Picture yourself as a linebacker in an NFL defense playing against the Patriots at the peak of their dynastic powers.
Patriots Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady is under center. To his right in a three-point stance is a 6-6, 265-pound tight end: he can block like an offensive tackle, his catch radius is enormous, he’s deceptively fast, and he’s a runaway freight train in the open field. Brady calls for the snap and the backside guard pulls. The hulking tight end releases and Brady turns around to hand the ball off to the running back — everything screams it’s a run as you come downhill at the line of scrimmage.
But it’s not a run. Instead, Brady fakes the handoff and it’s a play-action pass. Now the tight end is running past you to climb over the second level of the defense. He reads the coverage shell. If it’s a single-high safety, he takes his route across the field, and before you know it, Brady whips the ball to him on a crossing route, and now a 6-6, 265-pound hulk is moving at full speed in the open field. Frankly, you’re screwed.
The scenario we just described happened countless times during soon-to-be inducted Patriots Hall of Famer Rob Gronkowski’s illustrious career. To unlock Gronk’s elite catch-and-run skills, New England’s coaches installed a play called Charles Barkley. Barkley was one of several NBA legends the Patriots named plays after, including Michael Jordan, with Charles Barkley being the quintessential Gronk play.
“When [Rob] Gronkowski goes into the Hall of Fame, which he will, half of his yardage probably came on Charles Barkley,” Belichick said. “It was a play-action pass and we ran it almost in every game, probably sometimes a couple times in the game, usually in key situations. We faked the running play, we pulled a guard, and the linebackers came forward on the fake. Tom [Brady], as soon as he came off the fake, would just turn around and whip the ball to Rob. The linebackers are caught up in the line and just couldn’t get back quick enough and Rob would get in there behind them. It really was an unstoppable play.”
Over the years, Charles Barkley, or counter-hot, has evolved to run it from different personnel groupings and formations. The original Charles Barkley was run out of three-receiver ’11’ personnel, with a “whirl” combination on the outside (curl-wheel). Gronkowski’s route also had a route conversion, with the legendary tight end running a crossing route against a single-high safety while splitting the seams if the defense was playing with two-high safeties. Now, New England runs the counter-hot action more out of base personnel.
“The protection long ago had a ‘C’ and an ‘H’ in it, so we’d give a term to the entire play so we didn’t have to say a long-winded version of that concept: we didn’t have to say the formation, the protection, the route, and everything else. We would just shorten them down. So, whether that was Charles Barkley or Chuck Norris or Charlie Sheen or Charlie Brown or whatever,” said offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. “(Charles Barkley) ended up being a very popular thing for us. I think it married a lot with what we were doing in the running game. The fact that [Gronkowski] was able to give us the ability to run the runs that came off of those protections and those passes was a huge part of being able to be productive in the passing game too. A lot of coaches have told me they call it the Gronk route in other buildings.”