Week 8 Reading Post

This week I read The Blind Side by Michael Lewis for 1 hour.

"The Times They Are a-Changin'" by Bob Dylan

It all started with Bill Walsh. Due to a lack of talent that Bill had to work with to run the passing game for the AFL expansion team the Cincinnati Bengals, he created a system to fit the quarterback's strengths. His quarterback Virgil Carter was very inaccurate throwing deep. His new system involved short, timing routes. With this system he was able to perform many "miracles" by taking quarterbacks who had never completed as many as half of their passes and turning them into quarterbacks who completed over sixty percent of their passes. His system also increased their their yards per attempt. Teams in the National Football League took notice. A new trend in NFL strategy emerged: away from the run and toward the pass. In 1978 teams passed forty-two percent of the time and ran fifty-eight percent of the time. This new system changed the trend to passing fifty-nine percent of the time and running forty-one percent of the time. Teams were initially reluctant to pass because there was a six percent chance of a quarterback throwing an interception, but only a three percent chance of a running back fumbling. The success of this system changed those numbers. The chance of a quarterback throwing an interception dropped to three percent. That is how Bill Walsh changed the times.

Totals: 42 hours and 33 minutes/ 1825 pages