Opposed Systems Design

The Patriots run their no-huddle offense like no other team. They don’t necessarily start a quarter or a particular series with it. Tom Brady just steps on the gas when the time’s right.
While it may seem like he flips in-and-out of the hurry-up on a whim, there’s a method to the madness. 

...Tempo and pace are the trademarks. The Pats have regular speed, faster speed and warp speed. Their purpose is to daze, confuse and exhaust opponents. Usually, it works like a charm.

Classic signs of operating within an opponent's OODA loop.  Changes occur faster than the opponent can process, causing them to fall behind.  By the time they take action, it is too late; they are chasing ghosts.

So will the aging Ravens defense, on the field a ton the past two weeks, keep up with the “gimmick” offense, as linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo tweeted in respect to the Patriots? Will they stay with the “borderline illegal” offense, as Jets linebacker Calvin Pace referred to the no-huddle in an ESPNNewYork.com story before the two teams met Thanksgiving night? Will the Ravens be so gassed they won’t be able to get back to the line, much less make a play on the regular snaps, as opposed to the quick snaps? 

If your opponent doesn't think what you're doing is fair, then that is a good sign for you.  In war, you never want to be fair.  In sports, you want as much advantage as you can squeeze from operating within the rules.

Even the younger Texans weren’t very good at handling the Pats’ up-tempo attack. During Sunday’s divisional round victory, by the third quarter Brady was playing them like puppets. On back-to-back plays, they weren’t set when the ball was snapped, caught when Brady rushed the team to the line. The first resulted in a 23-yard gain by Stevan Ridley to set up a first-and-goal from the 5. The ball was barely placed down when Brady once again hurried the team to the line for another quick snap and throw to Brandon Lloyd, who walked into the end zone before the Texans knew what hit them. 

“You don’t know when you’re getting it. That makes it even harder,” ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck said of the Pats’ hurry-up during a phone interview Monday. “When is that curveball coming? When is that changeup coming? When are we going to get it? Then you’ll get it when you have a personnel grouping out there that the Patriots want to attack.”

Note that this isn't speed for speed's sake, nor is it about going fast all the time.  If you aren't making better decisions than your opponent, operating fast will just cause you to make lots of bad choices.  Furthermore, if you always operate at the same speed, then that provides a fixed target to which your opponent can adapt.  Operating inside of an opponent's OODA loop is about modifying tempo to your advantage; using speed as a weapon to disorient your enemy.  Or, in the words of an NFL commentator:

The NFL Network’s Solomon Wilcots, a sideline reporter for CBS on Saturday’s Ravens-Broncos telecast, believes the Pats use the no-huddle at strategic points, and it wears on teams mentally as well as physically.

Mental dislocation.  It is stressful.  It makes it difficult to process information, making you more prone to errors.  That's why you want to do it to your opponents.

“They do it in situations where they just made a big play. Now they want to run down there while you’re still trying to figure out what happened on that play, and guys are pointing fingers. Then they get up to the line and snap the ball,” Wilcots said. “Theirs is kind of situational. They speed it up at a moment of crisis or a moment of conflict or a moment of question, so it’s not just to tire another team. It’s to gain an advantage in terms of another team being discombobulated or whatever, maybe not quite organized. 

Note that tempo can be used to reinforce success.

“It’s like when a boxer hits you with a jab and you’re stunned. Then you come with a flurry,” Wilcots went on. “Well, they come with a flurry of plays. They’re controlling the game where psychologically, you can’t gather yourself. It can really cause more mental stress than physical stress.” 

...Yet, Jaworski still doesn’t know when it’s coming. 

“I have not found any trigger to when they decide to go to it,” he said. “They could be in the middle of a drive, and all of a sudden, there they go.”

Again, patterns can be exploited by adaptive adversaries.  If they can't predict what you will do, then that helps you operate inside their OODA loop to fold them back on themselves.

Jaworski then pointed to the win against Denver, when the Pats kept lead sack man Von Miller on the sideline a lot of the time because the Broncos weren’t able to substitute him back in while the Pats were in hurry-up mode. That’s another plus.

Using tempo to shape adversary forces.  When you find the enemy in a vulnerable position, use tempo to keep him in the vulnerable position.

Hasselbeck also made two interesting points. It’s hard for scout teams to emulate the kind of pace the Pats bring, and that creates a preparation problem. Second, like Jaworski, he can’t help but be impressed at how well Brady runs the operation, so quickly and seamlessly.

Again, if adversary's can't train to it, then it is easier for the Pats to create novelty during the game to confuse and stress their adversary's decision-making.

“They have to do it in a manner that doesn’t alert (the other team) they’re going to do it and snap the ball right away,” Hasselbeck said. “To get that communicated to everybody, so that everybody operates with that same sense of urgency to get that snap off, it’s a fire drill, and then (to) not have mistakes off of it, that’s the other impressive end of it. 

A reminder that in order to fully exploit the strategic advantages of tempo, one's own forces need to be unified.  They must operate with a sense of purpose and be able to rapidly adapt.  Shared orientation and high motivation within your side helps you break your opponent's orientation and sap his will.  If you can't get a good play off quickly, then you won't reap any strategic advantage from pushing the tempo.  You'll just be making mistakes more quickly.

This article does a masterful job describing the master class that the Patriots have been putting on how to exploit the OODA loop.  If you appreciate Boyd's work, then you should root for the Patriots if only for the beauty of watching tempo being used to such great effect.

[As a postscript, one might ask "why don't other teams just do the same thing the Pats?"  The reason why they haven't yet is because it is very hard.  It helps to have a QB who has mastered the idea but it is useless without a team trained to do this.  One couldn't just grab a bunch of conscripts and say "we're going to do maneuver warfare - go!"  Shared orientation is built through shared experience, exercise and learning to create trust.  One cannot simply will that into being, nor can one create it quickly.]