Packers sweep
The Packers sweep is based on the sweep, a football play that involves a back taking a handoff and running parallel to the line of scrimmage before turning upfield behind lead blockers. Vince Lombardi used the play as the foundation on which the rest of the team’s offensive game plan was built. The phrase “running to daylight” was later coined to describe the freedom the ball carrier had to choose where to run the play.
About Packers sweep in brief
The Packers sweep is based on the sweep, a football play that involves a back taking a handoff and running parallel to the line of scrimmage before turning upfield behind lead blockers. The play became noteworthy due to its extensive use by the Packers in the 1960s, when the team won five National Football League Championships, as well as the first two Super Bowls. Vince Lombardi used the play as the foundation on which the rest of the team’s offensive game plan was built. The phrase “running to daylight” was later coined to describe the freedom the ball carrier had to choose where to run the play. Various options and changes to the sweep have been implemented to create further deception, such as running option pass plays out of the same formation, changing which blockers pull from the line, and running the play towards different areas of the field. The Packers sweep, as it became known, was the Green Bay Packers’ lead play and became the epitome of team play. It is now considered one of the most famous football plays in history.
Lombardi’s first NFL coaching job came in 1954, when he accepted an assistant coaching job for the New York Giants. It was with the Giants that Lombardi first implemented the principles that became the Packers sweep. The sweep can be run out of multiple formations and go either left or right of the center, and usually gives the runner the choice to follow the lead blockers inside or outside, depending on how the defense reacts. The first time Lombardi witnessed the success of the sweep was when Jock Sutherland’s University of Pittsburgh teams used the sweep extensively against his team in an era when the single-wing formation was used almost universally. He moved Paul Hornung to the halfback position permanently and made him the primary ball-carrier for the sweep. In 1959, Lombardi accepted a head coaching and general manager position with the struggling Green BayPackers. He immediately instituted a rigorous training routine, implemented a strict code of conduct, and demanded the team continually strive for perfection.
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This page is based on the article Packers sweep published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
