Pass Protection, the Super Bowl, Tom Brady, and the Blind Side

Question: What is the second highest paid position in the NFL? (Quarterback is first.) Cornerback? Wide receiver? Don’t guys like Randy Moss and Terrell Owens make ridiculous money? What about linebackers? Wait, it must be running back: guys like Clinton Portis and LaDainian Tomlinson command huge salaries.

No.

Answer: The second highest paid position in the NFL is left offensive tackle. It’s not really even close. Since the highest paid position is QB, it stands to reason that you’d pay a lot to protect him. Interestingly, until free agency arrived, all offensive linemen were paid the same. Centers, tackles, and guards all earned similar salaries. And, as a whole, linemen fell somewhere in the middle of the NFL salary hierarchy. When free agency hit, the age of the highly paid left tackle arrived.

Why Left Tackle?

There is a two word answer to why left tackles are now paid so highly. The first word is “Lawrence” and the second word is “Taylor.” Under Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, Lawrence Taylor destroyed opposing quarterbacks and helped the Giants win two Super Bowls. One legend tells of an opposing Quarterback calling a timeout because he couldn’t find number 56 before the snap. Identifying LT was typically necessary since the Giants moved him around on defense. But that time, the timeout was wasted: LT was simply catching a breather on the sideline. Whoops.

But LT’s hits did more than just derail a team’s passing attack for the afternoon. LT derailed careers. He knocked Joe Montana out for a season and, most famously, LT basically ended Joe Theisman’s playing career by inflicting some kind of multi-break spiral fracture of the likes not seen since the middle ages.

So the football reason that tackles are so highly paid – and the reason most practical to us here – is that an effective pass rush, particularly from a pass rusher that you cannot block, can totally shut you down. Such pass rush takes away large portions of your offense and forces you into predictable responses. The most sound of pass protections usually start out with the understanding that if the defense rushes five or six guys, you can pick them up, but your blockers will have to be able to block at least one defender one-on-one. No pass protection scheme can count on double teaming all possible rushers. If you can’t handle Lawrence Taylor man-for-man, then a five man rush becomes like a seven or eight man blitz, but also with sound coverage behind it.

I do just want to touch on the point about injuries and give credit for the above where it is due. Much of this discussion is the thesis of Michael Lewis’s book, The Blind Side.* Once modern passing teams became dependent on throwing the ball, the Quarterback, it became understood, became indispensable to team success. And once “pass rushing specialists” began to appear, one absolutely had to have guys who could block them. If your team can’t block them, it’s either going to be a long afternoon of sacks and incompletions, or your QB might end up in the hospital (taking your program or your team’s financial investment with him). Indeed, sport has no parallel for the quarterback who is consistently hit during his pass set-up and follow through. Imagine a freakishly large and fast linebacker like Shawn Merriman slamming full speed into a baseball pitcher in the middle of his wind-up, or Lawrence Taylor drilling Tiger Woods in the middle of his backswing. Remember, even LT’s 1990 New York Giants had to win the Super Bowl with their backup quarterback because their starter, Phil Simms, had gone down with an injury late in the year.

Blitzing: The All-Out Blitz

Contrary to what you might hear on TV, football is not really about “creating one-on-one matchups.” Sometimes this works, like if you’re a high school team and you have a future Randy Moss and they have a 5’10” guy who runs a 5.1 forty-yard dash at cornerback. Then one-on-one sounds great. But the better strategy is to force one defender into dealing with two offensive players. Think of option plays (one defender and two ball carriers), double-team blocks (two blockers and one defender), and good zone stretching pass concepts where one defender must account for two receivers (such as when a single free safety must deal with two receivers releasing free down the seams). An offense creates these two-for-one’s by forcing the defense to overcompensate somewhere else, such as where the defense is forced to commit two to cover one, or three to cover two receivers. One-for-one across the board will not get an offense home. Indeed, the Giants were always praying that they could get LT on a “one-on-one matchup.”

When most think of blitzing they think of all-out blitzes. It’s a truism that a defense may always bring one more guy than the offense can block: the ballcarrier’s counterpart. If an offense protects with ten the defense could still blitz eleven; if the offense protects with nine, releases one, and the QB stood back there the defense could still blitz ten. (See diagram.)

This has theoretical significance but is also (somewhat) practically irrelevant. The theoretical significance is that you can’t beat a defense by simply adding more blockers. But don’t make too much of this. On the one hand, you can’t solve blitzing problems by just adding more blockers because of the ball carrier’s counterpart problem evident in the diagram. But on the other hand, teams are less likely to blitz more people the more blockers you add. If you blocked with five most defenses might blitz six people 35% of the time; if you block with six they might blitz with seven 25%; if you protect with seven they might be willing to blitz eight 5-10% of the time; and if you protect with eight the likelihood of blitzing nine drops to almost nil.

Why that is, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a matter for cognitive psychologists, in that there is an irrational risk aversion to creating the same scenario – a single extra rusher – that arises when the D must rush eight or nine that isn’t present when the defense only needs to rush six or seven to get that extra rusher. Some offensive guys think it is extremely irrational (and thus an exploitable irrationality) because an all-out blitz against a spread set gives their QB more places to go with the football, more receivers to criss-cross and rub, and more opportunities to get an open man. Other offensive guys play the perceived irrationality the other way, knowing that if they protect with seven or eight then they will deter blitzing.

Then again, maybe this behavior from defensive coaches is rational, because more blockers might create the same scenario – a free rusher – but that free rusher might have to come from farther away, thus giving the QB more time to find an open guy. I tend to think the picture is complicated, but there is much merit to this last contention. A 15-25 yard completion against a blitz is far more threatening (and thus a better deterrent) than a 5-8 yard completion which a spread set might require with only five or six blockers.

There are excellent passing teams that take a “protect-first” approach, where the idea is to hit big passes against all-out blitzes and to play the percentages that a defense will get deterred from blitzing, and there are spread-teams that rely on hot routes, multiple receivers and quick passes. These teams seek to invite the blitz, betting that if they can get athletes the ball in space then they will break for big gains. There are good teams that mix and blend the two approaches, and there are inefficient and weak passing teams that lack focus and discipline across this spectrum. Like much in football, it is only partially a matter of what you do and more significantly an issue of how well you do whatever it is you do.

But the upshot is that the all-out blitz is not really where the action is at, at least among evenly-matched teams in high school, college, or the pros. Dealing with the all-out man blitz is a threshold question: if you can’t beat it, your offense will be shut down; if your defense gets burned every time (and you keep going to it) you will have a long afternoon. In this way, the all-out blitz battle between offense and defense is an example of constraint theory playing out.

Basic Principles of Dropback Protection

This is a deep and varied subject, but we have to have a little background to understand how the pass rush/protection game plays out. There are two types of protection schemes: (1) area or zone schemes, and (2) man schemes. Some protections blend these two approaches, either explicitly or implicitly.

(1) Area Schemes: An area scheme is where a group of blockers set up in a given areas and then sort and pick-up whatever “trash” comes through. For example, if the center, guard, and tackle are responsible for one side of the protection, and the defense crosses and twists a couple defensive linemen and a linebacker. This is probably the soundest “protect-first” approach, and good teamwork will allow the line to deal with defensive creativity with a simple sound approach.

Problems with area schemes arise when you introduce runningbacks, tight ends, or H-backs into the equation. The problem is twofold:

(a) An area scheme could leave you with a terrible match-up, such as a runningback on a defensive end (or Lawrence Taylor).

(b) An area-assigned protector who is also a skill player (like a tight end, H-back, or runningback) has a difficult time releasing into the route if the defense does not blitz. So any of those skill players who you have assigned to an area scheme likely will not get out into the route, and you might only have three receivers trying to get open against seven pass defenders. For example, see the diagram below.

Above, we put the guard, tackle, and Y (TE) on an area scheme, making them responsible for the defensive tackle, the defensive end, and the Stronside linebacker (Sam or “S”). If they were to stunt or twist, we’d be in good shape, but look what happens here: the DT and the DE just rush, and the Sam linebacker drops into coverage. So now the Y has to stay in to protect (where he is matched up with a defensive end!), the tackle blocks no one at all, and, at most, we can only get four men into the route. There are ways around this, but I want to highlight the concern.

(2) Man Schemes: The offensive front will identify their counterparts on defense and block them where they go. This is not always absolute. Typically linemen will still employ a modified area scheme (where they will trade defenders who twist), but running backs and the like, because they are set back further away from the line, can go where their counterpart goes easier than a lineman can. Look at the diagram below, the RB is assigned to the Weak (“W”) linebacker on a “man” principle. Wherever he goes, he is responsible for blocking him. If Will does not rush, the RB will release into the pass route. Similarly, H is responsible for the Strongside linebacker (“S”), and if he does not rush, then H will release into the route.

Man blocking seeks to eliminate the problems we identified with area schemes: as in the diagram above, a “BOB” approach - short for “Big on Big” and “Back on Backer.” The idea is that the linemen will take the big defensive linemen (who also tend to rush the passer on most plays), while the runningbacks or H-Backs will block the linebackers, who are both more their size and less likely to rush the passer than a defensive lineman. So you avoid both area scheme problems: the matchups should be better for the offense and, if the defense only rushes three or four, your skill guys can still get out into the route.

(3) Combo protection: An extremely common protection is to area block one side of the line and man block the other side, typically the side with the runningback. There is some dissension among coaches, but my view is that almost all six-man protections employ this concept, whether they do it explicitly (as I advocate) or implicitly, as others do. The idea is that most teams find it advantageous to teach their linemen to area block stunts and twists, so you wind up with a combo concept. I first explained this protection years ago here. Note that this protection employs my preferred form of "area" or "zone" protection, which is the "slide" protection. The details are explained below, but each area-blocking lineman "slides" to the gap away from the callside. I advocate a "full-slide" for many quick game routes, but below is my half-slide, which is the most useful and versatile protection I know of.

The base rules for this protection are as follows: Linemen to the callside [here, the right side] block man on until the first bubble (i.e. uncovered linemen, though the term "bubble" helps prevent against confusion due defensive players stunting). [Here the first uncovered lineman is the center.] From the bubble to backside the other will linemen will all slide away from the callside to that gap, and, as we like to say, pick up trash. For example versus a standard four man front, with the center uncovered, the center, backside guard and tackle will slide that way. The playside guard and tackle will block man on. The RB blocks LBs inside to out, from the bubble to outside rusher, or if you like Mike to Sam. If they don't come he releases.

There’s another very important concept, the dual-read. The dual-read is simply where a blocker is responsible for two-men. Usually there is a one and two: if one comes, he gets blocked, if two comes, the blocker must wheel out and block them. If they both come, he will only block one and the quarterback and receivers must complete the pass before two can get to the QB. This is easy and common for runningbacks. In the 1980s and for much of the 90’s it was common to do this with linemen (such as guards), but the practice has significantly decreased because it’s hard for a guard to wheel out and block an outside rusher. It became much more difficult in the late 90s and 2000s because defenses became good at freezing the lineman so he couldn’t get out there.

The Pass Protection Chess Match

So after this romp across protection concepts, we’re ready to understand some basics about the chess match between offense and defense. But first, a few preliminary remarks.

More than any other factor, sacks are primarily a function of the QB holding onto the ball too long, protection be damned. Any coach worth his salt is going to hold a stopwatch any time his QB drops back in practice. TV announcers who seek out what lineman to blame often miss the point: the QB needs to get rid of the ball quickly. The QB has just a couple of seconds to release the ball. Only a small percentage of sacks in the NFL and college can fairly be laid at the linemen’s feet. Now, the QB may get pressured, or have to throw it away, but most sacks are the QB’s fault.

Further, it is up to the playcaller not to make the QB a sitting duck. No one should ever call four straight drop-back (or play-action dropback) passes in a row. If the defense is going to take target practice, you should at least make your quarterback a moving target. I mean, “that’s [your] quarterback.”

The two best changeups – other than the run game – are the three-step passing game (see also here) and the screen game. But remember: the three-step game, as Bill Walsh said, was designed to take away obvious opportunities from the defense, such as loose outside coverage. Three-step passes are not necessarily sufficient to sustain your offense, and further, good defenses will bait you into throwing quicks and then will come up to make the tackle. Similarly for screens, if a defense is prepared for it, it’s often a negative play. So it’s all about finding the proper mix. This is all consistent with constraint theory.

Finally, do not forget about half-rolls and sprintouts. The run-and-shoot was based entirely on the half-roll principle, and I explained the sprint-out sometime ago here.

The Zone Blitz, the Hot Read, and the Dual Read

Hot Reads

I think the “zone blitz” is maybe the favorite term of the uninformed football commentator (second only to that abominable word, “trickeration”). But what is a “zone-blitz”? A defense does not zone blitz every time a defensive lineman drops into pass coverage. In fact, the defense does not even have to drop a defensive lineman at all to zone blitz. (I set aside here the abstract theoretical question of what to call it if a defense has no defensive linemen on the field at all.)

Instead, as the name implies, a “zone-blitz” means exactly what it says: a defense “zone-blitzes” anytime it “blitzes” or rushes linebackers or secondary players and plays a zone – as opposed to a man – coverage behind it. That sounds simple, right? I suppose commentators try to fancy it up since it’s obvious that teams have played zone behind blitzes for as long as teams have thrown the football. But, nevertheless, for much of the last century, most “blitzes” were tied to man coverage.

The reason is that most zone blitzes left intolerable holes in the coverage. If the defense blitzed two guys from the same side, a receiver to that side would run a route to wherever those defenders had just left, catch a quick pass, and pick up nice yardage. So defenses would typically bring their blitzes with man coverage in an attempt to take away these quick passes, and the game largely became about personnel and a QB’s poise under fire. And the Run and Shoot, among other offenses, relied on their screen game to deter all-out blitzes, because if the defense blitzed and the RB carried out his fake block properly, there was no one to cover him and he romped for a big gain. As Homer Smith has explained:

[L]earn from the great Run-And-Shoot teams that did not get blitzed for 20 years. Block a known rusher with an inside receiver and keep a second defender at bay with a delayed pass threat. (The Run-And-shoot singleback would block the end-of-line rusher and break off of the block four times a game for screen passes. Not until the advent of the zone blitz was the vaunted offense blitzed.)

So why is talk and usage of the zone-blitz so ubiquitous now? The reason is that, especially if you do have athletic defensive linemen, you can play games with where you bring your blitzers from and solve the two historical problems. See the diagram below for the basic “Fire Zone,” the most common variety ofzone-blitz.

(1) You notice in the above diagram that the defense is “blitzing” the Middle (Mike, or “M”) and Strongside (Sam, or “S”) linebackers. Under the old way, before the modern zone-blitz became prevalent, a common strategy would be to try to hit a receiver from the spot where the defense just left. Either the TE on a quick pass or, as here, the outside receiver on a slant. But, the strong safety is able to rotate down and take that away. Why can he do that? Because the backside defensive end has drifted out to the flat, and allowing the coverage to rotate towards the side the blitzers have come from. This makes the QB’s reads very murky, and murky is bad when big defensive guys are about to crush you.

So it is not the mere fact that a defensive end has dropped out and this “confuses” the QB and he throws it to some big lineman, though that sometimes happens. Defensive coaches do not want to actually put their defensive linemen in the spot where they think the ball might go – they recognize that they are not good pass defenders. The hope instead is to “hide” that defender, but still use him to allow the rest of the guys to get in a basically sound zone. Here, if the QB throws the slant, the safety will pick it off and take it the other way.

The other thing you will notice, is that by blitzing the Mike and the Sam the RB – here “F” – must stay in and protect the QB. That is significant because somewhere else on the line, either the backside tackle or guard, or possibly the center based on the stunt, will wind up blocking no one. In coach-speak this is called “blocking air.” So the defense has gained an advantage in yet another way: despite only bringing five guys, which presumably the offense would like to handle with its five offensive linemen while releasing the five receivers, the offense is protecting with six and can only release four receivers into the route. This is the chess match.

As another point, I mention that zone blitzes - since they only rush four to six defenders - are really designed to destroy six-man protections, which have traditionally been extremely popular with pass first teams. Even two-back, one TE teams like Bill Walsh's 49ers typically used six-man protections. I touch on some of the other counters to the zone-blitz in this article, but the simplest, and most effective, is to simply use a 7-man protection scheme (one is diagrammed above under "Man Schemes"). Although it is more likely that you might lose a possible receiver to a protection responsibility, it is better that than to give your QB a difficult hot or sight adjustment read or that he gets sacked. Moving on.

(2) The second point is more basic, which is that the screen to the RB that Homer Smith referenced above, which against a man blitz required two defenders to watch, is now largely neutralized – or at least its effects mitigated – because like a normal defense you have linebackers and safeties reading the play who can come up to tackle the back if they read screen.

Dual Read

In 2004, the Pittsburgh Steelers made an impressive run through the NFL playoffs, beating the Indianapolis Colts (an offensive juggernaut) along the way, and polishing off the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. I’m sure the terrible-towel wavers found this significant for many reasons, but for me, it signaled another nail in the coffin of asking offensive linemen to dual read.

As shown above, it’s not uncommon to ask a running back or even an H-back to “dual read,” or read two different men to see whether they blitz. The QB knows that if only one or the other blitzes, then it should be taken care of. He only has to read “hot” – i.e. an expedited throw – if both blitz. In theory.

Now, many coaches still teach their linemen to dual read, but it is not easy to do. The Steelers repeatedly used this tactic to gain an unblocked or free rusher. Both the Seahawks and the Colts consistently used had their guards and center dual read, and the results were not good. Below is representative of what the Steelers would do:

The left guard, shaded in green, would be responsible for blocking either of the inside or outside linebackers to his side. In theory, if the inside linebacker dropped and the outsider backer blitzed, the guard would wheel out to block him. No doubt they practiced this all the time. What the Steelers did – and this was not revolutionary – was the inside linebacker would take a step or two up, thus “freezing” the guard, while the outside linebacker came flying towards the quarterback. The guard would try to recover, but too often he was late, and the play was destroyed.

Observe how powerful that is for the defense. They only rush four, maybe five defenders, and the other six or seven all drop into coverage. The secondary can watch the Quarterback’s eyes, and he is under incredible duress from an unblocked rusher. Indeed, if the defense can get an unblocked blitzer with only four rushing, they often would blitz someone the back was responsible for, figuring that the one-for-one trade in taking the RB out of the route was a good one. See, how one-on-one matchups does not win you the game, but instead this was an example of the defense winning a numbers game.

(As an interesting aside, in the Super Bowl against the Patriots the Giants cleverly inverted this concept: Linebacker Kavika Mitchell lined up over the center, while an outside rusher lined up in threatening position away from the side the running back was responsible for. At the snap, Mitchell head-faked as if he was dropping back into pass coverage, and the center – who no doubt had a dual read and was responsible for the outside rusher, and who knew he needed to move quick if he had a prayer of getting out there – cleared out. Mitchell, instead of dropping back, blitzed directly up the middle and sacked Tom Brady. Mitchell made a great fake, but the reason it was so open was because the center had protection responsibilities besides Mitchell. Again, dual reading by a down lineman is never easy. It is much easier for a running back who has more time to see the defense in front of him.)

The Sugar Bowl and the Super Bowl: Sometimes it’s Not About Xs and Os, It's About - Yes I Get It - Jimmies and Joes. Well Guess What? Joe sucks.

In both the Super Bowl and the Sugar Bowl, high-flying spread offenses (the Patriots were basically a spread team) were largely shut down because of an inability to protect the passer. And in both, there really wasn’t a lot of clever scheming going on, it was just lots of the Lawrence Taylor phenomenon: Who do you have that can block my guy? The answer for both the Patriots and the Hawaii Rainbows was, nobody. This was doubly surprising because both offensive lines had really performed quite well through the year: both units were disciplined, hard working, and did not blow assignments. Yet, they were exposed. The reality is that sometimes, good offensive line play is not enough. At the higher levels of football, if you’re going to deal with freaks of nature on defense, you need your own freaks of nature to block them. That’s why the best left tackles get paid so much, and why, as Michael Lewis’s book (link, amazon) chronicles, coaches at every level are searching for those kids who somehow combine behemoth size with incredible athleticism.

But there has to be something you can do, right? Football is about reacting to and neutralizing the other team’s strengths. The most striking thing about the Super Bowl and the Sugar Bowl was that neither team – the Pats nor Hawaii – ever seemed that interested in trying to add H-backs or extra running backs to “chip” protect on their way out. (I.e. while they release on a pass route they get a small block or “chip” on the good pass rushers to help the other linemen make their blocks.)

I will leave it to say that I was surprised that neither team did it more. But I think a partial answer is that what made those teams excellent was a complete commitment to a particular style, especially in Hawaii’s case where they were coached by the excellent June Jones. Their offense is based out of that four-wide set, and to suddenly put tight ends and other blockers on the field, well, then you’re not a Run and Shoot team. Nevertheless, the problem of exceptional pass rushers is not isolated, so there have to be a few other things to do. I can’t cover them all here, but he’s a few.

The first thing is you must use the defense’s aggressiveness against itself. The first thing to do against aggressive defenses is to trap them. Below is a diagram of the quick inside trap, and you can read about the famous “Draw Trap” here. The theory behind the trap is that the defensive linemen will come hard charging thinking it is a pass, and the linemen directly across from them will bypass them to block a linebacker, while another linemen comes over and basically surprise-blocks them into oblivion. When done correctly, this can open up huge holes.

I already mentioned quick passes. For quick passes, I advocate a simple 6-man slide or area protection, which forces the defense to come from the furthest away to reach the quarterback. Of course, as I said above, some defenses may blitz and bait you into throwing the quick passes, so one must be cautious. But most passing teams will deliver a steady diet of quick passes to any blitz-heavy opponent.

Another approach, most famously used by Texas Tech’s Mike Leach, is to spread his linemen’s splits out wider and wider. The idea, as explained by Michael Lewis (him again):

The big gaps between the linemen made the quarterback seem more vulnerable - some defenders could seemingly run right between the blockers - but he wasn't. Stretching out the offensive line stretched out the defensive line too, forcing the most ferocious pass rushers several yards farther from the quarterback. It also opened up wide passing lanes through which even a short quarterback could see the whole field clearly.

This approach obviously requires offensive tackles with some ability, but the logic is sound: I will make the path to my QB as far for you as possible. And if we run our offense correctly, the ball should be gone. (Remember what I said at the beginning about how most sacks are the result of the QB holding onto the ball too long? Leach has transformed this rule of thumb into a philosophical mantra.)

Finally, the screens. The best modern play in football is the jailbreak screen. (By modern, I mean that it is one of the few genuine innovative ideas in the game, though by that I mean it is less than thirty years old, compared to most of what else we do which is, at minimum, fifty or sixty years old.) Properly executed, it turns a normal offensive play into a kickoff return, uses the defense’s aggressiveness against it, and it is particularly good against zone blitzes, where the play uses the fact that defensive linemen are poor in space to the offense’s advantage.

The screen involves an outside receiver taking a quick upfield step, and then he comes down the line underneath the blocks of inside receivers and the linemen. He cuts the ball up, find the alley, and goes to score. Again, this is probably the best deterrent there is against the zone blitz, as you use the defense’s aggressiveness against it, and those dropping defensive linemen don’t look too good trying to make tackles in the open field. With any luck, maybe it’ll look like one of the jailbreak screens below:

It's only fitting that I conclude with some highlights of the jailbreak screen:

Conclusion

In no way is this article an exhaustive report on the intricacies of pass protection. But it gets us far towards the end. Out of all of football, it is probably the most interesting "mini-game" within the game. The techniques are difficult - pass protecting is an essentially unnatural act that must be learned - and it is the defense that can move around, shift, and redo their alignment at will. Many a passing attack has been grounded from lack of protection. Sometimes from personnel, sometimes from scheme. Hopefully this article has shown how the two work together.

Endnotes/Postscript

* A few notes on the Blind Side and Michael Lewis. I highly recommend all of Lewis’s books. The Blind Side is good, but not as good as Moneyball or Liar’s Poker, though probably much more personal than either. It’s a unique story to football, and a good read.

Run/Pass Balance, Game Theory, and the Passing Premium Revisited

A few years ago I wrote some of my most popular posts, entitled the "Run/Pass and a Little Game Theory," with follow-up responses to comments One, and Two. (Some of my best ideas are in the responses.)

Although I can't say exactly that they were inspired by my work - though these posts were released in mid-2006 - there has been much serious work done in the areas since.

First, one of the phenomena I identified was that in a world without risk, coaches ought to be neutral between running and passing, and so should call them in whatever mixture produces the most yards per play. But I identified a "passing premium," which refers to the fact that in the real world, passes tend to average more yards per play than runs, and coaches generally do not throw the ball more to correct for this perceived imbalance. I argued that this made sense because passes are generally riskier than runs, but teams might still be out of wack one way or another. The other side of the coin was that supposedly imbalanced teams, be they run first or pass first teams, were often very much balanced in their play selection than people give them credit for.

Well, this idea has engendered much recent scholarship and commentary, including two articles in the Journal of Quantative Analysis in Sports:

- Benjamin Alamar, The Passing Premium Puzzle.

- Duane Rockerbie, The Passing Premium Puzzle Revisited.

- Sabermetric Research, NFL Passing Premium Puzzle Revisited.

The other phenomena I touched on in those articles was that the choice between running and passing, in terms of maximizing your expected gain, was not absolute. Instead it was a game theory problem. In other words, just because passes tends to average more than rushes does not mean that you should call 100% passes. If you pass more and more, the other team will shift their strategy. But even more importantly, the other team will adjust its strategy based on your intrinsic payout structure: If you are an excellent passing team, they will obviously call more pass defenses (or add an extra defensive back, etc) but if your payout structure changes - i.e. an excellent running back returns from injury - that does not mean that you should automatically run more and more, because the other team, knowing that he is back, will be forced to counter your running back. The exact change in optimal run/pass balance can change, but the upshot is that your passing game will often become more attractive when a great running back comes back, because the defense must shift its strategy. So when TV announcers say that just because you have a new or better running back, then that team must automatically run the ball more, do not believe it.

This idea too has engendered commentary (again, not necessarily as a direct result of my posts, but I wrote about it some years ago and I'm happy to see the ideas proliferate):

- Advanced NFL Stats, Game Theory and Run/Pass Balance.

- Advanced NFL Stats, Passing Paradox. (I mention this article too because it cites some of my older work, which attempted to account for the riskiness of runs and passes and find their optimal mix by using the Sharpe ratio from financial economics. See also here, and here.)

I look forward to more and more analysis on these topics. Football is by far the most interesting sport to analyze, but also the most difficult. So, so many variables. Each play is discrete, but interconnected to the others in intricate ways (hence, game theory). Further, to analyze it requires a certain basic competency in football, statistics, probability, and economics (along with time) that few possess. As great as Football Outsiders is, they have produced very little that is useful to the typical coach. But the ideas here transcend the fan and the practitioner. I am sure there is more to come.

Links to my past articles:

Run/Pass Balance and a Little Game Theory
Run/Pass Balance - Response to Comments I
Run/Pass Balance - Response to Comments II
The Sharpe Ratio for Football - I
The Sharpe Ratio for Football - II
The Sharpe Ratio for Football - III

I Win! College Football Blogger Awards: Best Post

So I won a "College Football Blogger Award" for "Best Analysis: Best Post" for my article on the "Divide Route in the Multiple Smash Concept." I'm also up for an award for "Best Analysis" for the site as a whole, but I likely don't update with enough frequency to pull that one down.

I'm flattered to have won. The site is designed to contribute that kind of analysis with each post, so hopefully I am succeeding in my own slow and incremental way. I'm also happy with my readership: a combination of football professionals and intellectually curious football fans.

In any event, I also wanted to use the opportunity to thank the loose consortium of great college football blogs that have shown me a lot of recent support. A special hat tip too to Dawg Sports, which predicted that I'd win this particular award, and to Peter from Burnt Orange Nation, for whom I did one feature and honestly still owe him more.

To read more about the College Football Awards, check out this index from Every Day Should Be Saturday.

Last, here is a brief, nonexclusive list of some great college football blogs (each made even greater by having supported me in the past).

- Burnt Orange Nation
- Dawg Sports
- MGOBlog
- Sunday Morning Quarterback
- Every Day Should Be Saturday
- Rocky Top Talk
- Double-T Nation

The Divide Route in the Multiple Smash Concept

The "smash concept" is extremely popular for a reason: It's a great route. And it is simple to teach. The concept is designed to defeat Cover Two in its many forms. As Cover Two has evolved (Tampa 2, "Tough Two" with the corners retreating to ten yards and jumping routes, and Cover Two-Man), the Smash has become more and more popular.

A word here about verbiage. I refer here to the "Smash concept" or the "Smash route." Both refer to a two-man combination with the outside receiver on a 6 yard hitch and the inside receiver on a 12 yard corner route. Some coaches and teams go further and actually refer to either the corner route or the hitch route as a "smash" route. Again, "smash" to me is the combination - i.e. the concept - rather than any individual route.




In any event, the quarterback has a progression read: (1) corner, (2) hitch underneath. In his progression read he will "key" the cornerback: If the cornerback sinks back to stop the corner route, throw the hitch; if he comes up for the hitch, throw the corner. The best way to describe this to a QB is that you have a progression read and you "read" your receivers. You simply "progress" from one to two. In doing this though you have to understand what guys you are "keying," as their reactions should determine your progression. A Quarterback must understand defenses and defender reactions, but at the same time there is no telling where those 11 guys on defense will go, and as long as he knows where his receivers are and if the QB and the receivers are all on the same page we can run a successful play. We tell him his general rule is to throw the corner route until they take it away (though by gameplan or defense you can tell him to always throw the hitch until they come up for it).

I won't belabor the details of coaching up the "smash" portion of the route itself. If you want to understand all the details in depth, I suggest this. See here too for more on the "multiple smash route." (Registration required) Broadly, the inside receiver will run a 12 yard corner route. He has no "reading" on the play, but he must know his techniques. First, he should identify whether it is man or zone. Against man he will need to close his defender's cushion, push or lean him slightly inside, and plant and break hard away from the defender. Against zone he wants to see who he is running the route off of. If there is a deep defender over him he must set this man up inside and jab at the post at 10-12 yards and break for the corner. If there is no one head up on him he will roll cut his route so he loses no speed. It's worth mentioning though that even if he jabs or plants and breaks we want this closer to a "speed cut," as we don't want him to lose too much speed. A receiver can do this best by "jabbing" while having his toes actually pointed where he wants to go and having his "plant" foot not outside the framework of his body. Young receivers too often step way outside their body frames with their toes pointed in the wrong direction.

The corner route will be caught between 22-25 yards downfield. The QB's job is to "throw him open": throw the ball into the open grass. The receiver must react to the ball and go and get it. Against man to man defense to the short side of the field the depth of the route will be 18-22 yards.

See the above linked article for more specifics, but we tell the outside guy he has two portions to his route. First, run a six-yard hitch route (five-steps - three big and two small), and (2) the "option" or "get open" part of his route. We simply want him to find the open spot. If the corner comes up in Cover 2 zone he will push to 6, turn inside, and work inside to the next zone hole.



If the corner is off and he turns and there is a flat defender inside, he just wants to get space from that guy. If that defender hangs the hitch receiver will drift away from him at his 5-6 yard depth as an outlet for the QB.



If the flat defender flies out to cover him he will break inside this player. We'd like him to actually climb over this flat defender because he will better be able to find the zone hole created but if the flat defender hangs back too far he will come inside slightly and settle underneath.



The Divide Route

This is all fairly straightforward stuff that most people do. The point of this article is to talk about adding a bit more of a big-play dimension to theSmash by using the "divide route," which in other coaches terminology may be a "seam read" or a "tube-read." Both the route and the "read" are simple.

The divide route involves a MOFO or MOFC read by the inside receiver. MOFO simply means "middle of the field open," or no deep middle safety. MOFC means "middle of the field closed," or is there a deep middle guy. The nice thing about this read for the "divide route" as opposed to some other contexts is that the route, hence the name, is simply about "dividing" the deep coverage and the receiver has a lot of freedom to find the downfield open grass. It's a deep stretch and it is designed to strike safeties who overplay the smash or simply get out of position.

Obviously the immediate strength of the divide route as shown is that if a two-deep safety to the smash side overplays the route, one can hit the post route for a big play. If you keep the go route on the backside (as diagrammed) and both safeties overplay the Smash side then the "Go" might be open for a big play. The simple reality is that a Cover 2 team really cannot cover this concept effectively.

Against a Cover 3 zone the QB's "peek" is the seam backside. Before the smash part of his progression, he wants to get the F/S moving and hit the seam.



Running the divide to the trips side is even more dangerous. Any team that tries to play Cover 2 to the trips side will struggle mightily. Many defensive coaches instruct their kids to simply check out of Cover 2 against a trips look. Observe that the "divide" principles governing that inside receiver tells him that he will run more of a "skinny" post here inside the Cover 2 safety to break the deep coverage but avoid the safety on the opposite hash. If there is no deep safety the receiver has lots of freedom.

This is because, again, the governing principle of the "divide route" (one reason I like to call it this instead of a "seam-read") is that you can largely just tell the receiver that he has the area between the hashmarks to work to find the deep open vertical grass. A more advanced technique applies if the defense drops super deep so that he cannot effectively "divide" defenders. This will be done by gameplan, but if that is the case we will essentially let him "throttle" down a bit in the voids and the QB will still look to throw it in the open grass, but simply in the open grass in front of those deep dropping safeties.

In any event, see below for how the divide route will work against MOFO and MOFC defenses.

Cover 2:



Cover 3:



Now, what if it is a MOFC defense but that free safety is flying over too much? Well now it's time to be a good Ball Coach and tag the inside receiver on a "middle-read" route. I have previously explained that route here. The similarity with the divide is a post route against MOFO. The difference is a square-in or cross against MOFC. So if that free safety flies over, he will cut inside that guy. Observe that this is the exact same principle we used for that outside hitch receiver.



Backside hitch

Here is a last aspect to the play that I am a big fan of. I think the play is very effective if you keep the backside player on a hitch, particularly in trips. This gives you a great look against any soft coverage. When you do this you ask your QB to be a ball player and get the ball to the backside receiver if the defense gives it. (In other words, it's probably soft Cover 3.) If it's not there he looks over to the smash side and works his normal progression: Peek at the divide route, then work the smash combination.



Conclusion

This is a simple, well designed play that is both a ball-control, high percentage play, but with the divide route and the corner route it has great big-play potential. If the defense plays soft you will take what they give you, but if they play any kind of two-deep or if their safety gets out of position you will make them pay.

The Shotgun, The 'Gun, and the Shotgun Spread Offense

Ferment is abroad in football. The possibilities widen; new ideas are accepted and implemented within hours of conception. People are interested now in not just who their favorite players are, but what are these fascinating schemes. With the internet comes accessibility: now your high school runs what your favorite college team is not sophisticated enough to do. The ideas come from everywhere. The innovators are born on disparate staffs and the ideas ebb, flow, and crash together constantly, daily, hourly. Now even the big, famous schools must wade into the waters to hire those comfortable with its movements: Rodriguez to Michigan, Tony Franklin hired by Auburn.


This ferment is ideal. A decade ago ideas were stagnant. Football was only for the purists, and if you failed to replicate the Platonic ideals, then you hadn't been schooled properly. Five years later, the beginnings of the ferment - turbulent, muddy, a vigorous undercurrent. Ten years later - today, now - the waters are flooding, spilling onto that once sacred ground.

Rich Rodriguez, the Johnny Appleseed of the Spread, has been hired by Michigan. The Pundits talk of the "the Spread," the "Gun Spread," the "Gun Option," the "Airraid," the "Zone Read," and the "Pistol." The coaches talk of these too, but they also talk of the "Gun Jets Sweep," and the "Gun Jets," the "Gun Veer," and the "Gun Triple."

The ideas stir. They stir football itself. This reexamination of all that came before - restless, relentless. The search for good ideas, new ideas, ideas never before dreamed of. This - the ferment - is not a fad. It cannot be. It is football itself: there's been a synthesis.

The 'Gun and its history.

The shotgun itself, the perceived center of all of this "newness," has its roots in the beginning of football, however.
Most commentators, of course, seem to deify the "shotgun" itself as an entire offense rather than what it is - a particular way to align your quarterback and perform the center-exchange. Ironically, however, they also take a restricted view of the gun’s presence in football history, presuming it was invented, alternative, in the 60s (Red Hickey), the 70s (Tom Landry), the 80s (pick somebody), the 90s (pick somebody), or the 2000s (whoever they root for, or often Urban Meyer or some passing coach). Regardless, it's somewhat silly.

The point of this article is to show that (a) the shotgun itself has ancient roots, and is not some passing fad, (b) and, thus by inference, the ferment and change I spoke of in the introductory paragraphs is not as limited as how you align your Quarterback.

Indeed, I imagine that the shotgun's history would surprise many such commentators. The “gun” was in many ways the standard back in the early days of football. Especially consider that the under-center snap was not invented until at least a decade or so after football itself was invented, if not longer. In fact, in the fairly early days, players had to actually short-kick the ball with their heel (don’t ask me!) back as a form of snap. Also, the gun and the pass have been around since 1908-1910 or so, since the forward pass was legalized and encouraged by rule changes due to the “brutal” nature of football at a time when the “single-wing” and almost all offenses involved shotgun type snaps which lead to melees resulting from attempts to advance the ball.

To demonstrate the trends, I think there are four good “watershed” type games that either were representative for the time or helped us get where we are today, though there are surely others.

1. Notre Dame vs. Army Part I

In 1913, Notre Dame traveled to West Point to face the heavily favored Army. Final score: 35-13, Notre Dame. Knute Rockne, the famous future coach but then little-known end, caught an array of passes from one Gus Dorais, who that day nearly revolutionized the position. The legend grows larger over time, and the forward pass had been legal for roughly eight years, but that day Dorais completed 14 of 17 passes for 243 yards and three touchdowns. Dorais even completed a pass to Rockne that, at the time, was the longest pass play ever. But more importantly, this game was the coming out party for the forward pass. Although this story might be collateral to the shotgun story – indeed Dorais was already operating out of the “gun” – but few would question that the forward pass still defines football today.

2. Notre Dame vs. Army Part II

By 1925, Rockne was Notre Dame’s coach. We all have heard these famous lines:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.

The four horsemen were four backfield mates who played for now-coach Knute Rockne. Most people forget the next few lines from that paragraph:

They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army football team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down on the bewildering panorama spread on the green plain below.

Notre Dame won 13-7. To our story, this game was not so much a watershed as it was representative of the time: Notre Dame ran an all-shotgun offense known as the “Notre Dame Box.” The “box” was a shotgun formation where the center could snap to any one of four guys, depending how they lined up. So, the most famous galloping backfield of all time played in the Gun, however bizarre it would appear by today’s standards.



This should serve as a firm rebuttal to the argument that the shotgun is currently new or (more popularly) was invented only to pass. This is flatly wrong. From the beginning of football, the shotgun was about running the football and faking. Indeed, it was even about power. Just ask the Four Horsemen.

3. Chicago Bears vs. Washington Redskins – The day the shotgun died.

In 1940 Bears Coach George Halas unleashed his under center offense on the Redskins on the way to a modest 73-0 victory. The Bears utilized the then-fairly rare “Tee Formation,” where the Quarterback (remember, he was originally so named because of how far back he aligned - the term was a rugby term before it was a football term) would in line up under center with three backs behind him in a straight “Tee.” Using this formation, along with a series of fakes, counters, traps, bootlegs, and other deception Halas’s Bears crushed the Redskins to win the NFL title. Note that the Redskins had beaten the Bears earlier that season.

For the next thirty to forty years, the unequivocal primary method for hiking the ball was the under center snap. This game is also important because it shows that faking, deception, and using multiple ball carriers is not new, nor is it exclusive to the shotgun. It is simply a distinct concept.

After this game the shotgun made a few appearances, most famously with Red Hickey with the 49ers and Tom Landry with the Cowboys. And in the 80s and later in the 90s teams as disparate as the Miami Dolphins with Marino, Purdue with Joe Tiller and Drew Brees, and the Hal Mumme Kentucky Wildcats (with the support of Mike Leach) set quite a number of passing records in the gun. But this modern revolution came about, I believe, because people had to see how you could throw and run from the shotgun.

Although Rich Rodriguez probably deserve smore credit than anyone for spreading the concepts themselves, it was Northwestern’s late-coach Randy Walker who I think turned the football coaching world on its head one blue-skied afternoon in November, 2000.

4. Northwestern vs. Michigan – The Modern Era Dawns.

Northwestern defeats Michigan 54-51. This is shocking enough. Northwestern scored fifty-four points against a Michigan team known for great defense and great defensive talent. Doubly shocking. Quarterback Zak Kustok threw for 322 yards and four touchdowns. Not so shocking from a spread QB in victory. Don’t they always have to throw for this much to win? That’s why they get in the gun, right?

But wait, there’s another stat.

Northwestern Rushing: 332 Yards; 6.64 average per carry. 332 yards.

What? Three-Hundred and Thirty Yards rushing?

How did they do that? Yes their running back had a huge day, but the yards that also made everyone sit up and take notice were the 55 yards from Northwestern’s quarterback, Zak Kustok – hardly Vince Young or Pat White in raw athleticism. But the light went off across the country. If Zak Kustok can do it, maybe my guy can too. And even if he’s not Vince Young, just the threat that he can make the defense pay if they over pursue by getting me eight yards, then let’s do it.

Obviously, not everyone running the spread now saw this game. Even Gun Guru Urban Meyer didn’t start running this offense until his Bowling Green days sometime after this game, and he admittedly went out to others to learn the offense. The shotgun run-game didn’t bubble up inside anyone like a well-spring. But this was the game that changed the landscape.

Where we are are now.


So Randy Walker and Rich Rodriguez blew the doors off. The gun is now fully part of the arsenal for nearly every team, and the sky is the limit on what you can do. The all-eleven offense, the pistol, and the single-wing itself are all part of the calculus. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a major team running the Notre Dame box.

I thought I’d provide a quick summary of some of the factors in the calculus for when you want to use the gun. Observe that many of the factors come from Coach Homer Smith, so I can’t too much credit.

Advantages of the Shotgun

- The QB can get deeper in a given amount of time (whether the 3 yard “pistol” snap or a 7-8 gun for passing)

- Lateral play faking (but not drop back style play action, at least so easily) can be achieved

- Relatedly, the zone-read is a kind of “bootleg-plus” in that instead of calling a blind bootleg, you make the backside defensive end wrong every time)

- Some QB's can see better (i.e. wider field of vision)

- The depth of the QB often forces the defense to expose its pressure plans more clearly

- The RB might be able to pick up a blitz better (i.e. no dropping QB to bump into)

- It does not need a snap count and helps mitigate crowd noise factors (though many still use a snap count)


Disadvantages of the Shotgun

- The QB has to take his eyes off the pass defense and has to watch the ball into his hands. This effect also somewhat reduces the QB’s ability to see the coverage and read changes (Cover 2 to 1, etc.) until after the snap. This is particularly acute for 3-step passes, where you have to catch and throw almost immediately. The read becomes almost exclusively pre-snap.

- The Shotgun alignment makes some lead-plays more difficult. I also would argue that the “gun-option,” as such, is not completely structurally sound in the way other veer plays are. Some gun teams have tried to develop the veer from the gun. Time will tell whether they are successful. (This requires more discussion than I have space for.)

- It becomes a crutch for the QB and an easy way to avoid improving footwork and play faking. I think this is an underrated problem. Footwork in the gun is (a) easier, because it is less, but is (b) prone to getting very, very sloppy. If there is any knock against “spread gun” QBs who go to the Pros, this one of the few viable ones, but can be simply overcome with good coaching.

- It retards the notion of a power run game and shifts more towards deception based delays, options, or draw type run plays. This is not a bad thing, though true.

- It can amplify your QB’s athletic skills, in either direction. If they are very athletic, it can improve their ability to make plays, but if they are not athletic many traditional QB plays – bootlegs, play action, and certain lead-option type run plays - are almost entirely out of the question.

- The footwork of the QB changes as does timing for pass plays. The "mesh" point for hand-offs to the RB change as well. Now Florida offensive coordinator Dan Mullen says this is one reason they run shotgun almost exclusively, so they can practice just one thing and get good at it.

So there are pros and cons. What this mostly counsels is a commitment to what you do, an organized, systematic approach to your offense, and an acknowledgment of where your weaknesses are as well as your strengths. The great shotgun teams work on this consistently, the haphazard teams will consistently both live and die by their sword-of-the-moment.

"Switch It" - Put a Little Hawaii In Your Offense

While the Run & Shoot is over twenty-years old and I have even discussed its demise from most levels of football, the obvious recent R&S success story has been the Hawaii Warriors under lifelong 'Shooter, June Jones. With Colt Brennan (and seemingly anyone else they put back there), they have lit up opposing teams and broken a few scoreboards along the way. It's a great offense.

But let it be known that Jones has adapted some aspects of the traditional Mouse Davis Run and Shoot to his liking, discarding some concepts, adapting others, and overhauling the pass protection. (Hence why my "What Killed the Run and Shoot" thread doesn't keep Jones up awake at night - they simply do different things now.)

In the traditional shoot, there were only a few pass packages, but each had multifarious adjustments for each receiver. They did this by requiring each receiver to identify the defense and each would adjust his route on the fly. The QB would synthesize this information and hit the proper man. As June Jones said when he was still in the NFL: "When our receivers run up the field, they are going to look for one of five coverages. A team may use 50 defenses, but to us it will be one of those five."

Those five coverages were: "(1) Three Deep Zone; (2) Two Deep Zone, (3) Two Deep Man Under; (4) Man Free [One safety deep with man-to-man underneath]; (5) Four Across Man (Blitz)."

Now, this was quite successful for many years. Without overemphasizing the impact, the rise of the zone blitz muddied the waters for many of these reads and hastened the R&S's retreat. I say I don't want to emphasize this too much, because the zone blitz has been around for at least as long as the Shoot, so it wasn't just that.

But there has been a definite trend among Shooters to reduce the number of reads that receivers must make. Even Jones has reduced the amount of reading in his offense and appears to have discarded a few of the concepts completely, while only adjusting others. And yet, the "reading" is what makes the Shoot the Shoot. So that is my topic today.

I have said many times that regardless of whether you see teams run the "Run and Shoot" per se (and I am talking about the "Run and Shoot" as a distinct system, not just a generic term for any ol' spread team), you will constantly see the R&S concepts and you will continue to see them for a long time. So in this post I want to discuss one of the most common and successful concepts, the Switch.

The Switch

The Switch is one of the Shoot mainstays, but the concept has transcended the offense and now chunks of NFL and College playbooks are dedicated to the "switch" - often from coaches who would otherwise show nothing but disdain for the now supposedly discredited offense. But to many coaches, players, and fans, the play is still shrouded in mystery.

The concept is, at core, a two man concept. Two receivers release and "switch": The outside guys angle inside for 5-6 yards before pushing vertical, while the inside guy runs a "wheel route" under the outside guy, rubs right off of his hip, and then turns up the sideline. That's when they play gets interesting.

In the original R&S, each receiver had the five delineated options depending on what coverage he saw. They could break it quick on slants, run vertical routes, post routes, curls or in cuts. When it worked it was beautiful. But sometimes, to borrow Yeats's phrase, "things fall apart." Or simply it took immense practice time for receivers to get good at running the play.

Indeed, it is simpler to teach this kind of thinking when all of your routes adjust. But it's not quite so simple if you run curl-flat as your bread and butter play, with no reading, as many teams do. And yet. the play thrives.

The Reads

Some coaches have installed the switch and simply eliminated the reads entirely. This is a sound approach, and it captures the initial beauty of the play: the "rub" the two switching receivers create against man. And it still works as a kind of "vertical stretch" where the two receivers can put deep defenders in a bind with one down the sideline and another in the seam, especially if a backside receiver runs in the seam as well.

But the play's potency is in its variance. And you can be variant without overly complex reads. How? Here is how I suggest running the play, as dithered from the best College, Pro, and High School minds who use this concept.

The Routes

Below is a basic diagram of the route.



The reads are as follows:

Inside Receiver: The inside receiver will come under the outside guy on his route, and wheel up the sideline. All he is looking for is whether there is someone deeper than him in the deep one-third of the field. Or, if the guy on him is playing him in man, he just asks: "He's even? I'm leaving! (Running deep) He goin? I'm stayin." It's as simple as deciding whether you could get open deep or not. If the defender stays deep, the receiver will stop at 10-12 yards and settle and curl back to the Quarterback.

Outside Receiver: The outside guy will stem his route inside and then push up the seam. His read is simple:

- Middle of the Field Closed (I.e. Is there a single deep safety in the middle of the field, like in Cover 3?) - Run a seam.

- Middle of the Field Open (I.e. Are there two deep safeties with no one deep down the middle?) - Run a square in at 12 yards.

I have previously described the nuances of this MOFO/MOFC read. Now, this might sound a bit tricky, but this is the one, core "reading" principle that any receiver can quickly identify both before and after the snap, and in most cases it is quite intuitive: don't run into coverage.

Below is the route against a few coverages to show how it would play out.

Cover 3



And Cover 2



QB Read:

The QB's read is not difficult. It is a pure progression read, though pre-snap and post-snap he will identify 2-high and 1-high so he knows what he's looking for. Against 1-high he will look at the F/S (deep middle safety's) movement. He will peek for the backside seam but read (1) inside switcher, (2) outside switcher, and (3) outlet to running back.

Final Concerns

One of the purposes of this article was to show that this concept, native to the Run and Shoot, can be run in many offenses. I have shown it so far in a very Shoot friendly formation. But do not be fooled: this route can be run by any two line of scrimmage receivers, in nearly any offense. See the diagram below with the Switch with play-action from the I formation. Again, you can run this from any formation you like.



And finally, if one did adopt to their offense (or you begin to notice it on television), there are further adjustments you can make. One of the long-time best has been the "Switch-Smash," shown below.



On this route the outside receiver stems inside and then pushes to 12 yards before running a corner route, while the inside receiver "wheels" out and pushes to 5-6 and then hitches back. He then delays briefly, and if the QB does not immediately deliver the ball, he will work to find the opposite spot or burst and lose his man to man defender. This is a great change up, particular against a team that runs Cover 2.


Grab-Bag

As a final parting shot, I will show you a few more variations with what you can do with this play. The concept is simple, so you can build on it or combo it as you like.