Five times during Sunday's game against the Jets, Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco lined up at receiver while a speedy backup quarterback took the snap. The play flopped four out of five times. "I'm just not a huge fan of it," Flacco said Tuesday, likening that play to "a high school offense."

That experience might seem to illustrate that newfangled plays in the NFL go over like New Coke. But the truth is more depressing than that. Except maybe to Rip Van Winkle, the quarterback switcheroo isn't new, having made its NFL debut at least five years ago. It even has a well-established name: the Wildcat offense.

Baltimore just waited five years to go long on it, and on the conservative scale, the Ravens are pretty typical.

Still, a question arises: Are there any new wrinkles this year that might make their way to Baltimore by 2018?

Reverse Course

St. Louis receiver Tavon Austin reversed course and ran for a 65-yard touchdown against Chicago. NFL

The answer is yes, and Exhibit A is a play we'll call the Tavon Austin. It unfolded Sunday in the Rams' drubbing of the Bears, and it solved a problem well known to Chicago, a problem that might be called the Devin Hester: How do you get a superfast kick returner involved in the offense?

The Rams lined up with Austin on the right, the other receivers on the left. Austin, a rookie receiver/kick returner out of West Virginia, went in motion to his left and took the handoff, looking poised to follow a phalanx of blockers to the left.

Then he did something unheard of: He reversed course and ran right, with only one blocker changing course with him. The rest pushed forward, continuing a hard sell on the fake.

Had only one defender sniffed out the play, the Rams could have lost 10 yards. But Chicago didn't know what had hit it until Austin had run 65 yards for a touchdown.

The Blitzless Wonders

Seattle, meanwhile, has introduced what might be called the no-blitz defense. That may sound like a quarterback's dream until you stop to think that it leaves seven defenders to guard against receivers.

The Seahawks have held opposing quarterbacks to the worst quarterback rating in the league, 68.7.

This strategy wouldn't work, of course, if the opposing quarterback had endless time to find a receiver. But Seattle's unusually talented front four are led by sack artists Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett. who have 6.5 sacks each.

And when there is the occasional blitz, it's serious, featuring up to seven rushers and startling the offense so completely that a safety-depleted backfield poses no risk. Either the quarterback goes down or he throws it away.

Seattle reserves a major blitz for perfect times, especially late in tight games, making sure quarterbacks aren't prepared for it.

One linebacker, Bobby Wagner, has blitzed only 5% of his snaps this year. Yet he has collected 2.5 sacks. That would be a good number for a linebacker who was rushing the quarterback on every down. By hanging back and helping with coverage, Wagner has grabbed two interceptions.

Less is More

When a new play works—as the read option did in 2012—teams tend to run it into the ground, raising a question: Does Pearl Jam play "Even Flow" 35 times per concert? In the read option, a quarterback takes the handoff, reads one player (usually a defensive end) and either keeps the ball or gives it to a running back. The problem is, defenses spent all spring and summer studying the tactic and any team who relied on it was mostly smoked out within the first few weeks of the season.

Carolina's read option, led by Cam Newton, is as psychological as it is physical. Getty Images

But as the Carolina Panthers showed Sunday, the play still works when used sparingly, and when set up perfectly. Against the Miami Dolphins, Carolina ran essentially the same formation on four straight plays. Quarterback Cam Newton stood in shotgun formation with a running back beside him. Three plays in a row, he made a simple handoff to the running back, who ran to the opposite side. The three plays gained 12, nine and two yards.

The offensive line had as much to do with selling these plays as Newton. The linemen exploded off the line with such vigor that the defensive line had to commit entirely to shedding Carolina's blocks. On the fourth play, with the Dolphins' defensive line angry, Carolina lined up in the same manner as the previous plays, with a running back to Newton's left. The play started with Newton motioning for a handoff, and the Dolphins bit with enthusiasm. Newton kept the ball. He was running a read option. No one touched him as he ran five yards into the end zone. Carolina's read option is as psychological as it is physical.

By-Ground Pack Attack

The past three seasons, the Green Bay Packers never finished in the top 20 in rushing. This year they rank fifth. Sure, that is in part the influence of rookie star Eddie Lacy.

And yeah, the breaking of quarterback Aaron Rodgers' collarbone made running a necessity for the Packers.

But there is also a less visible factor. In NFL offensive schemes, so-called zone blocking has become the norm, and until this season that was the case for the Packers. The idea is simple: linemen block a zone, not a particular man.

But this year, Packers coach Mike McCarthy decided to mix it up, even before the Rodgers injury.

Watch closely, and you'll notice on some plays that the Packers "pull" their guards, an old-fashioned tactic that startles any defense lined up to stop the zone scheme. In a zone-blocking offense, guards just don't pull.

When a team prepares to defend against a zone-blocking offense, it scraps exotic maneuvers designed to beat man-to-man blocking. For instance, it gives up crisscrossing defensive tackles.

The Packers' marriage of zone and man concepts ensures they will always face a vanilla defensive front—and that defense will be slightly off balanced.

A good example of this happened on Sunday during the Packers' comeback to gain a tie with the Vikings. Minnesota was forced to line up in a basic, flat-footed defense that couldn't anticipate any particular style of attack. Lacy took the handoff while guard T.J. Lang "pulled" from the right side to the left, where he mauled Vikings linebacker Audie Cole. Lacy gained 17 yards.

There was no help on that side because fellow linebacker Chad Greenway misread the blocking and was frozen on the other side of the field.

Mixing the two blocking schemes isn't complicated—but it works.

Write to Kevin Clark at