Go into the classroom with Suds and take in depth look at the fundamentals of the game.
Positions (Cont.)
Ends
No position on the line—or in football, for that matter—has changed more than the end. In fact, except in the case of tight ends or defensive ends, they’re not even called ends anymore. But rest assured, they still exist in every play out of any formation (remember, every line has two ends).
While many people credit Packers great Don Hutson for inventing the wide receiver position, that position didn’t exist when he played in the 1930s and ‘40s. Hutson was an end—specifically, left end. In his day, ends didn’t even line up wide; they were tight to the formation, no more than a few feet outside the tackle. It’s been speculated that Hutson would have set even more formidable records had he been split out wide, as he surely would have been in the offenses of later years.
When teams started splitting ends out wide—usually only one of them—the wide receiver position was invented, though it still wasn’t called that. Now teams had two types of ends: the tight end and the split end.
Tight End
The term “tight end” wasn’t used until the 1960s. The first Packer listed as a tight end was Ron Kramer in 1962. (Prior to that, he was simply listed as an end and played on the right side.)
As the name implies, the tight end is lined up tight to the formation, just outside one of the tackles. He is a combination lineman and receiver, acting as a blocker in the run game and a receiver in the passing game. Some tight ends, as we all know, are more adept at one or the other; Marcedes Lewis is arugably the best blocking tight end in football, while players like Keith Jackson and Jermichael Finley were just big receivers who were not known for their blocking.
Split End
In the 1950s some teams began “flexing” one of their ends out wide to better set him up for success in the passing game. Packers Super Bowl I hero Max McGee was listed as an end; like Hutson years earlier, he played left end…but unlike Hutson, McGee was usually split out wide. As mentioned earlier, this was the birth of the wide receiver position.
In the passing game, the split end is typically designated as the X receiver; the tight end is the Y receiver. If the offense features both a tight end and a split end, the side with the tight end is called the strong side of the formation.
Hybrid Receivers
A couple of offensive positions—one ubiquitous at every level of the game, the other much less so—evolved at least partially from the end position. While at least half of the time they line up in the backfield, making them part of the next installment of this series, they are primarily receivers, which was the most important role of the end as an eligible offensive player. Accordingly, we will address them at least partially in this section.
Wide Receiver
One of the most high-profile positions in football didn’t exist for roughly the first 50 years of the game. Football had traditionally been played in a tight formation; the seven men on the line were pretty close together, and those in the backfield were aligned in various arrays behind them.
Curly Lambeau virtually invented the forward passing game, and had a string of passers over several decades who could deliver precise throws to a variety of ends and backs…all working out of his compact Notre Dame Box offense, which would ironically become obsolete before the passing game really took off across the league. As the game got more vertical, formations became more horizontal; ends were split out wide, as were backs who previously had lined up on the wing. It was the birth of the wide receiver, even though the term had not yet been coined.
This new role was filled by two distinct positions: a split end on the line of scrimmage on the weak side of the formation, and a flanker (formerly a halfback or wingback) lined up wide outside and behind the tight end on the strong side. Now the X (split end) and Y (tight end) were joined by the Z (flanker). In this array, the X and the Z are the wide receivers, and the Y position would likewise evolve in future years.
H-Back/F Tight End
When Joe Gibbs coached at Washington in the early 1980s, he developed a position known as the H-back. Designed partially to counteract the success of the New York Giants’ linebacker Lawrence Taylor against his offense, this second tight end was used in place of a traditional halfback to complement quarterback Joe Theismann and fullback John Riggins (the primary runner). Lined up in the backfield, he would provide added protection to Theismann, help open up rushing lanes for Riggins, and add another large target in the passing game.
The letter H means nothing; it simply coincided with the “H” designation used for the halfback in offensive playbooks. The same position used by Norv Turner was called the F-back (as in fullback) and used to complement his halfback. Packers head coach Matt LaFleur calls this position the F tight end in contrast to the traditional in-line Y tight end position played by Marcedes Lewis. The only difference is that the men playing this hybrid TE/FB position (Josiah Deguara, Dominique Dafney) are listed as tight ends, not backs…which we will break down in our next installment.
