Occasionally on my videos there is a really strange thing that happens. At first glance, it looks like the ball isn't even spinning – like it's just going through the air completely still. That's not a camera trick or lucky timing.

That's what happens when you're spinning a football so fast that a 30 fps camera can't even catch the rotation. In case you are wondering, that throw is 900 revolutions per minute (RPM). If you're curious you can watch it yourself on my website along with a spin rate demo thing my dad helped me make. Just for comparison, Baker Mayfield clocks in around 700 and the Wilson QBX leader was around 880.

But it's not just about having a kind of cool stat to flex on social media. Spin rate can literally be the difference between a wobbly duck that gets picked off and a laser beam that cuts through wind like it's nothing. And somehow, almost nobody talks about it. Except of course my QB coaches Austyn Carta-Samuels and Kyle Carta-Samuels who is the undisputed king of spin. That is why I say - anyone out there (Except KJ), I challenge you or your QB to a spin-off!

They call it "spinning it" for a reason

We've all heard coaches yell "put some spin on it!" or "really spin that thing!" But most people treat it like generic football coach talk - just something you say to sound coach-y.

But it actually matters. When you're literally spinning a football at 780 RPM, you realize that "spinning it" isn't just a figure of speech – it's the actual physics of what makes a quarterback effective.

Every time someone says "he can really spin it," they're talking about angular momentum, gyroscopic stability, and wind resistance without even knowing it. The language was already there. We just needed the data to prove why it mattered.

Let Me Break Down The Science (Without Boring You To Death)

Think of a football like a gyroscope or a top. The faster it spins, the more it wants to stay perfectly aligned with where you're throwing it. That's angular momentum doing its thing: L = I * w, where more w (angular speed) equals more stability.

When you release a ball over 700 RPM, it's like sending a guided missile. The nose stays locked onto the target path even when wind tries to knock it around. Compare that to a slow-spinning wobbler that's basically a leaf in the wind.

What's kind of crazy is: the NFL is already tracking this stuff with RFID tags during games. This isn't some experimental metric – it's in Next Gen Stats right now. So why isn't every high school and college program obsessing over it like they do with 40 times?

What High Spin Rate Actually Does On The Field

• Accuracy window: My deep balls have way tighter dispersion patterns now. Less wobble = less random drift = more completions in tight windows.
• Wind resistance: Playing in the Midwest, crosswinds are a fact of life. A 750+ RPM spiral cuts through 15 mph gusts like they're barely there.
• Catchability: Ask any receiver – they'd rather catch a perfectly spinning bullet than a wobbly rainbow, even if the wobbly one is slower. Less flutter means more predictable catches. My friend Alijah swears they are the best balls to catch.
• The "Glider Effect": Here's something crazy that my coaches noticed – my deep balls don't really "turn over" and drop like most QBs. Instead of that classic nose-down dive at the end, they kind of glide horizontally right into my receiver's hands. I think it's the combination of my launch angle and the high RPMs make so much more stability that the ball literally fights gravity longer than it should. Unless I really arc one high, most of my deep shots just... come in level.

The craziest part? I feel like it takes a lot of the guessing out of throwing long balls. The path the ball takes feels super predictable for my arm.

How I upped the RPMs (And You Can Too)

Full transparency: Some of this came naturally with my rotational style, but I do some things to increase it:

Drill Sessions That Actually Matter

• Reach around the door. Do it a lot. Get accurate doing it.
• Wrist-only flicks from shoulder level (not the ear level you're used to)
• Off-platform throws where my arm angle changes but the spin stays identical. Everybody likes to run around and fall backward throwing. Turns out it's great for practicing this.

What's next?

It seems like college recruiters are starting to ask about spin rate alongside velocity and release time. The data is there, the technology exists, and the physics don't lie – so why wouldn't you use it?

Personally, I think that spin rate deserves to be in every evaluation, every development program, and every scouting report. Right next to the 40 times and bench press numbers everyone obsesses over.

The bottom line: Physics doesn't care about your recruiting ranking. A tight spiral at 750 RPM will outperform a wobbly cannon shot every time. The NFL already knows this. College programs are figuring it out. High school football is next.

Next up, hopefully soon, rotation and speed aka velocity!

It's an awesome time to be a QB. For as long as I can remember I have memorized player stats, play CALLER stats, and made full brackets of "What if this team had this other player, how would the season go? If this team ran this OTHER offense, how would they be?" It looks like I haven't been the only one thinking about it.

The last five years have completely flipped what "offense" means in football. From 2020 to now, the smartest coaches in the game have been willing to throw out the very systems that made them famous, all because the math and the matchups said there was a better way.

The Coaching Revolution

Take Kyle Shanahan. Everyone knows him for play-action under center, yet he has cut that usage by 56% while somehow getting more efficient. His 49ers now run the tightest formations in NFL history at just 19.9 yards wide (The wing-T coaches are all probably smiling now) to force predictable coverage shells. That is not by accident. It is "Always wrongness," where every formation looks like it could be one of 20 plays, but the defense is already set up to lose before the snap.

Sean McVay made an even harder pivot. He basically ditched his wide-zone identity to run power-based "Duo" blocking out of 11 personnel 93% of the time while running from it 45% of the time (compared to the league's 30%). That means defenses are stuck trying to fit the run and play the pass without tipping coverage or alignment.

Andy Reid has turned his offense into a research lab. His staff hunts concepts from high school, college, and pro ball, merges them with West Coast principles, and builds out play families. The Chiefs lead the league in multi-motion plays, and they will put two or three players in motion before the snap not just to confuse coverage, but to force defenders into leverage they cannot win from. I am a Bucs fan, but it drives my dad (a lifelong hardcore Broncos fan) crazy.

The QB Evolution

At the QB level, the shift is just as massive. Peyton Manning's "1-2-3" progression breakdown of Patrick Mahomes is the perfect example. Instead of hard, linear progressions, it is simultaneous processing: deep concept + intermediate route + checkdown all in the same mental snapshot, while still tracking pocket movement. When I told my dad this he was like "Bill Walsh said that 40 years ago." Maybe it's true but football is definitely cyclical so it's not the first time a recycled idea has gotten evolved. His rule to possess the ball at the end of the play flies in the face of the "take the shot no matter what" mentality that used to define aggressive QBs, especially with HS and college QBs.

Joe Burrow has basically become the master in "easy play" football against the two-high shells that dominate the NFL right now. Instead of trying to force verticals, he just rolls in what coaches call "Peyton Manning mode," where he has full autonomy to change the play at the line, attack leverage, and use constraint plays to punish whatever coverage he sees. You see it in 7v7 in high school but that's about it (Although anyone who plays NCAA knows, THIS IS THE WAY).

The Numbers Don't Lie

The schemes are flattening out across all levels. NFL teams now run RPOs at rates that would have never would have happened 10 years ago (or really ever in my lifetime that I can remember) up over 500% between 2016 and 2018 and AGAIN from 2018-now. Shotgun is the default, with top offenses living in it 70% of the time. Pre-snap motion is at 68.5% league-wide (up from 56.1% just two years ago), and Duo runs are outproducing traditional zone by almost 5 percentage points in success rate (43.5% vs 39%). Even concepts like "Dart" (tackle pull and usually wrap) are giving teams new gap schemes to attack modern fronts.

And then there is the analytics layer. Fourth-and-one attempts have jumped from 33% in 2002 to 70% in 2024. Teams are using Expected Points Added (EPA) as their core efficiency metric instead of raw yards. The NFL's Big Data Bowl has generated machine learning models that can spot a "missed tackle opportunity" with 75% certainty before the snap. Route-level data from PFF shows slants have the highest open rate, comebacks generate the best separation quality, and really smart teams like Kansas City are throwing into open windows nearly 89% of the time. I am biased because I love throwing slants (the first playcalls I ever learned were Dragon and Lion) but it doesn't change the data! It works! Cover 3 I'm calling dragon and 2/4 I'm calling Lion. I'm pretty sure you could win a game just calling Lion, Dragon, Mills, Verts, and a screen or two.

The New Offensive Ecosystem

This is not just "call better plays." It is designing entire offensive ecosystems where:

• Personnel dictates the system (McDaniel building around Cheetah + Waddle)
• Formations set up pre-snap leverage traps
• Motion is used to manipulate coverage rules
• Analytics shape both big level strategy and individual play calls in real time
• Machine learning identifies optimal plays before the defense even knows what is coming. My family is a weird mix of teachers, coaches, and a machine learning business. It makes for really weird but fun family football talks.

What This Means for QBs

The biggest takeaway? The "final form" offense does not exist anymore. The best QBs and coaches are always in learning mode, testing, evolving, and throwing out yesterday's stuff that worked formula before defenses catch up.

As a quarterback, that means I can't just memorize a playbook. I have to think like a coordinator, process like I'm in NASA and change tactics like a startup company. Every snap is data. Every look is a clue. The more I understand these shifts, the better I can be at staying ahead of the defensive and the coordinator on the other side that wants to blow me up.

I'm a 16-year-old quarterback, and I wasn't even alive when Bill Walsh coached. But the more I study him, the more I realize he changed football forever. Walsh proved that the position isn't just about arm strength or athleticism. It's about precision, rhythm, and decision-making. That's why his system - the West Coast Offense - still shapes the game today.

Seeing Quarterbacks Differently

Joe Montana wasn't supposed to be great. Scouts said he wasn't big enough or strong enough. But Walsh saw something deeper: calm under pressure, quick feet, accuracy in rhythm. He built an offense where those traits mattered more than throwing 70 yards.

That's what I love most about Walsh. He didn't just evaluate quarterbacks for what they were. He imagined what they could become in the right system. He designed the offense around their strengths instead of forcing them into a mold. I had a coach tell me "I don't care how you throw or how fast you throw or how accurate you throw, to be our kind of QB you need to be running people over." And don't get me wrong, it's a lot easier as I gain size to do that but it has always bothered me that someone would not care about what you can do with a very specialized set of skills. Walsh understood that in a way that many people don't understand.

Turning Limitations Into Strengths

When Walsh coached the expansion Bengals in 1968, he had Virgil Carter - a smart, accurate QB without much arm strength. Most coaches would have given up. Walsh created an offense around Carter's skills: short, timed passes that functioned like runs, with receivers catching the ball in stride and picking up yards after the catch. It worked. Suddenly, what looked like a weakness became an advantage.

The Chess Match of Play Calling

What makes the West Coast Offense special is how simple concepts destroy complex defenses. My two favorite quick game plays are Lion and Dragon - they're money every time.

Most high schools run literally curl/flat because it's easier to throw but I prefer the slant flat version because the flat defender can't hedge his bets and break from the curl to the flat. He has to pick! It's perfect for attacking Cover 3 and Cover 1.

But here's the real secret weapon: running these concepts together. Lion punishes defenses playing with two-high safeties or man coverage, while Dragon destroys low zone cover 3 looks. When you package these together with motion and formation adjustments, you can beat any coverage the defense throws at you. It's like having the answer key to the test.

The Art of Footwork and Timing

What really sets Walsh apart is his obsession with footwork. Every play in his offense was choreographed to the step. A three-step drop wasn't just three steps - it was three steps that had to match the receiver's cut down to the split second. Five-step drops for outs and digs. Seven steps for deeper routes.

As a quarterback, I see it like choreography. My mom's a dance teacher, and she always says the best performances happen when movement and rhythm lock in perfectly. Walsh did the same thing with football. The quarterback's feet and the receiver's route had to be in perfect rhythm, like dancers moving to the same beat.

If the steps were off, the whole play fell apart. When the timing clicked, it looked effortless - like the ball and the route were made for each other. That's why watching Montana in Walsh's system feels like watching an orchestra or a dance routine. Every piece was connected. That's football at its highest level.

Culture Before Scoreboard

Walsh also understood something bigger than X's and O's: culture drives performance. His "Standard of Performance" laid out exactly how players, coaches, and even staff should act. Details mattered - how you practiced, how you communicated, even how you carried yourself. He proved that winning doesn't start on game day - it starts with habits built in practice.

That's why his teams didn't just win - they set a standard that others tried to copy. My dad has two books sitting on his desk: the Bible and Bill Walsh's book Finding the Winning Edge. Instructions for life. Instructions for football.

His Legacy Today

You can see Walsh's concepts all over football today. Kyle Shanahan's 49ers offense is built on the same rhythm and timing. Andy Reid's Chiefs offense - with quick hitters, motions, and matchups - is rooted in Walsh's principles. Even modern spread and RPO systems trace back to Walsh's philosophy: isolate defenders, create conflict, and win with precision.

As a young quarterback, that inspires me. Walsh showed that success doesn't come from being the biggest or fastest. It comes from details, discipline, and playing in rhythm.

Why It Matters to Me

I connect with Walsh because he believed in the passer. Every QB has to be able to be athletic but he believed a quarterback's number one job was to think fast, throw accurately, and stay calm when everything breaks down. He valued footwork, timing, and intelligence more than anything else.

BUT REGARDLESS I always tell myself "if I can be the best at what Walsh saw as the MOST essential tools, then everything else is a bonus."

That's why the West Coast Offense is so beautiful to me. It turned football into something more than brute force - it turned it into choreography. Bill Walsh was a genius not because he knew everything, but because he saw the game differently and changed it forever.