Untitled - Fast and Furious Football

40 FOOTBAI,L COACHING STRA.'ITGIES
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Spreading 'Em Around and
Airing lt Out
JIMWACKER
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Why go to the "on e-back, no back' passing attack
The fiIst reason is simply that it is a formatjon
nade for the passing game. The more you can
spread out the defense, the casi€r it is to throw
the ball. There are several reasons for this.
The first, and maybe the most important rea,
son, is that it is easierto read blitz when you ar€
in a one-back or no-back formation. Ifthey hav€
lo covcr lour or fiv. rAcpi\ er" un th€ line olscrimmage,
that maans the maxjmum that they can
bring is either s€ven or six. Ifour quarterback does
a sood job of recoenizing a blitz, we should minimize
the number ofsacks, and we have a chancc of
rcaliy putting a lot of points up on the board.
W])en they blilz you in the one-back, no-back,
they tum th€ game into high stakes poker. As
Jong as you have a good t ggeman, you\e got a
good chance ofmaking the scoreboad explode.
The second rcason we like to spread the defense
is because it opens up routes fo} youl short,
horizontal pattems. The simplest patter.n in the
world is to run four or fiv€ receivem, stop th€m
all at 7 yads, and throw to the guy that looks
open. You spread them out in the t ps formation
onthehash, with three wide receivers to the field
and two into the short side. In the middle ofthe
field you can go two and two, or thrce and two,
but the defense must go out and cover them.
It's impodant that you thmw any time you
have anuncovered receiver, and w€ motjon toget
to the no-back olTense a lot of times in oder to
tahe advantage of mistakes by the defen se. If th€y
makp c misrale and uc ger an uncovered receiver,
it's the sholtest, quickest, easiest throw in toot,
ball. We've had some ofthose turn into really big
plays for us. The fbllowing are some examples of
the short passing gamo ftom the one-back and
no-back formations.
Blitz.Beating Routes
Figure 1 shows a pm-risht formation with fly
motion, which puts ourB-backin motiontowards
the tight end. We ihen run five-step mutes for a
quick horizontal stretch and the quarterback
throws to the guy that he thinks iB going to be
the most open. Ifthey blitz, obviously, he can go
into any one ofthe five recejved because it is a
thre€-step route. We wi ll run this same rout€ with
corner routes by the No. 2 rcceiver to one sid€
ard Ihp No. 3 rccerrer Lo the oLher, and thi. now
prts a vedical stretcb on the defense as well.
F]GUHE I
NGback-quick horizontal stetch
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Figure 2 puts three rcceivers on stop routes
and the two inside receivers on corner mutes. It
is excellent asainst cover 2 or ona free, and you
can now reallybum the defensc with a de€p corner
as longas the quarie$ack has time;ofcoufte,
ifhe is feeling pressure, he will take il to one of
the shoft stops underneath- Both ofthese routes
are axcollenl against the blitz because the quarterback
can unload the ball in a huny.