The ideal 4-out NBA roster

The 4-out offense, or spread pick'n'roll, has basically already conquered the NBA. It's over. Done.

The last four NBA finals have been dominated by 4-out styles with Dallas winning with Dirk as a stretch-four of sorts, then Miami adopting the spread pick'n'roll with James as a small ball 4 and dominating the Finals until the Spurs matched them with a similar approach.

There's some question over whether 2015's best small ball team, the Golden State Warriors, can handle the pounding that comes when you play a team like the Grizzlies but the most likely 2015 champions have all embraced this style.

Even the NCAA tournament ended up coming down to a Wisconsin team led by a stretch-5 in Frank Kaminsky vs 4-out Duke with the more athletic Blue Devils emerging victorious.

Dukes victory points us towards the next evolution in the game, building 4-out teams that can play defense well enough to stop other 4-out teams. Golden State is also ahead of the pack here with their lineups of long wings that allow them to switch pick'n'rolls and avoid getting beat to the rim by athletic opponents.

Boston and Milwaukee are looking to accomplish the same result, fielding a team of long, athletes that can space the floor on offense and handle getting spaced out on defense. The days of elite Ds being the ones that put two true bigs on the floor may be over unless one of those bigs is also capable of playing on the perimeter ala Anthony Davis, Chris Bosh, or Serge Ibaka. Those teams will be at a major advantage.

Given the game's evolution towards this style, here is the ideal NBA roster construction for a 4-out team that can excel on offense with the spread pick'n'roll or on defense with a switching style:

Ingredient 1: The lead ball-handler

This is the player who takes the ball up the court, runs off high screens, and initiates the action for the offense. One major trait of 4-out basketball, particularly the kind that can switch on defense, is that this player doesn't have to be a traditional point guard.

In fact, it's best if he has enough size to guard a variety of different wing players so you can give him some rest on defense by putting him on a player that won't be moving around as much.

LeBron James is the ultimate example here, a 6'8", 260 pound freak that can guard every position on the floor and act as a point-forward on offense. James Harden would be an example of a player big enough to hide on a wing without getting punished.

The key is that this player can get to the rim and kick the ball out to other players.

Ideal examples: LeBron James, James Harden

Ingredient 2: The 6th man

This should actually be another lead guard, perhaps a younger player that's being developed behind the main ball-handler. Ideally he can also be hidden on multiple players on defense if he can play off the ball to allow lineups where both the lead guard and 6th man share the floor together, all the better.

That means an ability to be efficient on catch and shoot 3's.

Ideal example: Eric Bledsoe, Dwyane Wade

Ingredient 3: The perimeter stopper

The next few pieces to the puzzle are all going to be 3'n'D players of different shapes and sizes but hopefully all within the 6'4" to 6'10 range with good length and the ability to space the floor with shooting.

The perimeter stopper is the one that you put on the other team's main ball handler. His job is to mirror and harry that player all over the floor so that your own ball-handler doesn't have to.

Ideal example: Danny Green, Tony Allen (if only he could shoot!)

Ingredient 4: The wing stopper

This is your better of the two wings at guarding perimeter players that you bust out to handle teams that run their offense through a bigger, small-forward type rather than a cat-quick point guard or shooting guard.

He needs to be able to shoot 3's and space the floor, anything more than that on offense is pretty much gravy.

Ideal example: Kawhi Leonard, Greek Freak

Ingredient 5: The stretch 4

This guy is someone that can make things hard for a post player that you use if the other team likes to run offense through a player like Anthony Davis or Blake Griffin. He's long and athletic enough to switch on the perimeter but he can also front or bang with a post-up player.

On offense he needs to be able to shoot 3's and space the floor and be a good rebounder, particularly on defense but ideally on O as well. It's best if he can also attack the rim some off the dribble, or be a high screen partner if the other wing is particularly limited on offense.

Ideal example: Kawhi Leonard, Draymond Green

Ingredient 6: The rim protector and screener

Playing center for big men is becoming much simpler, you want to be the quarterback on defense that directs traffic and protects the rim and on offense you set good screens up top for the lead guard and then roll to the rim.

It's important that this player can guard a post-up center on another team without needing lots of double-team help or else an opposing 4-out team with a great low-post center will manage to space you out despite you fielding an athletic 4-out lineup of your own.

If those skills are present, you're set. Of course, there are additional skills that would also be nice to include. If this player has shooting range to pick'n'pop or play 5-out on offense, all the better. If they can post-up there's no harm in having that option.

If they are a dominant post-up player that you can surround with four shooters like Orlando did back in the day with Dwight Howard then you are really cooking.

On defense, you would need to ice or hedge on screens that involve this player instead of switching unless he has absurd foot speed like Anthony Davis, Andre Drummond, or the incoming Kentucky bigs Karl-Anthony Towns and Willie Cauley-Stein.

Ideal example: Andre Drummond, Tyson Chandler, Andrew Bogut, Tim Duncan

Ingredient 7: Someone that can post-up

It's best if at least one of the players mentioned above can be a player that the offense can run through while they're in the post. Teams are probably going to double the post less and less in the future with the understanding that even good post-up players are often too inefficient to justify leaving a 3-pt shooter wide open.

However, since your aim is to have as much length on your team as possible, if you have a player that can murder opponents with post-ups then you add another major dynamic to the offense and reduce options for the opponent.

This player could potentially be the 6th man rather than having another top lead guard on the roster, especially if the center can help space the floor.

Ideal example: Carmelo Anthony, Pau Gasol

Ingredient 8: Heat check player

This player wouldn't have to be a huge part of the team, but they could be involved in lineups where there isn't a need to lock opponents down with tons of defenders and the offense wants to really get things in high gear.

They could be one of the wings, or the 6th man if he's really good off the ball, all that matters is that they aren't a total hole on defense and they can come off screens and light people up.

Ideal example: JJ Redick, Kyle Korver

Fin.

Obviously you'd make an exception for a unique stars like Stephon Curry, who's only a solid defender and could be attacked by a big wing if you tried to hide him, or Dirk Nowitzki who's awful at defense but exceptional on offense.

Some teams even get rim protection from athletic wings, the main point is to make sure you are filling these roles.

Now assuming you had all these ingredients, you could play a variety of lineups to attack different types of opponents.

The main/defensive lineup:
Lead ball-handler
Perimeter stopper
Wing stopper
Stretch-4
Rim protector

The secondary lineups:
6th man
Perimeter stopper
Wing stopper
Stretch-4
Rim protector

Perimeter stopper
Heat check
Wing stopper
Stretch-4
Post-up player

Then the really nasty, crunch-time, blow them away lineups:

Blow them away with points
Lead ball-handler
6th man
Heat check
Perimeter stopper
Stretch-4

Post-up player
Heat check
Perimeter stopper
Wing stopper
Stretch-4

Crunch time, get the best and most versatile players on the floor
Lead ball-handler
6th man
Perimeter stopper
Best wing
Rim protector

This is the direction the game is clearly headed in, and players that don't have fits within this type of roster construction are going to need to have special abilities or else their value will drop.

Forces of change coming for the NFL

I wrote up a piece on how Chris Borland's retirement decision and Chip Kelly's success in the NFL both portend changes coming to the professional game.

Why more teams should offer greyshirts

The world of recruiting is a huge selling point in college football. It's essentially the free agency period combined with the draft but taking place on a 24/7, year round schedule that allows college football to be a year round sport to cover and follow.

However, because recruiting is such a popular thing to cover and follow it's easy for people to make some serious mistakes in understanding what's going on in the recruiting world and either over or under inflate the importance of different aspects of the process.

Most people get caught up in how the recruiting services that cover the activity rank individual players and team signing day classes, despite the obvious flaws in their rating process that call into question exactly how much value should be placed there.

Even teams' staffs will get caught up in creating "momentum" and hype for their recruiting by signing top ranked classes that will draw in the highly rated players and keep their program on the radar as an "it" school that big time prospects want to attend.

You don't want to be the school that the top players don't think is the trendy choice and have to rely on finding, evaluating, and recruiting other prospects.

But here's where the mistake is made: The lesser known prospects aren't necessarily worse or less talented than the well known, highly rated ones. They are just less well known. Coaches don't like to have to turn over rocks to find special players, make connections, and do all that work only to have the alumni and fans say "What???? You took some 2/3 star player while the rival got the 4/5 star kid???? Argh, you're on the hot seat now!!!"

It's a perception based market out there and enough big programs haven't won yet by being more discerning to encourage a money-ball style approach at the collegiate level. College football coaching is becoming more and more like the stock market with perception shaping the reality of who gets paid and who gets the opportunities.

Don't believe me? Take a look and see how many top jobs go to former offensive coaches and how many go to defensive guys. Offense is sexy, it sells stocks. Fans will be more patient that a team that scores big points will figure things out on defense than they will be that a strong defensive team will figure out how to score points on offense.

One of the casualties of this trading game is the greyshirt offer, quietly a fantastic weapon for teams to use to fill out their rosters with valuable contributors but largely ignored.

The way the greyshirt works is this: Let's take the last recruiting class year of 2015. Program X sees a player they think has potential long term but who doesn't have many or any scholarship offers from other top schools. They then offer that player a greyshirt scholarship, which means that the kid defers enrollment at the school until spring of 2016.

In the meantime? They lift weights, try to stay in shape on their own, attend a few community college courses on their own (but not a full load) and bide their time. Then they enroll in the spring with a full scholarship. Their eligibility clock doesn't start until they are in the fall of 2016.

If a player is 18 years old when they initially accept the offer but 19 when they arrive on campus in the fall of 2016, then redshirt another season, they might be as old as 23 or even 24 during their final season with nearly six full offseasons in the same program under their belt.

This has tremendous value to a football program, some of which is misunderstood. To be clear, the practice of oversigning players and then asking a kid who thought he had a full scholarship offer to play immediately to take a greyshirt offer instead at the last minute is not an acceptable practice.

Here are a few of the misconceptions and key points with this approach:

1) Youth may indicate upside but age is better for a college team

If you're a professional team that is looking to sign a player to a big contract in a league where the salary cap dictates roster formation, you generally want the younger player. Why? Younger players are less likely to be injury prone and have a higher likelihood of improving during their contract.

College football on the other hand is a totally different ball game. The 17 year old senior in high school who hasn't started shaving yet but has big potential is an exciting prospect for what he'll become over the next 4-5 years of his life as an athlete, but college teams are limited to that scope of time to actually derive value from that player on the football team.

While pro teams are looking to sign the 23 or 24 year old who's already started to reach their peak in hopes of having them on a value contract during their prime years, a college team only gets the very beginnings of those players' peak years. Both the pro and the college franchise want as big a slice as possible of the window of time when a player is 22-24 years old, starting to really figure things out, and has youthful energy and stamina.

Before that period those players are inexperienced and often injury prone at the college level since they haven't developed the mass and technique to thrive in a contact sport. After that period they again become injury prone while starting to decline athletically while also becoming more expensive to sign.

In the age of 5-star rankings and the occasional all-star freshman who comes to college with a pro-ready body, everyone wants the players who can contribute IMMEDIATELY. That helps optics, stocks go up, more top recruits join in, and coaches get paid.

But most players are going to be considerably better at age 22 or 23 than they are at age 18 or 19. As Michigan State is constantly demonstrating, the redshirted upperclassman is almost always a much better and stronger player than the underclassman, even if the latter was a 4/5 star recruit and the former was only a 2-star player.

With offensive lines in particular you will regularly find that the teams with experienced upperclassman across the line are the much better units than the ones with talented inexperience. Every team wants their two-deep in a given year to be loaded up with experienced upperclassmen who have been trained in the same schemes, same techniques, and same strength and conditioning programs for multiple calendar years.

So that greyshirt offer that allows you to get players on your roster who will be 23 or 24 and much more fully maxed out in potential when you need them to be the leaders of your team.

These players are much more physically mature, they are emotionally mature enough to be willing to put in the hard work in the film room or in the gym to get the most out of the senior years they've waited six years to play, and they are capable of executing much more complicated strategies. Who wouldn't want players like that on their team?

2. There are many overlooked players out there with big upside who will accept a greyshirt offer

The types of players that don't receive big time offers but would be willing to accept a greyshirt are numerous. The main point to remember here:

Recruiting and timing is particularly cruel to high school players who are just growing into their bodies and only have a couple of years as a 16, 17, or 18 year old to impress and earn opportunities.

Thanks to early recruiting, that window of time is starting to shrink to when players are only 16 or 17. Imagine having to set yourself up for major life opportunities at that point in your own life.

Just a few examples of the types of players who are overlooked and miss out in this process:

The player who was injured as a junior or senior in high school. 

This happens ALL the time, perhaps a player tears his knee as a junior just when he was about to show real promise. He plays reasonably well as a senior but is still recovering his flexibility and strength so he doesn't wow anyone and doesn't stand a chance of winning a spot on a roster when teams are filling up scholarship spots with early recruiting to make sure they don't miss on the top, well known prospects that make their stocks go up as a program.

Offer that kid a greyshirt to allow him to spend a year fully rehabbing and re-working his body to get into prime shape and you might have a superstar that no one knew about. Or at least a valuable role player. The hard part is finding the kid who showed enough promise or has some indicator about him that will demonstrate his potential. Finding those types of players takes hard work and a willingness to take risks. Coaches don't like to do that, it could make their stock go down.

The late-bloomer

Recruiting services don't like taking risks any more than coaches do. The kids that get 4/5 star rankings are the "sure things" who already demonstrate the athleticism and size necessary to be great in the college game when they are 16 or 17 years old. Of course, that's only a limited part of the population. What about the kid who grows a ton as a 17 year old and needs some time to get used to his virtually brand new body? What about the kid who is going to continue to grow while in college?

And that's just physically, there's also the mental side. Hassan Whiteside has been 7'1" with a 7'6" wingspan and a 31.5" vertical for a long time but it wasn't until he was a 25 year old fighting for a spot on Miami's roster that he put all that together and suddenly became one of the best defensive centers in the game.

How many kids are emotionally immature in high school and haven't touched their full potential because they need to grow up mentally first? Virtually all of them, some more than others.

The kid playing out of position

High school coaches aren't just trying to groom kids for college ball, they are trying to win football games so they can get paid. The position a kid plays in high school is the one where he helps his team win.

In high school there aren't a ton of massive 280 pounders that can dominate the trenches for a team, nor does a team need kids of that size to accomplish that task. If you have a powerful and athletic 200+ pound kid on your football team there's a good chance that you'll put him on the defensive line because that's where he can do the most damage.

Perhaps that kid has the athleticism, speed, and mental approach to be a dominant linebacker in college but that isn't apparent on his tape as a defensive tackle demanding double teams and freeing up your ferocious but undersized 180 pound linebacker to make plays he otherwise couldn't make at high school and would never make in college.

Well that might be the case but not just anyone would necessarily know it. High school coaches will often try to set kids up in positions where they'll have college scholarship opportunities, it does help them get paid to create opportunities for their kids just as it helps college coaches to get players drafted, but they may not have a choice if they want to win or they may not even realize where a kids' highest potential is.

The athletic kid playing out of position might accept a greyshirt offer as his best option, then you can give him all the time he needs to learn the new position.

The rural kid

Some kids just don't get evaluated closely and since recruiting services and coaches aren't interested in turning over rocks to find players that won't sell stocks, and these players often don't have the same opportunities. Especially if they don't play for a power program that shows up deep in the state playoffs, don't have absurd size that helps them stand out, and don't attend the skills camps where recruiting services congregate to learn about the players out there.

More than a few poor, rural kids have ended up being special talents once they got a chance in the spotlight after years of hard work.

3. Long-term growth is better than short-term optics

If a coach can stick around with the same program long enough he'll see dividends from taking the long-view towards development and recruiting. If you observe Kansas State's football program you'll notice that they get a lot of really talented walk-ons from within the state that end up playing huge roles for them down the line.

Why? Because for years they've made a commitment to their walk-on program that has yielded results and given them credibility. If you're a rural Kansas kid who's got an offer to a lesser school but believe in your own talent, you may very well go walk on for Bill Snyder and hope to earn a scholarship down the road.

Hard work early on makes things easier down the road when the overlooked players will seek you out and are eager to take a greyshirt for the chance to be a part of your program. If you are winning and developing kids guess who else will want to come to your school?

Instead recruiting often works much like with the national economy, where companies are afraid of being left behind by the other financial services who manipulate debt to create the appearance of big profits or who sell mortgages to people who will never be able to pay them off. No one wants to take the long view and try to build something that will yield major results deep into the future even though it's a much more likely way to produce a program that ultimately accomplishes what everyone wants.

Who wants to do that when the rival just won a bunch of games with a freshman starter and is now winning over all the top recruits in the area? You think the boosters getting rich off get-rich quick schemes are going to apply the long-term view towards their vanity project, the football team? What about the alumni who took on massive student loans and are now trying to live at their parents' standard of living with entry level jobs? They are the type to be willing to wait around for the football program to develop young players?

The biggest losers in all of this are the kids who have major potential but never have the chance to earn their stripes because everyone is caught up playing the wrong game. Teams that offer greyshirts could have a chance to do something different and special if they can convince their fanbase and alumni to show that most remarkable of skills...patience.

4 quick thoughts on the NFL's free agency period

It's the "silly season" for the NFL, and although I don't pay great attention to the league I've seen and heard a few things from the mainstream media that I've found either amusing or confusing.

It's important to remember that even in the sports media realm people are playing the politics game and that plays into how the media covers it as well as how front offices make decisions.

1. The hilarity of prospects improving their 40 times at pro day

I overheard some Michigan insiders this morning talking about how Devin Funchess could improve his draft grade by knocking his 40 time below the 4.7 mark he ran at the combine. This is probably one of the most ridiculous things about the evaluation process.

Funchess is who he is on the field. If he improves his 40 time from 4.7 to 4.65 it'll be through improving his technique for running the 40.

If he manages to run a 4.6 in Ann Arbor at Michigan's pro day that doesn't mean he's now going to be a faster runner when he's wearing an NFL uniform trying to beat a corner on a go route.

So why does anyone even care? Can't you tell from tape whether he's fast enough or not? The 40 time should only confirm what you can already see on tape. If teams are really changing their mind about whether Funchess is fast enough based on how he runs at his pro day they're either incompetent or strictly concerned with the optics of how it looks to their fans or the owner to draft him.

2. The NFL media's hostility to Chip Kelly

NFL media are typically NFL homers who worship the league and rely on sources within it to tell them how to understand what's going on within it.

NFL people don't like Chip Kelly. In two seasons he's completely overturned the way teams are managed and the way teams play on the field and made a lot of coaches look bad. You can win 10 games a year with Nick Foles or Mark Sanchez as your QB? That's a terrifying reality for other NFL coaches who have been completely incapable of doing anything of the sort.

There's a significant difference between coaching and coordinating a spread offense like Kelly's and a pro-style offense like what most other teams run. If Kelly's system takes hold in the NFL as a result of different owners realizing that they can put winning/ticket selling teams on the field without needing to hit the draft jackpot with a quarterback that means that more teams will hire spread coaches.

Many of the coaches and front office people currently in the NFL will not be able to handle that transition, and they'll be out of a job as the price of pro-style labor goes down to meet decreased demand.

They understand this and so they are eager to cast Kelly as a maniac who's trying to get back into college coaching "where he belongs." Once he's there they'll doubtlessly still criticize him, this time for not teaching his quarterbacks, whom all the fans will want them to draft, to run their schemes.

Ultimately the NFL owners use college football as a minor league system and their front office staff and coaches resent the fact that college football doesn't view itself that way and make its priority the teaching and development of NFL-style techniques.

All of this trickles down into the NFL media who then views Kelly with a jaundiced eye and goes to no effort to portray his moves positively.

"He's bringing aboard Mark Sanchez? What a joke, that'll never work!" Sanchez ended up going 5-4 while throwing for 7.8 yards per attempt, 14 TDs and 11 interceptions. Those were his best numbers as an NFL pro QB.

Now Kelly trades Foles for Bradford and it's "Foles is way better than Bradford! What is he thinking? That'll never work!"

Foles was only ever better than Bradford when playing in Kelly's system. I'm going to differ to Kelly's understanding of what will work in his system over that of the media who don't understand it and are fed hostile information about it every day.

3. The price of the proven veteran

The Patriots won the Super Bowl because they finally rebuilt their secondary into a unit that would allow Belichick to zero in on taking away the strengths of opposing offenses without giving up the world.

Of course, Revis' value was apparent after years of doing exactly that for the Jets and then demonstrating he still "had it" with the Patriots. He's actually not quite the lockdown machine he was in his New York days but he's still good enough to make life miserable for an opposing no. 1 target.

The problem? He's about to be 30 years old and the Jets offered him 39 million guaranteed in the first three years of the contract. Revis' athleticism is comparable to that of an NBA lead guard, what generally happens to those guys after they turn 30?

As wonderful a player as Revis has been, essentially as the anchor for an entire defense, the chances of him remaining that player aren't good enough to justify that investment. Unfortunately for New England, they've really struggled to draft and develop cornerbacks. Those pesky college programs just won't do their job and produce clearly superior DBs for Belichick to draft.

Perhaps the Patriots should invest more money in a DB coach, or Kraft could push for the NFL to create some kind of minor league system.

Unlike in Europe, there is zero incentive for NFL teams to invest in young athletes whom they have no guarantee of securing through the draft. If Manchester United wants young players to learn to play soccer a particular way they have U19 teams where they can pay them and teach them to do so. If New England can't find affordable players to run Belichick's coverages there's not much they can do about it.

4. The Cowboys' investments on offense

The Cowboys wisely determined that quarterbacks, even aging ones, are the players that winning teams build around because they are more likely to stay on the field in the modern era than running backs. Between that realization and Jerry Jones' terrible salary management that gave Romo all the leverage, they tied up a ton of money in their QB.

Then, they wisely invested in protecting him and setting the table for the rest of the offense by drafting multiple OL over the last few years and doing so very well.

Remember when the Texans decided to re-sign Arian Foster and allow their free agent OL to leave? How'd that work out for them? In 2012 before they re-signed him they went 12-4 but they've not won 12 total games in the two years since.

Arian Foster is doubtlessly a good back, but in 2012 he ran for 1424 yards and 15 touchdowns but has run for 1788 yards and 9 touchdowns in the two years since they re-signed him.

Right now the Cowboys have a great OL built on rookie contracts but they have to make some choices in free agency this offseason with their stud RB Demarco Murray and star WR Dez Bryant.

If they intend to keep building around Romo, they'll have to let Murray go in order to keep Bryant and maintain flexibility for the future when the OL that finally launched them to the top of the division is ready to get paid.

That flies in the face of what fans and media expect and tend to value, which is the star running back, but that player is simply not as important in the modern NFL. The Cowboys can build winning teams by re-investing that money on defense, preserving the OL that paved the way for Murray, and simply plugging in fresh meat for the grinder at RB.

7 instant reactions to the Super Bowl

Before the game I was reminiscing about the 2007 Patriots season that really cemented them as the league's heel. They were busted with "spy-gate" early in the year which immediately drew the attention and ire of a league that had been enduring beatings at the hands of Brady and Belichick all decade-long.

Then the Patriots responded to that negative attention by going into "F-you" mode for the season. They won their first two games 38-14 and started blowing out every opponent on the schedule with Tom Brady eviscerating opponents with his new favorite target, Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss. They finished the regular season undefeated and headed towards the perfect 19-0 season that had been deemed impossible in the salary cap era.

However, by the end of the year they were losing steam and were finally done in by that improbable helmet catch from David Tyree. Thinking back to that season, I thought "that's when the Patriots became everyone's least favorite team" and "I doubt we see anything that dramatic tonight."

Well, we came pretty close.

Here are 7 instant reactions to one of the better Super Bowls and season finishes of the last several years.

1. The Seahawks were lucky to be in position to win that game

That catch that gave Seattle the ball inside the 10 yard line...it was a great play by the receiver, but it was highly improbable. Had the safety realized the ball was live it could have just as easily been the game-ending interception. Credit to Seattle for being close at the end and there can be little doubt that a failure to run the dang ball on the goal line cost them the victory...but it would have been a cruel twist of fate for the Patriots to lose another Super Bowl on another improbable catch.

2. Credit the Seahawks for great roster building that allowed Chris Matthews to impact that game

When you build your team around a system, on offense and defense, rather than just trying to get the best "value picks" you end up with a system that can maximize everyone on the roster rather than the hodgepodge mixes that most teams build.

Drafting based on player value is the wrong way to build a team. It just is. It's not fantasy football and it isn't money-ball. Players depend on context in every sport but they particularly do in a sport that has 22 players on the field at all times. Teamwork matters, system matters, and chemistry matters.

It's because the Seahawks have a strong system and identity on offense and defense that they can plug in players off the street and find success.

3. There's no reason the Seahawks can't sustain their success

People assume that you can't maintain a great team in the modern salary cap era and it's been suggested in a few places that the Seahawks "struck gold" with their early drafts and won't be so lucky in the future.

These are probably the same people who ridiculed their 2012 draft when it happened and who wouldn't have guessed that Brady and Belichick would dominate for this long.

The fact that Seattle was able to pull in Chris Matthews off the street and have him get 100 yards and a touchdown in the Super Bowl is because they are fitting players into a strong existing system.

Does anyone really believe that Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, and Earl Thomas would have been this dominant if they were asked to perform in a different defensive system? The answer is no, they would not be this dominant. Carroll's Under front/Cover 3 defense is consistent from down to down and asks players to thrive in specialized roles. Each player has a chance to develop chemistry with their teammates and expertise in their techniques because they maintain simplicity and division of labor.

They aren't just grabbing "value" picks in free agency and the draft, they are getting players who will see their production multiplied by being plugged into a system.

4. Russell Wilson and the dual-threat QB

Wilson's ability to extend plays with his feet and then throw the ball downfield is absolutely brutal. The Patriots had a great plan to stop him but it failed at times for two reasons.

First, it's exhausting to contain a quarterback like that and chase him down and it's exhausting to cover receivers for all that time. You know what it's hard to do when you're exhausted? Tackle Marshawn Lynch.

Secondly, as long as he avoids negative plays like sacks or turnovers the big plays he generates are back breaking. If you can consistently get big plays you don't have to perform as efficiently as touchdown Tom. Wilson averaged 11.8 yards per pass, which is why the Seahawks nearly won that game despite Lynch's slow start.

4. The unique brand of Belichick-ball

Most teams try to play to their strengths on the football field and overwhelm an opponent by maximizing their own positive match-ups. That's why they draft based on value, hoping to score the best collection of match-up wins.

Belichick builds his team and makes his plans around the goal of attacking your weaknesses. He's practicing maneuver warfare in a sport where most teams follow 2nd generation tactics.

Belichick is a defensive coach but he attacks opponents both on offense and defense. The Patriots use motion, bunch formations, move their players to different positions, and attack every vulnerable spot on the field relentlessly. I'd guess that after Tharold Simon had to come in at cornerback that Brady threw for at least 150 of his 328 yards to receivers being covered by him.

The Patriots' results suggest Belichick's style is superior, for those that can match it.

5. Opposing teams are poorly equipped to match the Seahawks success or Belichick-ball

Why? Because sports are dominated today by "money-ball" executives that want to find market inefficiencies with numbers and draft boards, win without spending a ton of money, and be heralded as geniuses.

Here are the real market inefficiencies in football: Don't depend on having and maximizing the best match-ups to win a football game but instead build a system and attack your opponents.

6.. The game has been changed by the Patriots' accomplishment

Most defenses are designed with two primary aims: To stop the running game and to control an opponent's passing attack and force them to beat you by dinking and dunking their way down the field.

The Patriot offense managed to become so efficient at the quick passing game to the flats that they were able to do it, possess the ball for 33:46, score points in the red zone, and win the football game despite not getting many big passing plays or running the football well. They won the Super Bowl relying heavily on throws that modern defenses are designed to concede.

Not everyone is going to manage to immediately match the Patriots' proficiency in this style of offense but the game is changed when top defenses can be beaten all day in the flats.

7. White man football?

The topic that no one wants to talk about...the Patriots are one of the whitest teams in the league. Their quarterback is white, their entire OL is white, two of their top three receivers are white, their tight end and fullback are white, only the running backs and receiver Brandon Lafell are black.

So what does that matter?

Well, white players often struggle to compete with black players in contests of pure athleticism. People of West African descent just grow more fast-twitch muscle fiber, it's a genetic advantage. However, executing a quick passing game that requires quick thinking, short-area quickness, and coordination? I don't know that white athletes have any real advantages over black players in achieving these tactics, but they do have much more impetus to do so since a player like Julian Edelman can't match what a player like Dez Bryant brings to the field.

What matters is that this is a strategy that white players can thrive in, so you can be sure that they will attempt to do so.

This will probably be most pronounced at the high school level, where rural white towns have traditionally relied on "three yards and a cloud of dust" option run attacks. If those towns instead start to install quick passing attacks like the Patriots' system will the league become flooded by white slot receivers? How many Julian Edelmans are out there waiting to be developed?

It'll be interesting to see how the game's demographics or tactics change in response to the Patriots' success, unless you are made terribly uncomfortable by discussions of race and ethnic differences. In that event, it's unlikely that you'd find different communities within the US adapting to try and find success in the nation's most popular sport to be anything other than deeply unsettling.

It'll also be interesting to see if there is backlash against the Patriots' unusually high composition of the nation's other favorite modern villain, the white male.

Overall this was a fantastic game between two of the smartest franchises in the game. I can't understand people who don't enjoy watching Richard Sherman and the Legion of Boom dominate games with their mix of physicality and nuanced defensive play, or people who don't appreciate Tom's brilliance in the pocket or the way the Patriots constantly manufacture tiny advantages that ultimately set up their team for success.

Bison power football and Craig Bohl

Over at SB Nation I talk about how Craig Bohl, firmly entrenched in flyover country, is building dominant football teams around classic tactics like the Tampa-2 and the power run.

He's grabbing old school players from heartland regions and unleashing them in these tactics that have been tweaked just enough to maintain their potency in the midst of modern football. Pretty compelling achievement. Read about it.

More thoughts on the development of the nickelback position in college football

Over at Football Study Hall I've come up with some terms to describe the different types of nickelback players and the different tasks they tend to be successful in.