What the advantage of that? I guess it all depends on the type of QB plays?
In general, modern defenses use a lot of cover 2/cover4 to top modern spread offenses. Those zone shells are usually symmetrical in their coverages--meaning the patches of field the defenders have to cover are pretty similar. The GoGo not only shows unbalanced backfields, but unbalanced lines, and unbalanced receiver alignment to stress those sort of defenses, forcing teams to play more man or more cover 1/3. That leaves people more susceptible to the deep middle throws as well as the RPO/Option run game.
So don't just pay attention to the unbalanced backfield, look at what happens when we show 22 personnel and come out with both tackles on the strong side, the backfield weighing in that direction and both WR on the short side of the line. If you're in cover 2 shell, now your MLB/Robber has to get on the unbalanced side of the line because we've created an extra gap nobody has responsibilities for. If they don't fill that gap we run the ball through that gap. Once they put someone in that gap now there's all sorts of open territory that you can counter/read option into, or throw to a receiver on the back side who will now have a lot more space to get open. If the defense starts to adjust, you can come out with a balanced line and now they're again in a bad position and will have to adjust. Making teams adjust on the fly usually means more mistakes happen. It creates mismatches as long as the QB can read a defense and understand how to distribute the rock. When done right it forces the defense to react to you and then you attack what he leaves open by reacting to what you're doing.
It's a clever offense, and yes, it's a little gimmicky, but as long as we're executing it properly it forces defenses to react and makes them pick their poison. When we played Howard we stayed in our cover 2 shell and they ran the ball down our throats through that open gap over, and over, and over again.
It really requires a QB that can make 1-2 quick pre-snap reads and then distribute the ball via the option and the vertical pass to be really effective.
