Run & Shoot Series Part 4 - The "Streak"

[This is Part 4 of a multi-part series on a "Simple Approach to the Run and Shoot." In one sense I mean "simplified," but the series is, more than anything else, intended to both diagnose and explicate some of the fundamental concepts behind the shoot as well as discuss how I might marry them with some passing modern ideas, all in an effort to just understand passing offense generally. You can see the full series here. Also check out Parts 1, 2, and 3.]

It's been a bit since my last installment, but I'm not quite done, as there are two concepts left in the fearsome foursome of the 'shoot. This foursome includes: go, choice, and now streak and switch.

These two plays really do not involve any new learning, and although considered separate plays, they really are two sides of the same coin: four verticals, which I analyzed recently with Dan Gonzalez. I begin with "streak." The switch will come in the next installment.

Streak

At core, streak is just what the run and shoot guys call "four verticals." And four-verticals is a very simple concept that is so powerful because well designed pass plays boil down to elementary math: geometry and arithmetic. Four receivers bolt down the field, and if they keep the proper spacing between them -- by staying on their "landmarks" -- the defense will be outnumbered and can't properly defend the play. Against Cover Two, well, the defense only has two deep (hence the name) while the offense has four receivers deep. With cover three, well the offense still has a man advantage. And, again, if the spacing is correct, the offense can even whittle it down so that they know who they are operating against, namely, the deep free safety.

But this doesn't mean that the defense is without options. They can disguise coverage, play different techniques, or quite simple play four deep -- four on four gives the advantage to the defense. (Contra Ron Jaworski, creating favorably one-on-one matchups lags far behind creating favorable numbers advantages, i.e. two on one defend.) In response, the run and shoot, as usual, gives them freedom. Hence, the "seam read" all over again.



As the diagram above shows, the four receivers all release vertically. But the coaching points are critical:

The outside receivers will release on go routes. The "frontside" one (in the diagram, the one on the offense's right) has a mandatory outside release: he will keep pushing to the defender's outside hip. That said, he still wants to keep five yards between him and the sideline, to give the quarterback a place to drop the ball into.

The slot receivers release up the seams. But they must be more precise than that: in college, they must be two yards outside the hashes; in highschool (where the hashmarks are wider), they must be on them. This spacing is the most critical element of the entire play: it is what makes it geometrically difficult for the deep secondary to cover.

The runningback might be in the protection, but if he releases he will run either a drag across the field or a little option route underneath. He looks for an open spot in the zones as an outlet if the undercoverage releases for all the receivers, and against man he will cut in or out. He should be working against a linebacker and can't let that guy cover him.

The outside receivers, if they can't get deep, will break the route down and "come down the stem" -- retrace their steps -- to get open later. The QB, if the initial reads are not there, will hitch up and throw them the ball on the outside.

But the key to this play, as it has been for all four of these "core" run and shoot plays, is the seam read. I previously described this route in detail, but in sum: against a defense with the deep middle of the field "open" (cover two), the receiver will split the two safeties on a post route; against middle of the field closed (cover 3, cover 1), with a single deep middle safety, the receiver will stay away from him and continue up the seam. In that sense the route is a lot like the divide route I've discussed before. But the route is more dynamic: if the safeties stay very deep, or any defender crosses the receiver's face, he will cut inside or underneath those defenders to get open.

Below are a few clips courtesy of Michael Drake again. In this first video the quarterback, though a bit slow, hits the seam read.



On this second video, the defense is in a blitz look. (Sort of Cover 1 with a "rat" or floater, though no deep safety.) The receiver probably should have crossed the defender's face, but they are able to complete it.



And below is a clip of four-verticals where it gets dumped off to the runningback.



Finally, below is video of Texas Tech running the play (courtesy of Trojan Football Analysis). I end with this both because Tech of course is not exactly a run & shoot team, but also because some of the variants shown on the video -- particularly the shallow cross -- are things a lot of R&S coaches have gone to, including June Jones.

Run and Shoot Series Part 3 - The "Choice" Concept

[This is Part 3 of a multi-part series on a "Simple Approach to the Run and Shoot." In one sense I mean "simplified," but the series is, more than anything else, intended to both diagnose and explicate some of the fundamental concepts behind the shoot as well as discuss how I might marry them with some passing modern ideas, all in an effort to just understand passing offense generally. You can see the full series here. Also check out Parts 1 and 2.]

The previous posts have cleared away much of the heavy lifting: we know about the basic principles behind the offense, and we know about that most important of routes, the seam read.

But the route that maybe most exemplifies the offense's variable, adapting approach to attack defenses, is probably the Choice route. And it is a concept that is used by many, many teams -- in one form or another -- across the football spectrum.

It is another trips play, and is intended to be used as a counter to the Go when the defense overplays to the three-receiver side. The "choice" in the route belongs to the singled up backside receiver -- often the "X" receiver. The idea is that you put your stud there and make the defense wrong every time, until they overshift to that side, thus opening up the three receiver side for easy plays or big ones. The base form of the route is shown below.



To the three receiver side, it is simple and familiar to what was done with the Go: the outside receiver runs a "streak read" (burst on a vertical route, but if you can't beat the defender, break down at 14-15 yards and come back down towards the line of scrimmage); the middle slot runs the seam read (attack the near safety and then have a multiple way go depending on the coverage -- explained in depth here); and the inside slot runs a five-yard drag route (explode to five yards, then drumroll the feet and head across the field; may settle down in a hole in the zone once on the opposite side of the field).

The single-side "choice" receiver, typically, has three options: run an out at 10-12 yards (or a comeback at 15); run a glance or skinny post (cut on the seventh step at a skinny angle, never crossing the near hashmark); or run a vertical go route. How does he know what to run? And how does the quarterback know what he's running?

The Choice Route Itself

So how do you handle the choice route itself? The R&S guys themselves -- Mouse Davis, Jones, Jenkins, and all the rest -- typically taught this as a true "read" route: it was all done on the fly. The QB and receiver simply had to be on the same page, and they were confident that they could complete this pass whenever they wanted.

To run this route I don't think you have to commit to this; admittedly it takes a great deal of practice time and young quarterbacks and receivers have plenty else to work on. But, in brief, the R&S guys did this about how you'd expect:

The base route in the choice concept is the out -- the receiver wants to sell that he is going deep and then to break to the sideline. If done correctly, it is difficult to defend this route. For the speed out, the receiver would burst upfield for six steps and then roll on his seventh and eighth steps to the sideline, driving his outside elbow to turn his body around. He then would flatten to the sideline and expect the ball at about twelve yards. (The comeback works how you'd expect -- sell deep then break down at fourteen to fifteen yards to the sideline to a depth of about twelve.)

But that's not the only option. If the receiver go to the top of his route and the defender pressed him, he could either run a skinny post (glance) or go route. If the defender sat on the out or generally tried to play any outside leverage, the receiver would break for the skinny post on his seventh step.

If the defender pressed and took away the post with inside leverage then (and only then) would the receiver continue to streak up the sideline.

Below is a clip from Mike Drake from Longmont High (CO), where they throw the choice route backside against Cover 1 (man-to-man with one deep safety). (They keep some extra protection in on this play so it is a three-man route, but it's the same concept except without the drag.)

Against Cover Two this worked a bit different, because the rolled up corner would play a type of press coverage, but with outside leverage (trying to force the receiver into the safety) and would release the receiver up to the safety. As a result neither the out or glance are good looks, but the streak is good, because it is either open on the sideline before the safety can get over or he has opened up the middle. This wasn't too difficult of a read because the receiver would quickly realize that the corner wasn't playing him anymore, so his read became the near safety.

But, as observed above, the quarterback and receiver both had to read all this on the fly -- not always easy, and it certainly requires a lot of practice. As a result, what most teams do (and I recommend) is to handle all of these "choices" as a pre-snap adjustment between the quarterback and receiver by hand-signal.

The rules basically work the same as before, though since it is predetermined you can expand the options to include corner routes or anything else. Specifically (thanks to Ted Seay for these):

If the corner plays inside leverage, run a speed out at 10-12 yards;

if the corner presses, run the go/fade route; and

if the corner plays outside leverage, run the skinny post/glance route.

Voila. But how do they communicate this? Well, it ain't rocket surgery, but it can be done either verbally or by hand signal. One way is to use very specific ones, just with the quarterback making his signal behind his back. The other is to do something as follows:

The quarterback, before the snap, will hold his hands in the usual ready position, but with subtle variations:

Outside hand slightly higher than inside hand = Speed out

Inside hand slightly higher = post glance (in breaking route)

Hands slightly higher than normal = go/fade

There's tons of other variations. If you (for some reason) keep the choice between one of two routes, then the "signal" can just be eye contact between the quarterback and receiver pre-snap. Finally, another twist is to let the receiver make the decision, and signal the route by switching his feet in his stance and then back, or by where he places his hands -- the list goes on.

The obvious downside, however, with doing it all pre-snap is that the defense can sometimes fake you out: the corner can play way off and then come up at the snap to play a press technique, or vice versa. But those kinds of fears vary depending what level you're at. If you're in the pros, where they do all that stuff on every play and Ed Reed will play the deep half of the field while lining up in the guard-tackle gap faking a blitz, then you ought to be able to teach people to read on the fly. If you're in high school (or college really too), then the pre-snap stuff should be more than sufficient.

So that's the Choice. It's a great route, especially if you put your best receiver there, as most teams do. Yet, if you're too much of a wuss to do even the pre-snap decisions, you can always "lock" the route and just signal it in from the sideline. That's permissible too, because you still get a one-on-one with great backside capabilities. Let's turn to the backside now.

Backside and variations



As we can see, the backside has lots of options. The two most important are the drag and the seam-read.

First, if the weakside linebacker or flat defender tries to widen out to stop either the speed out or glance, then the drag route should come wide open in that voided territory. See below.



Similarly, in the above diagram, if both the choice route and the drag are taken away, the quarterback will look to the free safety -- he is probably cheating too far to the single receiver side and therefore the backside seam should be open. As an example, see the below clip from Mike Drake again, this time against Cover 3. The defense brings the ever popular "Magic Blitz" or overload zone-blitz with three-deep behind it. They don't block it quite right, but the quarterback moves his feet. (They also put their TE on a kind of "climb" route to help draw the free-safety, which is exactly what he does below.)



To better clarify, here is a diagram of what the receivers were doing and the free-safety's movement where his taking the tight-end opened up the seam reader.



Against a cover two, the calculus changes slightly but the basic progression and read is the same. See below, and then watch the clip again just paying attention (as best you can) to the free-safety.



To stop both the go route by the single receiver and the drag by the slot, the linebackers, corner, and safety have to overreact to the single-receiver side. As a result, the quarterback should be able to work the deep hash safety to the three-receiver side, who has a two-on-one with the seam-read (now running a post) and the backside streak. If the middle linebacker tries to retreat to take away the post (common with the so-called "Tampa Two" defense) the quarterback still has both the drag runner who has settled into an open spot and the running back that he can drop the ball to underneath for a catch and run. (Keep throwing those check-downs until the defense comes up for them; that's when you gash them for the big play.)

Again, another clip from Mike Drake. Here it is against Cover-2: the deep hash safety plays very deep, however, so the seam-reader throttles it down a bit into the void for a nice completion. See below.



So that's the basic framework. Really, you can just teach the quarterback to read: (1) choice, (2) drag, (3) seam-read, (4) backside streak-read, and (5) (outlet) the runningback on a "leak-out" route.

Below are a few variations to the backside. The two most common just switch assignments. In the first, we switch the two-slots so you can get a "rub" for the drag receiver's man.



In the next, the two outside receivers switch assignments. I will discuss the true run and shoot "switch route" in a later part in this series, but this illustrates the basic gist. Again, all you're doing is changing assignments.



The next is a slight variant on the traditional run and shoot formation because it uses the "bunch formation," where the three receivers tighten their splits so that they line up no more than one-yard apart.



This set lets the receivers get more rubs against man coverage -- you can see from the image that now the outside receiver runs the drag and any defender playing man to man on him will have a difficult time covering. This is a great response to teams who think the way to play you on choice is to go to man coverage. And if they stay in zone, well you have all the good zone-stretches I outlined above.

The final variant is the most different, but also the one most increasingly popular: "levels." I have described previously how the Indianapolis Colts use this concept, but June Jones has really used this route ever since he got to Hawaii. (Note they will do all the same switching of receiver assignments I outlined above in it.)



Here you get both a rub and a high/low type stretch on the inside defenders, typically linebackers. Jones has liked this because it is easy for the quarterback to read, he really just must progression sequentially from the single-receiver and scan across the field. It's not a perfect visual, but below is a version of "levels" with from trips #1 running the deep-in and #2 and #3 running the quick ins.



And, although not quite the same, below is an example of the Green Bay Packers running a version of levels to the three receiver side:




Conclusion

And that's the choice concept. It highlights much of what drives the run and shoot: a well-designed route intended to set up a receiver with many options, combined with a great basic combination with equally as many options.

As a final note, the run and shoot is a four wide-receiver offense. That is how it was designed, and how it is run when one commits to it fully. If you don't use four wides -- for example, by substituting in a tight-end -- many of the purists would say you aren't a run and shoot team anymore. I will leave that debate for a later day. I just want to point out that it wouldn't be too difficult to imagine the Choice where the drag runner is actually a tight-end instead of a slot receiver. Indeed, many pro teams would agree with you.

Run and Shoot Series Part 2 - The Seam Read and the "Go" Concept

[This is Part 2 of a multi-part series on a "Simple Approach to the Run & Shoot." In one sense I mean "simplified," but the series is, more than anything else, intended to diagnose and explicate some of the fundamental concepts behind the shoot, and discuss how I might marry them with some passing modern ideas, all in an effort to just understand passing offense generally. You can see the full series here. Part 1 is here.]

John Jenkins, one of the run and shoot's pioneers and most prolific prophets, is a bit eccentric. Jenkins becamse famous during his time at the University of Houston as offensive coordinator and eventually head coach, where he coached Andre Ware to a Heisman trophy and David Klinger to ridiculous statistics, including the outrageous (in several senses) eleven touchdown passes Klingler threw against Division I-AA Eastern Washington. According to Sports Illustrated, former Texas A&M Coach R.C. Slocum once said of Jenkins: "For somebody who is really a pretty good guy, John has managed to piss off coaches all over the country."

And some of this brashness was instrinsically tied up with his role as run and shoot maven. As discussed previously, Ellison and Mouse Davis (as well as Red Faught) innovated the offense, but Jenkins was there at least from the time it took off. He coached quarterbacks under Jack Pardee and Mouse Davis with the USFL's Houston Gamblers back in 1984 (their quarterback was some guy named Jim Kelly), followed Pardee to the University of Houston, and stayed as head coach after Pardee became head coach of the Houston Oilers. Of course, Jenkins's personality wound up doing him in as much as anything (burning playbooks and refusing to share ideas with other coaches, though to be fair some of these stories are anecdotal). But, when it came to the run and shoot concepts, the man is an encyclopedia.

The Seam Read and Adjusting Pass Patterns

This part of the R&S series is intended to break down the "seam read" (or "middle read") route as a way of introducing the offense's most fundamental principle: that receivers adjust their routes on the fly. Jenkins explained this principle in the manual (maybe more of a manifesto) he gave out to the USFL Houston Gamblers quarterbacks back in the mid-1980s (again, Jim Kelly):

"Any conversation on any type of offensive theory without the acknowledgment, consideration, and complete understanding of defensive opposition is entirely useless. This statement certainly applies to our situation more so than any other team in football today. For with our repeated route altering and adjusting dependent upon the recognition of coverage categories, it is obvious that we must be capable of reading and reacting to coverages properly. When reacting properly, we place the defenses into an impossible state leaving them rendered helpless. In simpler terms, whatever the defense throws up at us should be wrong. Naturally this is due to our own proper decisions in reacting to the specific coverages revealed."

I will at once agree and break slightly with this approach. Again, the run and shoot is all about adjusting pass patterns based on the defensive coverage. Yet these adjustments were largely decided upon by fitting all defensive coverages into five categories and having everyone identify which category the coverage fell into. As June Jones explained back when he was with the Detroit Lions: "The defense may think it has many coverages, but we will fit them all into one of our five categories." I don't think this particular approach can be done as effectively now as it once was, particularly considering how much time that approach takes.

But I do agree that (a) offenses -- coaches, quarterbacks, receivers -- must understand defenses, and (b) that converting and adjusting patterns based on coverage is important. The only difference is a matter of degree: the receiver will adjust his pattern based on certain "keys" given by one or two defenders, and the quarterback will similarly look for keys and "open grass" (the empty spots in the defense), but will not get hung up in knowing exactly what the coverage is. Does this mean he would not be able to explain the difference between Tampa Two and Cover 5 (Cover two man)? Of course not: he better know that. But it doesn't mean that, when dropping back, the quarterback's first thought needs to be "Oh, they are in Cover 3 invert!"

To see what I mean, let's look at the seam read route itself, and then I will talk about the "Go" pattern, one of the offense's (in my view) three or four most important concepts, and maybe the most.



The inside vertical releasing receiver is the seam reader. He might run a seam route (release straight up the field and catch the ball between 16-20 yards deep between the deep coverage), he might break for the post (split the deep defenders and catch the ball between 18-22 yards downfield), or curl or run a square-in (catch the ball about 12 yards deep underneath the deep coverage).

There's been a number of ways to teach this route, and to many it appears intimidating. Indeed, a number of times I have demonstrated on this site two-way choices, but so many? Here's how it is easiest taught:

#1: Identify the safeties, which can be done pre-snap. How are they aligned? Going to be one-high (single free safety down the middle)? Or two-high (Two deep down the middle)? Identify the safety closest to you.

#2: Post-snap, release downfield, attacking the near safety (even if it is the strong safety rolled up, as shown below). Make a decision at 8-10 yards on what you will do.

#2A: If there is a single high safety, can he get to you? If not, continue up the seam looking for the ball between 16-20 yards.

If the single-high safety plays too deep and shaded to make the seam effective, come underneath him on a square-in (keep running against man coverage, settle in the hole on a curl against zone).



If the single-safety overreacts to the formation or your route, cross him. (Sometimes this is communicated in the run and shoot by having the quarterback do a pump-fake, which releases receivers into their "secondary routes.")

#2B: If there are two-deep safeties, cross the near safety to attack the middle of the field. This is not a "bomb" throw, expect it on a line between 18-20 or 22 yards deep.

But if the two safeties play so far deep that the receiver can't effectively split them, he must run a square-in underneath them.



Against blitz man (no deep safeties) some run and shoot teams have the receiver break immedediately into a slant, while others treat it like two-deep and let him run a post. I prefer that approach.

Synthesis

Okay, that seems like a lot to take in. A few points. First, the decision tree can be simplified as "find the open spot between deep defenders, and if you can't get deep, run a square-in or curl underneath them." In other words, you'll notice above that if the defense is in middle of the field open ("MOFO" or a two-high), the receiver tries to get deep down the middle because that's where the grass is. Conversely, against middle of the field closed ("MOFC" or 1-high with one safety deep) the receiver tries to find the deep spot away from the deep free safety -- if he is coming from the far side that opening should be right past the strong safety, or he might have to cross under him if the safety overreacts. So it can be explained different ways.

Second, and most importantly: this is the foundation for the entire offense. The triple-option is confusing and multifarious, but everyone knows you'll practice it all the time. That's how it is with this. You install this route on the first day and everyone must master it because it will show up -- in one form or another -- on almost every play. This will become obvious as I discuss the route in the context of the "Go" (below), as well as "streak" and "switch" and the "choice," and continue to show how it can be a backside combination for other routes like the smash pattern.

Third, even if the seam-read receiver doesn't get open or get the ball thrown to him, having a player running such a dynamic route has its advantages for the offense. Most important of all is that it essentially lets one player dominate and control almost the whole middle of the field, thus further opening up the routes to the outside. That's why, in the 'shoot, the seam read is often the second or third read on the play.

Finally, as an update, I've already gotten some questions on practicing this route. There's more to say about it but here's two quick points. One, the way to begin by teaching it is just to take the receiver and a coach and have the coach act as the single-key defender, usually the near safety. The receiver will adjust his route based on what the coach does (or doesn't do). Once you've practiced that you can move to team "routes on air" -- multiple quarterbacks each running the same play and throwing to each of the receivers -- and use dummies where the defense will align, but again with one coach or player giving the seam reader his key. The second point is that during any team drills the quarterbacks are told not to throw the ball to the seam reader unless he gives them a very clear read and route -- the QB must see what he's trying to do. This gives the receiver lots of incentive to get it right and to be decisive.

Now, onto the "Go" concept.

The Run and Shoot "Go"

The Go is actually relatively simple, and is based all around the seam reader's route. Even without it, it's a nice little hitter in the flat, but with it, it becomes the foundation from which you can build an offense.

It is a "trips" formation play -- in the 'shoot, the concepts are typically designed around whether you are in "doubles" (two receivers to each side) or trips, three to one side and a single receiver on the other. The routes are fairly simple. The outside man to the trips side runs a mandatory "go" or "streak" -- he releases outside and takes his man deep. (Update: A helpful reader points out how important it is that the receiver take a "mandatory outside release" -- i.e. if the corner is rolled up and tries to force the receiver inside, he still must do all he can to release outside and get up the sideline. This is imperative for many reasons, among them to keep the near safety stretched and to widen the defenders to open the flat route.)

The middle slot runs the seam read, outlined above. The inside receiver runs a quick flat or "sweep" route: he takes a jab step upfield and then rolls his route to five yards in the flat. An important coaching point is that this player must come right off the seam reader's hip; you're looking for a rub against man to man.

On the backside, the receiver runs a streak but if he cannot beat the defender deep, he will stop at 15-16 yards and come back down the line of his route to the outside. The runningback is usually in the protection, but if not needed, he will leak out to the weakside.

The quarterback's read begins with the near safety: where is he? Tied up in this is what kind of coverage are they playing on the outside receiver? If there is no safety help on him, he can throw the ball to that guy one on one deep. But that's considered a "peek" or "alert" (in Bill Walsh's terminology): it's a deep route you will throw if it is there but otherwise immediately eliminate it and work with the normal progression.

The quarterback's key of the near safety tells him what he's looking for. If he plays up he's throwing off him: if he takes the seam receiver, he throws the flat, if he takes the flat, he throws the seam. In any event, you usually tell the QB: "throw the seam, unless . . ."



If the near safety plays deep the QB looks for a two-high coverage (Cover 2), and will likely get that. In that case he first wants to see whether the safeties "squeeze" the seam reader as he runs a post. If they do, he knows that he likely has a two on one with the outside receiver on a go and the receiver in the flat on the cornerback. If the QB ends up eliminating those routes he will look backside.



In any event, the quarterback can always deliver the ball to the man in the flat, particularly against man coverage. As Mouse Davis says, you want to keep hitting that flat route as long as they give it to you, because eventually they are going to come up and that's when you'll kill them with a big play.

And that's about it. It seems like a fair amount but basically the quarterback just wants to identify the near safety and then work his seam reader to the flat: somebody is going to pop open. If you thirst for more, June Jones (partially) explains this play to Bob Davie, below:



Finally, below are a few variations on the Go. It should be noted that the most obvious ones just switches the assignment of #2 and #3, the seam reader and the flat runner. Sometimes the defense tries to wall a guy off and by switching assignments you suddenly get a free release downfield and an easy path to the flat. It's all about breaking tendencies.

But below are a few others. One is "Go curl," which adds a curl route to the go concept creating a kind of curl/flat read.



The other creates a kind of "vertical flood" concept by tagging the seam reader with a corner or "sail" route.



Conclusion

So that's the seam read and the Go -- two foundations of the run and shoot. There's plenty more to say, but in many ways it's all down hill from here: this is the tough stuff. The offense works because this stuff is practiced over and over again to perfection, and it provides answers against any coverage. And again, my "simplified" approach here does not require that the quarterback and receivers identify all coverages and fit them into neat boxes because I do not think that is tenable or productive anymore. (I also am ignoring certain other R&S principles like "secondary routes" triggered when the quarterback makes a pump fake.) But you can get the same variable effect -- and the same production -- without identifying fixed coverage categories; indeed, in today's game I think that is asking too much. Instead, I think the best approach is to talk about finding the open spots and running away from coverage. The rest is academic.

A Simple Approach to the Run and Shoot - Part 1

The most famous game that involved a team running the run and shoot offense was one where that team lost: the infamous "greatest playoff comeback of all-time," where the Buffalo Bills came back from 35-3 down to beat the Houston Oilers in overtime. The storyline was, to many, that the Oilers' four-wide offense couldn't control the clock and gave up the lead. Maybe so. But something had to go right for them to get the 35-3 lead (and score 38 for the game to send it into overtime). Maybe the offense failed to prepare the defense -- that was a common meme for years, but seems to have receded when spread offense teams like the Florida Gators or the New England Patriots comebine great offenses and defenses.

And it's true, no NFL team runs the pure 'shoot anymore (though some high school and small colleges do, and of course June Jones does at SMU). But the concepts live on, and the "spread 'em and shred 'em" philosophy the 'shoot engendered has found more and more converts over the last two decades. But the offense is not particularly well understood; it is still considered an outlaw approach. And true, the dedication the offense requires to be run well also requires something approaching exclusivity: not much time is left to devote to doing other things.

But, I am a big believer that the 'shoot both can be a very viable offense in and of itself (hello June Jones!), and, even more than that, I think that understanding the offense is one of the best ways to really understand passing offense generally. This is evidenced by the fact that the offense's concepts live on in the playbooks of every NFL team and a great swath of college and high school ones.



So, this offseason I am starting a multi-part series on a "Simple Approach to the Run and Shoot." The series' purpose a few-fold: (1) to explain what makes the Run and Shoot distinct from the larger umbrella of "spread offenses" (including Mike Leach's Airraid, with which it is often compared and confused with); (2) to explain the offense's core tenets in a way could provide insight into all passing offenses; and (3) to provide a possible real-world system that distills the run and shoot's major points (and combines them with some of the best of the modern passing game) into something that could be used at the high school or small college level.

In this introduction, I will begin with some of the offense's core philosophy. In future posts I will address some of the specifics.

Philosophy and tenets

There are four major points that make the 'shoot the 'shoot, and then a few ancillary ones that have come into play over the years.

Pass-first offense. Not all spread offenses are pass-first, and not all teams that use run and shoot concepts are pass-first, but if you're going to commit to the offense, you begin with the past (and often end there too). When the Hawai'i coaching staff under Junes Jones gave a clinic talk to other coaches at the AFCA convention a few years back, they named their talk "For those who like to throw the ball." One of the major reasons for this is just practice time: you can only do so many things well. By specializing as pass-happy team they get an incredible amount of repetitions doing the things they do over and over and doing them well.

Four wide-receiver commitment. Now there's much debate within coaching circles if you can be a "run and shoot" team without being a four-wide receiver team. (Ironically, the Bills who beat the Oilers in that game and helped drive out the pure shoot were themselves a team that used primarily run and shoot concepts but with a tight-end, hence their nickname, the "K-Gun.") Moreover, run and shoot teams are actually far less multiple by formation than the typical spread team. They typically use a two-by-two spread look or a "trips" spread look with a single backside receiver and three to the other side. And they rarely go five-wides. There are many reasons for this -- including specialization of players -- but a big motivator is that their receivers and quarterback do so much reading after the snap they want to keep it simple before it; they want to see where the defense lines up and attack that. If you have fixed assignments, you are more concerned with moving the defense around to open those up; if you can adjust on the fly, that doesn't matter as much.

Receivers read the defense on the fly. This is probably the biggest difference between the modern "spread" and the 'shoot. Some of that distinction is a matter of shades of gray, but in other cases it is quite dramatic. The point about formations was made above, but the basic theory behind the offense goes back to the originator, Tiger Ellison. As the story goes, he wanted an offense that emulated what was most natural, so he observed playground and backyard football. He said you didn't see highly formalized lines and alignments or wedge plays and all that. Instead you saw a kid, on the run, tossing passes to receivers who would keep moving until they found open spots. To Ellison, if you didn't coach the kids too much they began "run and shooting" on their own, so he thought this was how people really want to play. Hence, his receivers would read and react on the fly to get open.

As Mouse Davis, who did as much to develop the modern 'shoot as any human could, has explained: "We are always going to adjust on the run to the defensive coverage," he said. "If the defense sets in one look, we are going to make one route adjustment. If the defense sets in another look, we are going to make another route adjustment."

There are a few ancillary points that have been part of the offense, but to a varying degree. For my purpose in this series they are important but not imperative.

Quarterback movement. In Ellison's original shoot and the versions used by Mouse Davis and in the NFL, the quarterback always began with a "half-roll" or semi-"sprint out," where he moved the pocket and attacked the corner. If you watch the video below of Portland State (now coached by run and shoot veterans Jerry Glanville and Mouse Davis; Portland State is in white and black), you'll clearly see what this looks like. This comported with Ellison's original vision of the run and shoot, and the fact that pass defenders had to contend with the threat of the quarterback running at them distorted the coverage. Nevertheless, some teams now have evolved to more of a dropback look, and June Jones now at SMU uses something of a hybrid. Moreover, what pass protection schemes you want to use will influence how you have your quarterback drop back.

Motion. This is probably one of the bigger changes with the 'shoot. In the original days, the idea was to have motion on every play, constantly moving from twins to balanced and back and forth. Now, however, defenses are better at disguising their reactions to motion and not giving away whether they are man or zone, so most teams have just disregarded it and just chosen to play. Nevertheless it is still a good tool to reveal certain techniques, and never underestimate how much it can affect a defense to change the strength of a formation.

Wrap-up

This is enough for now. In future parts of the series I will address topics like adjusting pass patterns on the fly, the basic run and shoot concepts like "switch," "go," and "choice," pass protection, marrying other pass concepts with the shoots, and quick passes and screens. Below are a few more run and shoot clips.