Every offense would like to have explosive plays in the passing game and connect on some deep balls, but it’s not always as simple as sending a wide receiver out on a go route. Because of the different coverages defenses play these days, it can be hard to get a guy singled up down the field. Even then, it might end up being a low-percentage throw down one of the sidelines. There are ways, however, to use a defense’s coverage rules against them if you recognize what they are playing.
The Notebook: Offensive trickery and next-level play design
Sending a speedster on a go route isn’t the only way to get a big play these days. Retired NFL defensive end Stephen White looks at some of the ways offensive coordinators are making life tougher for opposing defenses.
Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
On the first play of the game this past week, Peyton Manning and the rest of the Broncos' offense demonstrated exactly how you can get this done against the Chiefs' defense. The Chiefs were playing quarters coverage so the key was to get both the linebackers and the safeties to bite up on shorter routes, leaving one cornerback on a deep post.
First, I diagrammed the route combinations. The red line is of course the deep post and it was run by Emmanuel Sanders, a speed guy. The yellow line is a deep in route run by the tight end, Julius Thomas. The blue line is a 10-yard in-and-out route run by Demaryius Thomas. All three guys are attacking a different level of the defense. Both Thomases are meant to pull the deep coverage up while Sanders gets behind them.
But there is one more element of this play that makes it work.
And that element is of course the play-action fake. The Chiefs’ safeties won’t be as prone to jump the deep-in or the in-and-out route by the Thomases if the linebackers get good depth in their drops. However, with the play-action fake, both linebackers (with white circles around them) are drawn up toward the line of scrimmage, giving the appearance that both Thomases will be open behind them in the middle of the field.
Demaryius Thomas ends up cutting back outside on his route, but he has already attracted the safety to his side up toward him. Julius Thomas' route then pulls in the safety to his side as well as the other safety who was already breaking forward anyway. That leaves the Chiefs corner covering Sanders on an island by himself deep and, unfortunately for him, with outside leverage.
Basically his goose was cooked as soon as Peyton saw the safeties move forward even a step or two. All that was left was for Sanders to make the catch ... and BOOM, the Broncos have just gained 48 yards on the first play of the game and are already at least in field goal range at the Chiefs’ 32-yard line.
This is what you call next-level play design to open up your offense based on the coverage you are facing. Not every team can pull it off. If they could, you would see this a lot more every weekend.
Hybrid Players
I have to give it to Rams OC Brian Schottenheimer. Even though I don't think much of him as an offensive coordinator, he had a great game plan going into the game against the Buccaneers. Basically, he used sets with a stud (end of the line) tight end and an offset fullback to run all kinds of running and passing plays. This allowed the Rams to look exactly the same the majority of the game and still run all or most of their normal plays.
It was a particularly smart thing to do knowing that the Bucs would be without both of their starting defensive ends, having lost Adrian Clayborn for the year with a torn bicep and Michael Johnson for the week with a sprained ankle. The kind of running plays the Rams used put pressure on the Bucs' defensive ends to read their keys while having a bunch of different moving parts around them that were meant to distract. Allow me to explain.
This is early in the game and the Rams line up with a tight end to the defense’s left. A fullback eventually shifts into the backfield, offset away from the tight end. I have taken the liberty of drawing up the blocking scheme for what we used to call the “Ram Belly.” The idea is for the offensive line to block it as if they were running zone to the right, as we’re looking at it in the picture, leaving the defensive end to the left, No. 91, unblocked. Instead of blocking the left defensive end, the tight end takes an arc release outside toward the safety on the line of scrimmage. That movement is meant to try to get the defensive end’s eyes up the field toward the quarterback instead of inside. That’s important, because as you can see from the diagram, the offset fullback away from the defensive end will be coming across to clean his clock. If the defensive end doesn’t see it coming, then that will make for a much easier (and devastating) block for the fullback.
Both the fullback and tailback initially step to the right, as we’re looking at the picture, to make it seems as if they’re running zone in that direction. Then the fullback turns back to block the left defensive end. The tailback follows him and cuts up inside of his block between the fullback and the offensive tackle, who is now blocking down on the left defensive tackle as we look at it.
This shot was just as the ball is being handed off. As you can see, the defensive end has been set up pretty well to get blocked by the fullback, and the only Bucs defender with any shot at making the tackle is the linebacker to that side, No. 54. But ...
... that linebacker also has to be on guard for the fullback continuing out on a pass route -- as the fullback comes across the linebacker gets wider, creating a nice running lane inside of him.
That particular linebacker, the Bucs’ Lavonte David, ended up making a helluva play by falling back inside and making the tackle for a small gain. However, the tone had been set from that point on, putting the Bucs’ defense on notice. Every Bucs defender would have to be on his toes because if one guy read the play wrong, it could lead to disaster.
The Rams also used a stud tight end and offset fullback set to run the power O. I’ve drawn up the blocking above. This time the fullback was aligned to the same side as the tight end. The backside guard also pulled to that side at the snap of the ball to help kick out (block to the outside) the end man on the line of the scrimmage, in this case the linebacker, No. 52, on the left. The running back took a quick jab step and then came downhill right behind that guard’s block and to the outside of the tight end, who double-teamed the left defensive end with the offensive tackle.
This shows the blocking after the snap, and you can see where everyone is going. This is more of a “F*** You!” play where there isn’t much trickery at all. They are telling the Bucs’ defenders exactly where they are going to run the ball and daring them to stop it. The trickery? That comes later.
Here is the lane created by all that double teaming and kicking out on this play. It looks convoluted at first, but when it’s blocked right you can just about always get positive yards with that play.
Here comes the fun part. The Rams also had some misdirection plays that look almost exactly like the base plays above with a twist. This time all of the blocking up front looks just like power O to the tight end again. The backside guard pulls toward the tight end and the whole nine. The fullback initially looks the same, also, because he goes straight ahead for a step as if he is once again kicking out the end man on the line of scrimmage.
The difference, as you can see from the diagram, is that this time the quarterback is going to fake the handoff to the tailback. Instead, he hands it off to the wide receiver (red line) coming in motion at the snap on an end around. To help make sure that the wide receiver has a clear path, the fullback runs ahead of him just behind the offensive line, almost exactly like he did on the Ram Belly above. The defensive end seeing the fullback come to kick him out will of course go inside of him, which allows the fullback to then continue around as a lead blocker for the wide receiver, who is running the yet-to-be-noticed end around.
The funny thing about this play is that the wide receiver, in this case Tavon Austin, might have scored had the fullback led him all the way to end zone. Instead, for reasons unknown and unfathomable to me, the fullback just kind of stopped and started looking around instead of blocking.
Austin still picked up good yardage on this play, but not nearly as much as he could have had if the fullback kept going.
Regardless, the Rams weren’t done with the trickeration.
This time everybody up front, including the fullback, blocks as if this will be a power O, as I’ve drawn it above. However, instead of handing the ball off, the quarterback flips it to the tailback who is running with a wide track in the opposite direction of the power O blocking.
The right defensive end (left as we look at it) is in a bad spot because the offensive tackle he is lined up on is blocking inside. That key tells the defensive end to run down inside as well, looking for another kickout block. By the time he realizes what has happened, the running back has already gained outside leverage on him and is running at a full head of steam right around him and up the field.
I imagine that if we looked close enough, we’d see steam coming out of that defensive end’s ears. There was really nothing he could do about it except try to run and catch the running back from behind because the rest of the defense was of course defending the non-existent power O run.
This is the kind of stuff the Rams used on the Bucs repeatedly throughout the game, and it worked over and over again and played a huge role in the Rams winning the game.
It's a week later and it appears that the Jaguars still haven't quite figured that whole cover 3 thing. Let's look at how Kirk Cousins threw one of the easiest touchdowns he'll ever have in his career.
This was same exact sort of situation the Jags found themselves in during their Week 1 loss against the Eagles. There were two receivers out wide, and they both kinda run go routes. I have the receivers in yellow circles with arrows pointing out where they were going. There are blue circles round the three Jags defenders that should have had a role in covering those two routes.
So the corner decides that instead of covering the guy closest to the sideline, who he was lined upon, he would instead try to help out the safety on the post route. Just who in the hell did he think would cover the guy that he lined up on? I don’t get it. Evidently, neither does he.
Yeah it’s a liiiiiittle too late to turn around now, buddy. Like I said last week, the Jags had better get this fixed and soon or every team they face will keep trying them like this until they stop it consistently. I know I would.
See More:
