horrible headcoach.
As a coach, I've studied Warner's mechanic's & they are virtually flawless. Watch & see how "balanced" Warner is on his deliveries. This article gives great insight as to part of why Warner is what he is as a qb. Of course w/ Warner, you not only get balance as a qb but as a person as well.
I don't like Martz b/c of his ego mainly, but give the dude his due, he's a great offensive mind. I don't really believe that defenses caught up to Martz & his schemes as much as his ego, injuries, & letting Warner go did. If Warner stays healthy this year, I think he will prove a part of that.
THE MIND: Martz teaches science of offense
September 6, 2006
BY SHAWN WINDSOR
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
Former Rams quarterback Kurt Warner says Mike Martz's system "changed my life." It helped turn him into a two-time NFL MVP. (CHRIS LEE/St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Offensive coordinator of 2000 Super Bowl champion Rams. Architect of league's best passing offense, directed by league MVP Kurt Warner. Promoted to head coach for 2000 regular season. Posted 51-29 record and made a second Super Bowl appearance. Missed last 11 games of 2005 season because of heart ailment before he was fired.
The prospect had little foot speed and an average high school arm. He was neither elusive nor brawny. At night, when he looked down the football field, he couldn't detect color beyond 20 yards. He saw moving smudges, a blur streaking across the grass.
He was uncannily accurate despite this.
This ability, more than 30 years ago, would help trigger the design of the NFL's most radical and perhaps most sophisticated offense.
But Mike Martz -- the Lions' new offensive coordinator -- wasn't concerned about NFL offenses then. He was after something more fundamental. It was 1975, and Martz, who was in his mid-20s, had just finished graduate school at San Jose State University, where he'd studied biomechanics, and had become convinced that the key to any decent quarterback was balance.
So when he became an assistant offensive coach at San Diego Mesa Community College the following year, he went looking for a guinea pig.
He found Steve Fairchild, a marginal local prospect with night color blindness and a nimble mind. Their relationship became a blueprint for Martz, one that he would use the next three decades, turning a succession of unheralded quarterbacks into stars.
By the time Fairchild left San Diego Mesa two years later, he'd set national passing records. Long before Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner became a household name and Martz's superstar pupil, the quarterback coach found the seeds of his philosophy under the California sun.
Martz now brings those seeds to Detroit. His hiring last spring brought hope to a forlorn fan base, and the possibility that, finally, the Lions might be able to develop a quarterback.
"It's gonna take time to groove 'em up," Martz said of his new pupils. "But I'm learning something about them every day."
And they are learning what he demands.
"It's frustrating because you can't do it right way," Lions starter Jon Kitna said. "But I'm trying to make the process as fast as possible."
That process started with Fairchild, whom Martz wooed to Mesa.
"Right when I talked to him, I knew," Fairchild recalled recently. "It was one of those things, when you know when you are lucky to be somewhere."
Martz talked to Fairchild -- now the offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills -- about running a cutting-edge offense: four receivers down the field, timing patterns, flooding the defense with an aerial wave. Most importantly, he talked to Fairchild about balance, footwork and point of release.
Martz saw a chance to explore his theory. While in grad school, he began analyzing the discus for biomechanics study, and asking himself questions. What was the release point when the disc found its truest flight? How did the weight shift in the thrower? What about the lines of force, and all the variations that might slow its flight?
"I figured that the key to the discus was the same as throwing a football," Martz said. "It's all about balance."
To be balanced the way Martz envisioned, he had to break down everything Fairchild learned in high school about dropping back in the pocket. Instead of a traditional, methodical, three- or five- or seven-step drop, the young coach wanted a more fluid retreat, one that allowed the quarterback to fire as soon as his last step was taken.
Fairchild was the first to apply the approach. When he left Mesa two years later, he'd thrown for more than 5,000 yards and was named the most valuable player in junior college -- twice.
"Everything I have in football I owe to Mike," Fairchild said.
In fact, Fairchild, who later coached under Martz with the St. Louis Rams, is trying to impart pieces of Martz's teachings in Buffalo. But Martz took something from the relationship, too, something now bubbling up in Allen Park, home of the Lions' practice facility.
Because Fairchild struggled to see color at night, his brain compensated by feel, literally sensing where he needed to throw the ball.
When Martz discovered Fairchild's gift, he began rethinking the quarterback-receiver relationship. From then on, his quarterbacks would learn to throw to a particular place on the field, depending on the defensive scheme. Once the ball was in the air, it was the receiver's job to get to that spot.
That, essentially, is what he teaches NFL quarterbacks today.
Balance and geometry.
"It is radical, no question," Kitna said. "I'm thinking, 'Where's this been for the last 10 years?' "
But those lessons are not for everybody. Nor, some say, is the often-abrasive teaching style of Martz.
Even in the San Diego days, Martz was fond of screaming. He was and is a perfectionist, a demanding football savant who doesn't tolerate those who can't precisely execute the vision swirling in his head.
It is football field as laboratory.
The question, then, is will the experiment work in Detroit?
Martz and 'muscle memory'
Dan Orlovsky, the Lions' backup quarterback, believes it will.
"It's difficult," he said. "Say you're married for 15 years and, all of sudden, you get divorced. It's a shock. That's what it's like."
But then, he continued, you look back and you see the difference between how you used to do it and how Martz wants it done.
"There are times when it's frustrating," he said. "You make the right read, get the ball out ... "
And Martz still yells.
Because your footwork wasn't right, and you weren't properly balanced, and the ball came out a touch late, with less velocity, because you dipped your shoulder at the end of your drop to gather yourself, and that cost you a fraction of a second, and took your eyes away from the field for just long enough that the ball wasn't exactly where it needed to be at the moment the receiver got there.
Yet Orlovsky is certain that with more reps, more time and more Martz in his ear, he will unlearn everything he was ever taught and drop back without thinking about his feet, his shoulders, his arm. He will just dance from the center and let it fly.
"Muscle memory," he said. "That's what this is about. But it's not going to happen in 15 weeks."
Orlovsky knows that Martz's way of doing things turned unknowns such as Trent Green, the Chiefs' quarterback, and Marc Bulger, the Rams' quarterback, into Pro Bowl performers.
And he knows that Martz took a little-known, out-of-work quarterback paying the bills stocking grocery store shelves and turned him into a two-time NFL MVP.
Kurt Warner met Martz in the off-season of 1999. Martz had just been hired to run the offense, his second stint with the Rams. Warner already had been there a year.
"And from day one, it was all about my footwork," Warner recalled last month in Chicago after his Arizona Cardinals played an exhibition.
"He wanted a rhythmical drop, where every step was the same, so that you didn't have to shift your weight when you planted."
For months, Martz broke Warner down.
"As much as it was frustrating early on, with him yelling at me, when I got it down, it changed my life," Warner said.
Martz felt that with the increasing speed of the game, every split-second gained could make a difference. So before he addressed any other part of his offense, Martz tore down his quarterbacks. And when Green went down with an injury that year, Warner had gotten it. At the end of the season, he was the Super Bowl MVP.
The coach is doing the same thing here. Footwork and balance. His current quarterbacks may not possess Warner's preposterously quick release, but Green and Bulger didn't, either.
As long as a quarterback can withstand Martz's demands, he can learn, and he can improve his balance.
"I've made huge strides in how I deliver the football," Kitna said.
Which begs the question: If Martz can turn a solid veteran such as Kitna into a frontline quarterback, why can't others?
"It's a hard thing to steal off the tape," Fairchild said. "You can steal the concept, but you can't steal the rhythm and the timing. You can try to steal it but be so far off and not even know it."
For now, the alchemy remains in his head, shaped by biomechanics, the discus, night color blindness and any number of other three-dimensional schematics hard-wired into his synapses.
"We are growing right now," Martz said at the end of training camp. "We have to look at these guys and teach them. A year from now, it's going to be a lot different."
This summer, that vision has come pouring out in Allen Park. Sunday, a region gets its first true glimpse.
For the record
*
Mike Martz's head-coaching record with St. Louis, including the Rams' and Lions' rankings in total yards for those seasons:
Year W-L Playoffs Rams
Off. Lions
Off.
2000 10-6 0-1 1 25
2001 14-2 2-1* 1 16
2002 7-9 None 9 30
2003 12-4 0-1 7 32
2004 8-8 1-1 6 26
2005 2-3 None 6 27
Total 53-32 3-4 -- --
* Lost Super Bowl to Patriots
ON THE OFFENSIVE
The Rams' passing and rushing yards per game in those seasons, with NFL rank:
Year Pass Rk Rush Rk
2000 343.3 1 115.2 17
2001 306.4 1 126.7 5
2002 280.0 2 87.8 30
2003 267.9 2 93.5 30
2004 288.4 4 101.5 25
2005 271.9 2 95.9 22
Previous stops
*
1983-91
Arizona State
Quarterbacks and receivers coach from 1983-87 and offensive coordinator in 1984 and from 1988-91.
1992-96
Rams
Offensive assistant for first two seasons. Spent 1994 as quarterbacks coach before two seasons coaching wide receivers.
1997-98
Redskins
Quarterbacks coach for two seasons under Norv Turner. Helped develop eighth-round draft pick Trent Green into NFL starter.
1999-2005
Rams
Offensive coordinator of 2000 Super Bowl champion Rams. Architect of league's best passing offense, directed by league MVP Kurt Warner. Promoted to head coach for 2000 regular season. Posted 51-29 record and made a second Super Bowl appearance. Missed last 11 games of 2005 season because of heart ailment before he was fired.
I posted this article as more of an insight to Warner than anything else. Martz was/is a mastermind when it comes to offense. He was a horrible headcoach. The 2 are not mutually inclusive. I feel the same about Buddy Ryan, great defensive mind, horrible headcoach.
As a coach, I've studied Warner's mechanic's & they are virtually flawless. Watch & see how "balanced" Warner is on his deliveries. This article gives great insight as to part of why Warner is what he is as a qb. Of course w/ Warner, you not only get balance as a qb but as a person as well.
I don't like Martz b/c of his ego mainly, but give the dude his due, he's a great offensive mind. I don't really believe that defenses caught up to Martz & his schemes as much as his ego, injuries, & letting Warner go did. If Warner stays healthy this year, I think he will prove a part of that.
