Untitled - Fast and Furious Football

2 FOOTBALL COACHING STRATEGIES
Pass Protecting Versus the 46
Basically, five defenders rush a dropback passer.
The problern is that it's dilficuit to get the five
linemenon the five rushers.Iftbe cent€r is gorng
tohave help on themiddleguard, one ofthe tackles
has to be assjgned to a linebacker or to the
inside. This means that one ofthercceivers musr
bp ossigned ro une ol I hF out$ide rushers. teaving
the def€nse with six pass defenders against four
One of thc ways to protect a dropback passer
rs to assign one tackle to a linebacker and tell
him to help to the inside if the linebacker does
not come (see Figure 8). This gets four tinemen
on thr€€ most of the time. A back is left on the
two outside defend€rs on the tight end side, and
the ball must be thftwn "hot" ifboth ofth€n rush.
FIGUHE 8 Pass blocking versus 46,
l'r '
\/
/ l" Nr
/ \" E r N
o A{_QOF EQ
'\t,
ol
l
You can nevor have great success with the forward
pass using this protection. The pass defende.heceiver
ratio is not good, and the tight end
who must be the "hot'receiver can be covered by
the rcmaining linebackex
Double-reading must be employed if possibte.
The problern is to do it with two pass btock€rs
against three defenders. Ifthe tight end spljts so
that one defender has to go with him, a doubleread
can be executed.
Although it's not easy, the tackie can blockthe
linebackerifhe rushes, and he can btock the outside
defender if the linebacker doesn,t msh. By
double-r€ading, the offense makes it difrcult for
the defense to tie up one ofthe receivers withjust
on€ of two lin€backers (€.9., K or W). Fisur€ 9
shows K rushing, W dropping, and the backfield
receiver rcl€asing.
FIGURE 9 Tackle double-read in Pass
SETN
NI
ooo E
(ri ^
I
If Khad dropped andWhad rushed, the tackte
would have blocked \it At best, how€ver, dropback
passing has prov€d to be very difficult
agajnst this defense.
Figur€ 10 shows a strong formation in which
both backs can participate in a double read on
th€ three potential rushers the M, E, and S-
even though the passer moves. The fullback can
block M but adjust to block E ifM doesn,t rush.
The tailback can block E but adjust to S if M
doesn't rush. Either back can proceed into the
patt€rn if bis secondarf target doesn't rush. Although
this protection do€s nothing to get five
receivers into a pattem, it does get blocking
angles on T, N, and P
FIGUBE IO Strong lormation backs
The principle in this protection can be used
with play-action passes. In Fieurc 11 all eight of
the pot€ntial rushe$ are accounted for The tight
end releases il€ith€r E or S drops. The lullback
is assisned to the end, and the tailback to the
linebackex One of the backs will almost always
have to take a rusher
The only way to get five rcceiverc out against
this defense is to do what the run-and-shoot