Team Strategy In Wind

FROM A TEAM perspective, your non-wind offense has more possible throws than does your wind offense. Trying to run the same cuts and movements will result in problems. There will be some cuts than cannot be thrown to, and good defenders will leave these targets to help elsewhere without risk. There are some places on the field that should be avoided in wind, and your offense should not put you there. Lastly, there are some cuts that require difficult catches and you will maximize those high-risk plays. For example, many teams run vertical stacks with large cuts from the back of the stack running towards the disc at high speed (and defenders in pursuit). This maximizes outstretched hand catching, which is disproportionately more difficult in the wind, and has other negative impacts that we’ll discuss later in this series.

If you are drawing up an offense or play that cannot be reliably completed at a game-winning efficiency in the wind, then you should be thinking of that as a specialty play for those few non-wind situations.

In all windplay scenarios, left-handed throwers give your team extra options. A single left-handed thrower might be able to throw long backhands when the rest of the team is confined to marked forehands. Even if this is not your main throwing threat, this adds possibilities that must be considered by defenders, and increasing the cognitive load for them is useful even if it isn’t explicitly used. Lefties don’t need to specifically play differently in any way to bring this benefit, and just like in baseball — where teams try to stack both their batting line-up and pitching rotation with a combination of lefties and righties — teams may prioritize a single left-handed handler over a slightly more talented right-handed handler on a team of righties. Equivalently, there may be left-handed cutters who are more effective in the handler position in windplay. Captains and coaches should not feel confined to positional limits that were built for a no-wind game.

You have the choice: Either run two different offenses, or adjust your single offense to rely less on cuts that work poorly in windplay. Remember, this is not a performance art. The wind is not ruining the game any more than thick grass is ruining the game. If you are drawing up an offense or play that cannot be reliably completed at a game-winning efficiency in the wind, then you should be thinking of that as a specialty play for those few non-wind situations. Note that a successful play doesn’t need to have a particular completion percentage in all wind, but the completion percentage in all conditions must be high enough that, when combined with your defense, allows you to score more than your opponent.

With this high-level overview complete, we’ll start to examine specific wind-game situations and the tactics and strategies that might fit best into them.

Part 2: Points Where Offense Is Going Upwind

Obviously, the first and best way to combat strong wind is to cultivate a squad full of strong throwers and receivers, and to institute a reliable team offense that can function properly in less than ideal conditions. But there are also several strategic points to consider depending on the situation that will improve your team’s windplay beyond simply requiring skill improvements in your individual players.

In today’s installment, we’ll discuss the specific strategic elements that come into play on points where the offense is going into a strong wind.