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Nobody relies on the double formation more than Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.



ESPN Stats & Information tracks every snap and notes the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts favor the formation — single back, two receivers to each side — more than any other NFL team.



A standard look from the double formation would be a wideout and slot receiver to one side and the tight end and a wideout to the other side.



The Patriots have operated out of the double formation 268 times, or 49 percent of their 552 plays from scrimmage. They’re averaging 6.4 yards a play.



The Colts have gone double an NFL-high 354 times on 47 fewer snaps, or 70 percent of the time. They have amassed 2,323 yards out of double, an average of 6.6 yards per play.



But Indy’s average doesn’t lead the league. The Dallas Cowboys have averaged 9.1 yards on their 144 plays in the double formation. The San Diego Chargers have averaged 7.5 yards on their 104 plays.



The Arizona Cardinals are a distant third with 189 plays out of the double formation.



I was in the Buffalo Bills‘ locker room on Wednesday, so I stopped by backup quarterback Gibran Hamdan‘s stall to get his take on why the double formation suits Brady and Manning.



The Patriots visit the Colts on Sunday night in Lucas Oil Stadium.



“It’s about being blessed enough to keep a system in place for a long period of time,” Hamdan said. “They’ve built a whole package around the formation.”



Hamdan, who took part in the NFL’s Broadcast Boot Camp over the summer, has a bright future as an analyst. He’s one of those guys who makes you feel smarter for speaking with him.



“You can ask a lot of quarterbacks, and they feel good about certain formations,” Hamdan said. “The key to it is those two guys like it. They know the intricacies of that formation, and they’ve seen pretty much everything a defense can do to them.



“Once you’ve seen all the looks, now you’re just letting the players’ ability to take over. Then you get into a feel and a rapport between the quarterback and receiver that happens when you play for a long period of time and run a formation like double over and over and over.”



Hamdan noted the Bills’ double formation often has Lee Evans split out and slot receiver Josh Reed to the left, with tight end Derek Fine and receiver Terrell Owens on the right.



New England’s version might have Randy Moss and Wes Welker on the weak side, Chris Baker and Sam Aiken on the strong side.



“There’s versatility,” Hamdan said. “You can create things on both sides of the field, so symmetry definitely creates a versatility that maybe a three-by-one formation would lack.”



It also comes down to precision. Hamdan pointed out neither team offers much variety out of the double formation.



“Turn on their film,” Hamdan said. “They’re not running that many plays out of that formation. They just know what they’re doing and execute it.”



In case you were curious what formations are popular with the other AFC East teams, the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets rank third and fifth in most plays out of a backfield set (two running backs). The Dolphins have used two backs on 48 percent of their snaps. The Jets have done so on 47 percent.



The Dolphins, of course, lead the league in Wildcat (any player other than a quarterback takes the snap). They’ve made 76 Wildcat attempts, more than three times as often as the next team on the list, the Philadelphia Eagles.



The Bills most frequently operate out of a trips formation (single back with three receivers to one side). They’ve run it 191 times, third-most in the NFL. They also rank 11th in the double formation with 160 plays.



The Patriots have run an empty set (only a quarterback in the backfield) 45 times, three fewer than the league-leading Houston Texans.

Video: Phillip Rivers should outperform Donovan McNabb; Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Palmer could be in a defensive struggle and more. (NBC Sports)

Nov. 12: Phillip Rivers should outperform Donovan McNabb, Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Palmer could be in a defensive struggle and more. (NBC Sports)

Posted by ESPN.com’s Mike Sando



Ten consecutive Pro Bowls and a Hall of Fame career with the Chicago Bears left 49ers coach Mike Singletary understandably wistful heading into the Bears-49ers game Thursday night.

Singletary

Did I say wistful?



Sorry about that. Meant to say wishful, as in hoping the reunion talk might just go away.



“It is the next game on the schedule,” Singletary told Bay Area reporters, leaving it at that.



The 49ers need to win a game and Singletary, now 8-9 as head coach after four consecutive defeats, isn’t in the mood for reminiscing. His team has fallen to 3-5, two games behind the Cardinals in the NFC West race. Reliving old Bears memories isn’t going to fix an inconsistent offense or patch defensive wounds opened by the Titans’ Chris Johnson.



“The Bears will always be a team that I love,” Singletary told Chicago-area reporters via conference call. “So many friends, family, memories.”



Singletary faced the Bears at Soldier Field twice as an assistant, first with the Baltimore Ravens in 2005 and again with the 49ers in 2006. The Bears won both games.



“The first time I played the Bears when I first got to San Francisco, coming to Soldier Field, with all the excitement, it was a bit overwhelming,” he told Chicago-area reporters. “I’m glad this is not the first time I’m playing the Bears because that would be tough. Now that I’ve played them a couple of times, it’s just a matter of going out and competing against a good football team.”



Singletary labors to stay a step ahead of his emotions. It’s an ongoing battle. When the 49ers lost narrowly at Houston in Week 7, Singletary needed extra time to gather himself. He pushed back his postgame news conference until after players were finished with their media obligations.



The 49ers’ most difficult defeat of the season — at Minnesota in Week 3, when Brett Favre‘s heroics in the final seconds gave the Vikings a 27-24 victory — produced the type of impassioned rant made for NFL Films.



“Stop looking at the floor!” he yelled at players in an otherwise silent locker room. “We didn’t steal anything, we didn’t do anything wrong, OK? We’re going to get better. We are going to get there. We will see them again — in the playoffs!”



Perhaps not without a victory over the Bears.



The emotions that fueled Singletary during his playing career and helped make him a Bears legend have turned him into a captivating figure and the face of the 49ers.



“We want winners!” he famously said last season, producing one of several sound bites that have played into various marketing plans.



And yet Singletary seems to occasionally be weary of being the dominant NFL storyline in San Francisco. He knows what it represents in the bigger picture: a failure by his team to overshadow him. He looks forward to a time when his players command the focus through their achievements. He realizes that cannot happen until the team starts winning.



I think that partly explains why Singletary hasn’t embraced his Bears legacy heading into his first game against Chicago as an NFL head coach.



He wants winners, yes, but right now he needs one win to break a four-game slide.

	Getty Images
	Bengals cornerbacks Leon Hall and Johnathan Joseph will have a challenge this weekend keeping Pittsburgh’s deep receiving corps in check.

Posted by ESPN.com’s James Walker



Never one to mince words, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer made a strong statement this week about Bengals cornerbacks Johnathan Joseph and Leon Hall.



“I don’t know of a better tandem,” Palmer said. “The two guys in Green Bay are really good, but I don’t think I would take either of those guys over our guys. Our guys are young, fast and physical.”



It took a 6-2 start by the first-place Bengals for people outside of Cincinnati to realize what Palmer already sees: The Bengals have one of the top cornerback duos in the NFL.



Hall and Joseph have combined for eight interceptions, 23 passes defensed and 71 tackles through eight games. They are tested constantly by opponents but are a major reason why Cincinnati is fifth in the league in points allowed (16.9) this year.



In the era of free agency, Joseph and Hall had the rare opportunity to grow together in Cincinnati as former No. 1 draft picks. Joseph came out a year early as a junior in 2006, and Hall followed Joseph to Cincinnati in 2007.



Both players have been full-time starters at corner for three seasons and are playing the best football of their careers.



“Since day one, we’ve been locker mates, and really how we get along off the field helps with how well we communicate and get along on the field,” Hall said. “We kind of got the same personalities, we like and dislike the same things. So we just naturally became good friends on the team.”



The Pittsburgh Steelers will be a huge challenge for Cincinnati’s secondary on Sunday. Pittsburgh has a deep group of receivers that includes veteran receivers Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes, tight end Heath Miller and emerging rookie Mike Wallace.

(Read full post)

	AP Photo/Matt Rourke
	Andy Reid and the Philadelphia Eagles know their typical late-season surge might not be enough to reach the playoffs this year.

Posted by ESPN.com’s Matt Mosley



On the surface, a 5-3 record puts a team in the thick of the NFC playoff race. But it’s safe to say the Eagles are at a critical juncture in the season.



In the decade since Andy Reid took over, the Eagles have been notoriously slow starters. Even when they were making annual visits to the NFC title game, there were slow starts. In 2003, the Eagles began the season 2-3 before finishing 12-4 and losing to the Panthers in the NFC Championship Game.



The 2004 Super Bowl team was the exception with a 7-0 start, and that may have been the most talented roster top to bottom in the organization’s history. (Joe Banner prefers the ’09 team).



A lot of us predicted great things for the ’09 Eagles based on the arrival of Pro Bowl left tackle Jason Peters and rookies Jeremy Maclin and LeSean McCoy. But our point of reference — an improbable trip to the ’08 NFC title game — is faulty at best. It’s easy to forget that the ’08 team dropped a road game to a bad Bears team and then had an embarrassing tie with the Bengals in November.



Controlling their destiny last December, the Eagles recorded a shameful loss to a Redskins team that had already imploded. That team needed a miracle on the final Sunday of the season, and that’s exactly what the Raiders delivered with a win at Tampa Bay that put the Eagles back in playoff contention.



You think the Eagles might someday realize that wins in October and November might actually make life easier, but there are clear signs they haven’t gotten the message. There’s not a single excuse for how a team with this much talent can go on the road and lose to Tom Cable’s Raiders.



Reid will finish his career as one of the winningest coaches in league history, but that doesn’t cancel out the fact that his teams play with a remarkable lack of focus at times. Even with all of his West Coast genius, Reid still makes stunningly poor decisions in managing games. After losses, he always mutters something about needing to put his team in better positions to succeed. But he almost never offers actual explanations for why his teams seem to have at least one or two disastrous losses in the first three months of the season.



And because you can only beat your head against the wall so many times after Reid news conferences, let me float a theory that may or may not hold water. During all those runs to NFC title games earlier this decade, Reid had enough veteran leaders in the locker room who could seemingly flip a switch at the midway point and help lead the Eagles to NFC titles.



Players such as Bobby Taylor, Troy Vincent, Brian Dawkins and Jon Runyan helped Reid create an atmosphere devoid of panic. But you’ll notice that two names from that list — Dawkins and Runyan — played their final seasons with the Eagles in ’08. And longtime left tackle Tra Thomas was allowed to enter free agency, making room for the celebrated trade for Peters. A former team leader, Jeremiah Trotter, has returned to the team but a lot players in the locker room aren’t familiar with his previous work.



The current leaders of this team — Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Quintin Mikell — are doing the best they can, but they find themselves surrounded by youngsters. Some of that’s a good thing because it’s obvious that DeSean Jackson, Maclin and McCoy are the future of this team. But because of injuries at some key spots, the Eagles are being forced to get even younger. We haven’t seen cornerback Dimitri Patterson in weeks because of injuries, but he’s probably about to become the nickel cornerback in the absence of the suspended Joselio Hanson.



The Eagles have had an abundance of injuries along the offensive line and at linebacker, but other teams are dealing with similar situations. I think, more than ever, the Eagles need a coach who constantly stays on top of his players. Is Reid that guy? Well, I don’t think he has much choice right now.



I’ve heard former Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson say that there are a handful of players in every NFL locker room who are capable of motivating themselves. Johnson says that coaches have to take care of the other 48 players on the roster each week.



It’s not too late for the Eagles to make one of their patented runs toward the playoffs. But they can’t afford to wait as long as they usually do.