Football Mythbusters: Breaking Down "The Wildcat"

MYTH: “A year from now the Wildcat will be fading away, almost gone, another toy gone to the gimmick gravesite.” (Pete Prisco, June 9, 2009) FACT: The opposite is true.  Though the Wildcat formation lost some of its effectiveness last year when teams started run-blitzing it, it will come back stronger and be used by more teams this year. Just to clarify, I am referring to the Wildcat formation as run by the Miami Dolphins, not just any direct snap play.  For example, in Super Bowl XLIII, Willie Parker ran to the right on a direct snap where Roethlisberger was out wide to the left and there were three players on the right (I don’t remember if it was three WRs, or one TE and two WRs. I can’t find a video of this play anywhere to verify it either). It was obvious before the play even started that Parker was running to the right: There’s no way a team would make their QB block during the Super Bowl, because if he had gotten hurt, it would have been ... (link)