Questions and Answers: Responding to the offensive problems teams present

As I have written before, football is undoubtedly an offensive game right now. Wide-open offenses expose poor tacklers and pass defenders. They pose questions that defenses must answer; questions including, reading, isolating, and double-teaming defenders and forcing them to be wrong. We want to flip this on its head and make offenses answer how they will block or defend against our defenses. The simplest way to do this is simply put an extra player where the offense wants to attack. We want to cloud reads and place extra players where the offense wants to go. Again, we want to make the offense have to answer how to block us or attack our coverages.

So when we game plan, we want to think about what a team likes to do and give our players leverage and numbers. And we want to have answers in our base playbook that aren't crazy gambles. This gives us a chance to stay coverage sound and not have to bring several extra men.We do have those options, but we want to look at these first.

I want to start this series with a two-back team. The reason I used a two-back team is because these types of teams can gives us trouble schematically. Our defense is undoubtedly designed to stop teams that spread out. Conversely, we are most at risk with teams that like to pound the ball up the middle. Our A gaps are exposed, and if our nose, mike and will don't work together well, then isolation all day will hurt us.

At the risk of being generic, our defense is a 3-4 two-gap team, relying quite a bit on Cover 3. We also run fire zones, which are by nature Cover 3, so 3 is big for us. If we can't run that, we are not going to be successful as a defense. We like those against spread teams.

If want to see our base scheme, I wrote a post on that here. The terminology has changed a little, but this is what we run.

As I side before, our weakness is the A gaps. We need to have a big stud at the nose guard position to really make this scheme work. When we don't have that (and who does?) we need to get more creative. We see a lot of isolation and a lot of power. In fact, the team that won our league made a living all year off isolation, when many of the other teams in our league are spreading it out.

For clarity's sake, let's say that we are operating against Power and Isolation. Diagrams below.

Let's say this how we all run Power, ok?

And Isolation!

Here are our easy solutions to these plays.

- Colt Mike X 3

 In this play, the mike does an X cross with the nose guard to attack the vulnerable A gap, while the same side safety drops down and fills the mike position. The safety now operates exactly how the mike would operate. He has hook to curl on pass (regular Cover 3). On run to the safety's side, he has C gap, while run away, he shuffles twice, checking the A gap, before flowing hard to the ball. Again, this is all regular technique for the mike and will linebackers. We can call Will X 3 as well, or even run this out of Cover 2.

This concept works great against isolation. It adds another defender to the box at the defense's exact weak spot, while still remaining coverage sound. The vertical penetration fouls up runs up the middle.

- Colt Buzz (Buzz C) 3

In Buzz, we specifically want to target the tight end. If a team has a heavy run tendency to the tight end, or likes Power a lot, then we will Buzz. In general, we are trying to get an extra player to the offensive strength.

The mike will first identify the receiver strength via a Ranger or Lightning call. This is different from our field call, which identifies the wide side of the field for us, as we are a field/boundary defense. This tells us which outside linebacker will line up on the tight end (either the sam or bandit, depending on which side of the field we are on, and where the tight end lines up, obviously.)

The outside linebacker on the tight end will line up inside eye of the tight end, so the TE is forced to go through him to block down. We want to neutralize his blocking ability. If we feel our LB is a better athlete, we will line him up head up. In both alignments, the outside LB must jam the TE big time. At the same time, the same-side safety will come down and line up 3x3 outside the TE. The safety now becomes the SCIF (Seam, Curl, Flat) defender in Cover 3, and  force responsibility on run. The idea of this play is to protect our inside linebackers and free them to make plays. So again, we are placing an extra defender where the offense attacks us. Buzz is an excellent option against Wing-T and toss type teams. If the team uses a tight end regularly, Buzz will gum it up nicely.

Buzz comes with a nice little change-up, called Buzz C, or Buzz Cowboy. As you may have guessed, we will send that outside linebacker into the C gap hard. He will dip and rip and get to the heels of the offensive linemen. This will spill power outside and stuff isolation in its tracks.

- Spy 3

Another simple option for us is to spy either the quarterback or the team's best receiver. We will call Spy 3 and call out the number. The boundary safety will spy the appropriate player, while the field safety has the deep third, and the rest of the team runs Cover 3 like normal. It's basically a box and one concept from basketball. We will double team the best player on the team and make them go somewhere else.

(Note: it's a great idea to look at other sports for ideas in football!)

- Odd Razor and Razor Storm (0)

These are our heavier blitzes, should Mike X or Buzz not be successful. Instead of two-gap, this is a one-gap system. Razor indicates double outside pressure for us. The sam and bandit blitz the outside shoulder of either the back or QB. They maintain outside contain on a run and pass. The stud and anchor rip hard to B gap and sit at the heels of the offensive line. The mike gives a rip/liz call, which determines which way the nose will go and which LB has the other A gap. If the nose goes to the right, the LB on the left has the A gap.

This blows up run plays because all gaps are accounted for, and we have another player in the box who can run to the football. In Razor Storm, the mike blitzes the C gap and the will blitzes the A gap (opposite the rip/liz call)

Here are a few clips from our freshman and JV teams. This is a brief and humble Hudl presentation (still learning!) that is also available here.

Final thoughts: When we align, we are going to give our players consistent rules. For example, our sam and bandit are always going to be the force players, unless they are coming on a blitz. They will align outside on any tight ends, and if the EMOLOS (end man on line of scrimmage) has his hand in the ground, the sam will line up on top of him, and maintain outside leverage. We want some of our best players to be our force guys, not corners, who are smaller and better at covering than tackling.

Another rule for us is nub rule. This is for corners who do not have a receiver to defend, just a tight end or fullback in the backfield. The corners lines up 7-8 yards on top of the EMOLOS and has the inside gap. Whether it's cover 3, 2, or whatever, he essentially will have this player man-to-man. Nub rule helps keep our scheme gap sound and players clear on what his assignment is. And it allows to keep enough men in the box on the run game.

The point of this post is, think about how you can simply and easily put an extra man where an offense wants to attack while still remaining coverage sound. You need to have options before you go to your seven or eight man blitzes. Simply adding an extra man where the offense does not want him can sufficiently answer the questions that a defense can pose, and forces offense to now answer the questions your defense poses.