Nowadays more than 50% of NFL snaps are from the Shotgun. But let’s hop in the way-back machine and see what it was like back in the old days…
Many early formations used a snap to a player 5-7 yards behind the center. Below from left to right: Single Wing, Double Wing, Rockne Box, Short Punt, SMU Y formation
Sammy Baugh essentially ran the shotgun out of the double wing in the 1930s at TCU.
1939 Don Faurot at Missouri put QB Paul Christman further back in a modified short punt.
1942 Packers Single Wing QB threw a TD pass that the NFL put in the record books as “shortest forward pass” because the ball had been spotted 4 inches away from the goal line.
The Dutch Meyer Spread (examined fully in another chapter) is what became the “shotgun”. A big part of it was what is now called a Fly Sweep, one of the receivers motioning to the QB, arriving as the ball is snapped, and getting a handoff or fake.
~ research According to many sources, the Philadelphia Eagles QB Tommy Thompson ran something like the shotgun in the late 1940s. I’m not sure what they called it.
The Steelers ran the Single Wing thru the 1951 season and many of the pass plays were similar to shotgun. The 1956 NFL Championship Game Bears used a similar alignment for QB George Blanda and QB Ed Brown in passing situations due to Giants pass rush but lost 47-7.
George Halas and the Bears Spread:
According to a 1961 Sports Illustrated article:
The shotgun has been likened to the old Pop Warner double wing that was introduced at Stanford more than 30 years ago, but it has one major variation: there is no blocking back. Actually, it looks more like the short punt formation from a spread that numerous teams have used through the years when they were behind and thinking only of trying a pass for a desperation touchdown. George Halas, the founder of the Chicago Bears, used an approximation of the shotgun a generation ago, but it is Red Hickey’s shuttling quarterbacks who have given the shotgun the added charge it needed to be a success in the sophisticated ranks of the pros.
Don Faurot’s 1950 book Secrets of the Split T Formation mentions the Bears Spread offense. He describes it and says several college teams that were running the Bears T began running this as well. The QB aligned 10 yards deep. The two most popular passes (per Faurot) were to the Center and to the Left End on screens. Faurot proposes defensing it with what he calls a 4-4-2-1, a spread out 6-2 with a coverage close to a modern Cover 3 – below left is the offense and the defense he proposes. The Halas Spread alignment is similar to Tiger Ellison’s short-lived late 1950s Lonesome Polecat formation (illustrated here are the many route combinations, as this formation led to the “Run and Shoot” offense) – note only one player is in a different place from the Halas spread (one of the players on the right would be on the left behind the offensive linemen):
Left: Halas spread; Right: the Lonesome Polecat
Point being, many coaches over 60 or so years had aligned the primary ball-handler about 7 yards deep. But also, by 1960 the QB was a different position in terms of how it was played. Every once in awhile in football books from the 60s or so about this earlier era it will say “so and so ran the shotgun” so it seems to have been used to refer to a “modern” QB, who would pass or run, and while that player might be the punter (Sammy Baugh, etc), he would not use that same formation to punt. By now the game had evolved from the “when in doubt, punt” era of Heisman and others and teams only punted on 4th down, with the punter (especially when the punter began being someone other than the QB or a good passer or runner) usually lined up far deeper than a QB. At this point, there weren’t many punt fakes, so the focus of that play had changed from one of runs, passes, fakes to just getting off a good punt and covering the return.
And then, the 1960 49ers came along. and their head coach Red Hickey.
“It’s kinda like a shotgun, you just spread out and start firing.” – Red Hickey
Note: In all the sources I can find, Hickey seems to use “shotgun” to refer to the overall spread offensive scheme he was running, so in a way the shotgun for the alignment of the QB began as a misnomer. Regardless, writers and coaches began calling a QB 5-7 yards behind the center the “shotgun” regardless of where anyone else aligned. Hickey installed it and named it and according to many sources “invented” it. It’s primarily Dutch Meyer’s spread formation. Hickey unveiled it December 1960 in a win over the 2 time defending NFL champion Colts, 30-22. (This game is on YouTube)
Some sources say “John Brodie with no running backs” but that’s not really accurate, as the RBs were still on the field; they shifted or aligned to the wing and were used for handoffs and fakes. Brodie was in his 4th year, Waters was a rookie.
It’s the Dutch Meyer spread, the same formation Landry used later as his later shotgun. Here’s an illustration of it from Lombardi’s playbook; he called it “Yellow” (he named his formations after colors).
They seemed to shift to it mostly from Red Right. Each split back would go to the wing to his side, and the TE would split out to the right slot. Often Y was on the LOS, not W as above. LHB is H, FB is F, RHB is W. (Olderman, p 341).
There was lots of motion, often using one back in motion, faking to him and running Power O with the other back. Lots of rollout passes, often with pulling Guards for protection.
They used it more in 1961 after Hickey spent the offseason preparing to run it more. Hickey traded away QB Y. A. Tittle and power backs Joe Perry and J. W. Lockett. He converted Abe Woodson from defense to offense to run the ball. The ‘60 version with just Brodie at QB was defeated by the Vikings, so Hickey changed more. Beginning in Week 3, rookie Billy Kilmer (17), Bobby Waters (11), John Brodie (12) all rotated at QB.
~ An October 16, 1961 Sports Illustrated article “Bang Goes the Shotgun” by Alfred Wright describes it: Each of the three 49er quarterbacks is on the San Francisco payroll this year specifically because he can operate out of the shotgun as well as the standard T. Yet each is different from the others. Brodie is a splendid passer and can run a little if he has to. Kilmer is a wonderfully brave and deceptive runner but completely unpredictable and an uncertain passer. Waters is fast enough to be used as a defensive back. He can also throw a good pass and is self-assured enough to have earned the nickname “Cool” Waters. “Red [Hickey] shuffled them in and out so fast that they mixed up our defensive keys,” Detroit Coach George Wilson complained later. “Brodie ran once and passed 12 times. Kilmer passed seven times and ran 16. Waters ran seven and passed once.” (page 36)
In The Pro Style, author Tom Bennett illustrates Kilmer with a back to each side running a shovel pass to the strong side.
Revolutionary, huh? Well, by the end of October 1961 the offense had been figured out and shut down by Clark Shaughnessy, defensive coordinator of the Bears. Shaughnessy ran all sorts of defensive fronts, ranging from a 3 man line to a 7 man line and rushing between 4 and 7 defenders. He used some A gap blitzes. Soon after this game, some bad snaps followed and the 49ers completely stopped using the shotgun.
Washington used it sporadically in the 1960s. The Jets used the shotgun for an immobile Joe Namath in 1971 and 1976.
Hickey began working for the Cowboys in 1966 and spent two decades there. 1975 Cowboys HC Landry and assistant Mike Ditka thought Roger Staubach needed the protection with a young roster and Landry believed if it was a passing situation (3rd downs and 2 min drill), the QB might as well be in the shotgun. Roger Staubach threw the first “Hail Mary” in the 1975 playoffs versus Vikings out of the shotgun. One concern of Landry’s about the shotgun formation was that if you’re gonna put the RBs up close to the line, you might as well send them out on pass routes, in which case you only have 5 potential blockers: 1974 the Cowboys had missed the playoffs for the first time in 9 years and were expected to be worse in ‘75. With the shotgun they went to the SB in ‘75, ‘77, ‘78 (winning in ‘77, losing the other 2 to the Steelers). Landry said it was the old “double wing or triple wing”.
1980 Bills HC Chuck Knox, yes, “Ground Chuck,” used it on 3rd and long.
1981 Bill Walsh didn’t like the shotgun. The first time he tried it, 49ers at Lions, the OL couldn’t hear Montana. The ball was snapped over Montana’s head, “so we had to drop it right away”.
Sidebar: The first game the author remembers seeing the shotgun – in the first complete football game the author watched, as a wee lad of 8 years old – was January 1987, John Elway, The Drive.
1988 According to NFL Films short The Shotgun Formation, 14 teams ran it in “passing situations”.
1990 Falcons HC Jerry Glanville installed a shorter shotgun with RB directly behind the QB. Glanville ran a variation of the Run and Shoot called the “Red Gun” sometimes run from this shotgun with an offset back to the side the QB would “half roll” to. This tendency was far too easy for defenses, so Glanville put the RB directly behind the QB so the RB could protect to either side. The depth of the QB ws slightly deeper than the later Pistol created by Chris Ault. In 1991 Glanville hired June Jones as OC; Jones put the QB back under center.
1999 Michael Taylor of Mill Valley ran an offense called the “Shotgun I”, which was essentially a Strong Pistol or Weak Pistol but [as opposed to the more common modern use of the offset back as a blocking back] in this offense both backs were ball-carriers.
In 2004, NFL teams used the shotgun less than 15% of the time, now it’s used more than 50% of the time. The turning point was the 2007 Patriots, the first team to use the shotgun more than 50% of the time.
Whiskey Over Milk 