Football has changed a lot over the last couple of years. I remember the discussions when Dan Fouts was chucking the ball all over the place. People said it would not last because you need a good running game to win. Now you have Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Brees,..etc, that throw the ball and do not have a great running attack or a running attack at all.
Today it is the Pistol formation, which you can run your entire playbook out of, and people think it will be easy to stop. Look above, it was not easy to stop an all pass team, now you have guys like, Cam, RGIII, Wilson, Kap, all can run, but also have good arms and can burn a team that way. Look at College ball today, a lot of running QB's are being asked to throw the ball more, which means more QB's coming in the league with these talents.
I do not see it being stopped, but I do see it expanding and becoming a more used platform, and able to make better adjustments then the pure passing situations. DC's are on their heals on this one and could be for awhile. I expect in the next 4 to 5 years that scoring will be higher do to this new formation. It is much easier (and quicker) for an offense to make adjustments to defenses then the other way around.
The pistol will be around for awhile. We line up in it for most of our plays, but we only run the actual option play 15 to 20% of the time. This keeps the defense honest and keeps them guessing as to what is going to be run. Vick, Cam, Wilson, RGIII are too talented to make them one dimensional. You have to protect them the best you can, but you have to let their instincts take over and let them be themselves. The problem with all the years that the read option has not made it before is because the QB's were a run first player and did not have the passing ability to burn teams that committed to stop the run. This batch of QB's can hurt you if you are going all in to stop the option play.
