The 46 Nickle

How I came upon this defense is quite saddening looking back at the dismal performance we put up on defense this past season.  However, as with anything in life, it's all about the experiences!  This dismal experience allowed me to run and know a defense that up until last August I knew very little about.  The great 46 Defense was made popular by the 1985 Chicago Bears and a staple of any defensive coordinator (DC) in the NFL with the last name Ryan.  I won't dig into the history of the 46, there are plenty of books and postings on message boards out there to keep you buzzed for days on the 46's history.  What I'm going to talk about, is the adaptation of the 46 to the 46 Nickel, and how I used it to stop the bleeding on a defense that gave up over 800 yards of total offense in the first 3 games of last season.  Yes...we were THAT bad! 

Last year at a Nike Coach of the Year Clinic, I was perusing the books and DVD tables looking for what I could find to add to my library (and piss my wife off in the process spending money we didn't have).  I came across a book entitled Coaching Football's 46 Defense by Ryan and Walker.  I had always wanted to learn more about this defense, especially if I ever became an offensive coordinator (OC) so I could better learn how to attack it.  Up to that point, as an OC, DC or an assistant coach I had only seen the 46 on TV clips from 1985 Bear highlights.  I knew absolutely nothing about the defense other than it was named after Doug Plank the strong safety (SS) for the Bears that played for the infamous Buddy Ryan.  I knew it was an aggressive attacking style of defense, but that is where my knowledge of the defense ended.  Anyhow, as with most things, it was a book on the bottom of my stack of reading, and I never got around to it before the season.  Anyhow, after our second game, a disheartening 27-25 overtime (OT) loss and giving up an amazing 411 yards of offense, I had had enough!  I began looking into what I could do, asking the experts on message boards, digging up old phone numbers of DC's long retired.  Our major problem on defense was two-fold, we had no defensive linemen (DL) that could consistently demand a double team, and young linebackers (LB's) who were struggling getting off of blocks.  The kids were trying hard, but the DL was out manned and our LB corps consisted of defensive back (DB)/defensive end (DE) converts and some young under aggressive sophomores...uggh.  I knew staying in our base 4-2 look was not going to do well, and I had to find something and quick!  One of our offensive coaches suggested running the double eagle, to which I my answer was "how the hell do we get to the double eagle from the 4-2-5?".  However he got the gears in my head working, and I remembered my book on the 46!  By that time is was too late, and we were having to go out on another Friday night with our base 40 nickel defense, and we gave up 313 yards of total offense and 41 points...ouch!

After the drubbing, I went home, drank a couple of beers and began reading.  Once the sun came up, I was sure the 46 was the defense for us!  However, I was concerned how I was going to get us into the 46 from the 4-2's base front.  That's when I found a very good excerpt in a book titled Defending the Spread Offense.  There was a section in there on the 46 Nickle, oh how the wheels were turning now!  My mind was racing, and I was going on 0 hours sleep since game time and was in bad need of a Red Bull!  After getting my caffeine fix going and a chew of tobacco, the grease pen began to fly, and here's what I came up with.

To start, I will give you some of our nomenclature so you can better understand our base defense.  Here is a positon by position description of each defender in our defense.

A- Anchor; strong side defensive end, plays in a 7 or 5 technique depending on the presence of a tight end (TE).
R- Rover; weak side defensive end, same alignment rules as the Anchor.
T- Tackle; Normally the 3 technique.
N- Nose; Normally the 1 technique.
S- Sam; Strongside LB.
M- Mike; Weakside LB.
$- Spur; SS.
W- Whip; Weak safety (WS).
F- Free safety (FS).
C- Cornerback




Base 4-2 alignment vs. 2 backs




4-2-5 to Bear



I looked at tons of videos on Boston College's 46 look out of the 3-4 and Virginia Tech's 44/46 defense and the two books I had, and the final alignment I came up with was this.

The front would simply kick down to put the Anchor into the 3 technique on the strongside.  The Tackle would move to the 0 technique over the center, and the nose would move to a weak 3 technique.  The Rover, would stand up and move out to what we called a "ghost 9" technique, or outside shade of an imaginary TE.  All of these were not out of the realm of what these positions were asked to do, especially the Anchor, Tackle and Nose.  The secondary and LB corps would move to the strong side of the formation in the following manner.  The Spur, was the loose 9 technique outside the TE.  The Sam LB would walk down on the line of scrimmage (LOS) into a 7 technique.  The Mike LB would move over to a strong side 40 technique over the strong tackle and the Whip would come into the box as a 40 technique LB to the weak side of the defense.  Now, I only had a week to put this in, so I had to move quickly and whatever I did HAD to be simple and adjust easily.  I decided we would play Cover 1 only, and hope for the best.  I had young, but very athletic corners and a ball hawk FS so I felt we could do this. 

Our rules were for the DL were simple, we used Rex Ryan's defensive line techniques described in the book of not allowing the jump through block and getting the DL's "hips to the hole" (entire other post on this technique, I won't go into detail).  At first, we slanted our 0 technique based on the call (Bear strong/weak) and this worked quite well.  Later, we moved to 2-gapping him, by making no call and having read the block of the center.  The Rover was the toughest one to teach, as in our base 4-2 he had to adhere to the laws of block down step down (BDSD), but now found himself the force player to the defense's weak side.  This took some coaching, but fortunately for us, our DL coach was an old 50 guy and had no problems dusting off his 50 DE coaching manual! 

Our LB's and outside safeties (OSS) worked in tandem, with the OSS's being the adjuster to their respective sides (the secondary was not divorced in our Bear front).  With this we were able to adapt and adjust with little to no problems.  For the Sam LB, things were easy, if there was a TE present, align in a 7 technique and cover him man to man.  If there was not a TE, he had to listen to the Mike and the Spur.  If the Spur gave an "I'm out" call, that mean the Spur was involved in coverage (slot receiver) and that the Sam would have to be the force player, so the Sam would align in a "ghost 9" and play force.  If a TE was present the Sam gave a "banjo" call to the Mike LB.  The banjo call told the Mike he had the TE on inside and vertical routes, and the Sam had the TE if he attempted to cross the Sam's face.  Whoever was not involved in the coverage on the TE, took the back out of the backfield to their side.  To the weak side, if the Whip made an "I'm out" call, then the Mike had to acknowledge how many backs were in the backfield.  If there were 2 backs in the backfield, he made a "Jayhawk" call and that slid the Sam backer back into a 40 technique.  If there was only 1 back in the backfield, this call did not need to be made, and the Mike moved to a 00 technique over the center.  If both the Spur and the Whip gave "I'm out" calls, then the Mike simply moved to a 00 technique over the center.  This sliding movement by the LB's allowed us to keep the numbers in the box we needed to properly defend the run, be in man coverage and still have to viable force players on the LOS at any time, vs. any formation the offense could present. 




46 Nickel vs. Twins Strong




Jayhawk front vs twins weak




46 Nickel vs. 11 personnel 2x2





46 Nickel vs. 11 personnel Trips Closed





46 Nickel vs. 10 personnel 2x2



46 Nickel vs. 10 personnel 3x1



Coverage for the LB's was simple as well.  They were in man coverage on the 1st back to their side.  If both backs flowed to 1 side or the other, we were in what we termed "flow" coverage.   Flow coverage told the LB to flow to take the 1st back out to his side and the LB opposite of flow to take the 2nd back out.  LB's auto blitzed if their RB did not run a route.  We basically told them "find a window and go" to keep it as simple as possible.  Later we added a blitz or two, but for the most part we were attacking every single play.
The secondary kept a very simple principle in that the Spur and Whip were always the adjusters.  The only time we did not ask them to adjust was against twins closed sets, and then we just played corners over.  Playing corners over allowed the front to stay the same to twins closed and keep it's normal alignment/assignment rules in place.  The FS was always free unless the offense came out in an empty set, and he then became the final adjuster taking #3 to the 3x2 side of empty.  If an offense came out in trips open, the FS would give a "help" call.  A "help" call in my defense tells the OSS away from the trips side to come over to the trips side and "help".  The adjusting safety would cover the #3 receiver in a trips formation.  This adjustment rule also held true vs. empty 4x1 looks as well.

46 Nickel vs. Empty



Flow Coverage





Auto blitz vs. RB block


So there you have it!  The birth of Duece's 46 Nickel (not really mine, but it sounded good anyway)!  Now, there were some other specifics that we had to iron out, such as what do you do against bunch sets?  We played a version of Cover 1 called "banjo", where the OSS to the bunch side played the #2 receiver man and did not let him off the LOS.  The corner and other safety (or other corner in the case of a bunch closed look) would then "banjo" the #1 and #3 receiver's based on their releases.  We did not see this look much, but actually had to put this adjustment in at halftime of our 1st game running the defense (nothing like a little on-the-field adjustment in the heat of battle). 

So I know what you are thinking!  Duece, you committed the cardinal sin as a DC by changing schemes in the middle of the season.  Yes and no though.  A lot of the techniques being taught were very similar, if not the exact same.  We had been playing some Cover 1 and corners over, so there was nothing new there, and with our Bullets blitz scheme our LB's were familiar with covering running backs.  The major changes came in the play of the Sam LB, the Anchor, Tackle Nose and Rover.  That 1st week we really concentrated on getting those guys reps, and we came out and had our best defensive game of the season.  We faced a team averaging over 300 yards rushing per game and held them to 189, and gave up only 26 yards passing!  I was very impressed and the kids had a lot of fun running the new more aggressive style of defense.

Some of the weaknesses we found were that the being in man coverage the entire time lends you to mismatches.  Even though our corners were athletic one was 5'5" and the other was 5'7", this came to light in a couple of games, but hey...75% of pass defense is pass rush, so I blame it on the DL!  The other glaring weakness was the fact the 46 is not the greatest of defenses vs. the triple option if you stay in man coverage.  We moved to a coverage we called "2 roll" which is a moving way of playing Robber coverage and did pretty well against ourselves (Flexbone) in practice.  If I was basing out of this front, that is definitely how I would play the option is with the 2 Roll coverage.







Bear vs. Flexbone



One unique item we found was the utilization of the FS in man free coverage.  With the FS being free, you could do a lot with him in your game plan.  We found we could double an opponent's best receiver, or place him to the field side of the offense and give us an extra man there, or simply place him back deep and let him "roam" around.  I honestly believe this was the top selling point in the 46 Nickel for me.  The FS could be used as an adjuster or extra defender wherever needed.  This seemed to keep OC's guessing too as to where we were going to put him.   We moved the FS around based on the levels of the defense and simply gave a number call tagged to the front such as Bear 1.  One put the FS on the DL level either to the strong side or to the field.  Often times teams would motion the wide receiver down inside to crack the Spur on sweep plays.  By putting the FS on the LOS, now they had to crack him AND try to block the Spur.  The offense was simply outnumbered.  We would tag the call with a "2" to tell the FS too align at LB depth either over center, or to the field depending on where the ball was.  This gave the defense an aggressive 9-in-the-box look and dared opposing OC's to throw.  If we tagged the call with a 3, the FS went deep, way deep, sometimes as deep as 20 yards depending on down and distance.  We did this in obvious passing situations or against teams that like to run the post route.  If we tagged the call with "double" and a letter such as Y, then the FS would help double the Y receiver.  The FS was always deep help in the times that we doubled. 




FS in a 1 alignment



FS in a 2 alignment

Bear Double "Z"




 
Now mind you, all of the above was built in to the defense over time, however most was not used.  We did put the FS in a 1 alignment and a 3 alignment some, but we used the double call a TON.  Our FS was a tall lanky kid and when we saw a mismatch with our "toy" corners, we could simply call in "double" from the sidelines and the FS slid over to that side and helped out.  All of these calls led to the adaptability and aggressiveness of the defense.  If you are not happy with man to man, in your face aggressive defense, this is not the answer for you.  More often than not, I err on the side of caution, but I gambled this one time and it really payed off for us.  We even got to where we could mix in some 46 with our normal base stuff to use as a short yardage defense.  The flexibility of using nickel personnel is the key to the success of this defense, and the success we saw out of it last season.

Are there other ways to run the 46?  Sure, there are numerous ways to get into the alignment.  Some coaches I talked to stood up the strong side end, and had him play man coverage on the TE.  When they did this, the kept the 3 technique in place and moved the Mike LB down over the center in a 0 technique.  Great adjustment, I just felt our Mike wasn't suited for it.  Boston College, out of their 3-4, will move the SS to where our Sam aligns and let him play man coverage from there.  This allows them to kick their DE down to a 3 technique (something they do in their double eagle and under fronts anyway) and the outside linebacker (OLB) to that side can align in the 9 technique and do what he normally does out of their base 3-4 look.  However you do it is up to, I wanted to share what I came up with and why I did it the way I did.




Boston College's 3-4 Bear


My methodology was simple, our Anchor, Tackle and Nose were very very similar players, with the Anchor being the most athletic, the Tackle being the immovable object and the nose being the "fly" in the ointment.  All 3 had the body size to play down inside in the 3, 0, 3 look of the 46.  The Rover was the most athletic of all our DL, so he would have no trouble being the force player with some reps, and he had 0 coverage responsibilities and was free to rush from a stand up position.  The Sam, we felt, could be very aggressive inside, and we did not really rep an individual coverage technique with him, yet we gave him a simple effective rule "don't let the TE off the LOS".  Our kids got this, and it worked!  They could be aggressive because they knew they had FS help behind them.  We felt by keeping the Spur and the Whip as our adjusters we kept the shceme in the spirit of the 4-2-5 we ran for our base defense.  This allowed these kids to showcase their talents of being aggressive coverage guys that could also blitz off the edge or play inside the box.  Both of these players by alignment were protected very well, as the Spur could play in space off the edge, and the Whip had a 3 technique inside of him and a 9 technique outside of him as well.  All of these were factors in our decision of how to align our pieces of the 4-2 into the 46. 



Go here to download VT's 44/46 defense from 1998!



Again, as with all my posts, this is not to say my method is the best, I'm simply sharing tactics that I used and how I came to them for you guys to use.  I hope they give some insight and can help you defensively in the future.   The video below is some clips of us using the defense this past season.  As you can see we were not the most physically intimidating team, however the Bear can make life miserable for teams trying to make a living running the football.

Duece

The 4-2-5 and the Under, Meshing Two Great Defenses!

Some posts have been out there on the Huey board as to how to run an Under front look from the 4-2-5.  Well, I'm going to explain how I did it just this past season.  Now, my methods are NOT the end-all-be-all of how to do it, and are by no means the only way to do it.  I'm just giving you some insight as to what I went through trying to keep my old favorite the Under, and meshing it with my new favorite the 4-2-5.  Let's dive in...shall we???

First, most of us know the Under is an old staple, who's history I'm not going to delve into as I really no nothing of it.  I learned most of what I learned from the Huey board from the Under legend himself, the outlawjoseywales (OJW).  I first came across this defense when trying to figure out how I could eliminate the 3 linebacker (LB) bubbles of the standard 4-3 Over front when defensing the Wing-T offense.  I already had the Under in my defense, I just knew little about it, and/or how or when to use it.  The Under, as I have been taught, was an adaptation to the weakside of the old 50 defense.  The adaptation was to move the standard 4 or 4I technique into a 3 technique so he could better leverage the B gap, and reduce his chances of getting kicked out on weakside isolation runs (old 50 guys know this was the Achilles heel of the 50).  Anyhow, the standard Under front I was taught had a 3 technique and a 5 technique to the weak side.  The 3 technique was a down lineman, and the 5 technique was the old stand up end in the 50 (although some did play him down)  To the strong side, the defense had a 1 technique noseguard, and a 5 technique defensive tackle.  Again, both of these were down linemen.  The defensive end to the strong side, was usually in a stand up 9 technique.  As the 4-3 came into play, and turned the triple option world on it's ear, teams moved away from the wishbone to the standard "I" formation and began running the football with isolation runs and power off-tackle runs.  The Power "G" as it is called, or what I refer to as "G-lead" is the arch nemesis of the 4-3.  It really can be stressful on the 3 LB bubbles presented by the defense.  So what were 4-3 coaches to do?  As with most things in football, adaptation was needed.  So, the modern Under front was born (I know, I'm "skimming" to say the least)!  In the modern Under front, the 4-3 defense basically "kicked" 1 technique to the weakside.  This gave the standard 3/5 techniques to the weakside, however both of these were down linemen.  The strong side, to the old 50 guys, would look identical to what it looked like when the defense was originally conceived.  However, the 9 technique was no defensive end, he was the Sam or strongside LB (SLB) in the 4-3 defense walked up on the line of scrimmage (LOS).  The Mike or middle linebacker (MLB) would slide from over center, to over the strongside guard, and the Will or weakside linebacker (WLB) would slide over the weakside guard.  This removed 1 of the 3 bubbles the 4-3 defense presented itself, and reduced blocking angles on both sides of the ball.  Ok, enough history!




Over Front




Under Front



Power G vs. Over Front



Power G vs. Under

 


So, how did I come to run the Under out of the 4-2?  The first thing you have to look at is how I run the Under.  I was never a field/boundary declare guy until a year ago, when I made the switch to the 4-2.  So my Under front was always tied to the offense presenting a tight end (TE).  If there was a TE present we were in our standard shade/5/9 to the strong side, and 3/5 to the weakside.  If there was no TE, we still had the shade/and 5 technique, but our Sam backer would walk off to normal depth and either apex if there was a slot receiver to his side, or play in what we called a "hip" alignment (outside "hip" of the defensive end to his side).  How we did this was to basically "kick" our Nose, to the weakside 3 technique, the Tackle (normally in a 3 technique in the Over front) would go to the strong side 1 technique.  Our 9 technique defensive end would then move down and play a 5 technique.  This kept everything uniform for us up front.  In looking back I was making such a mistake by not being field/boundary more!  To live and learn though right?!

So on to the nuts and bolts, how do we get from the 4-2-5 to the Under?  It's not that hard, both defenses like to keep 6 in the box, which is great, the problems are with the 9 technique and the divorced coverage concept common to most 4-2-5's (although not all).  Another mistake I made was not divorcing the front/secondary either.  I had done this in the past with little to no success, and after finally making the switch this past season, I saw how awesome this concept can be.  However it really throws a monkey wrench into running the "true" Under front.  The other issue to be looked at is out of the Under front, the 9 technique is usually a stand up LB.  In the 4-2-5 this is going to have to be a safety-type hybrid.  Another consideration is adjustments.  How is the front going go adjust if the secondary is not attached to it?  How are you going to keep the 9 technique opposite the 3 technique's side and keep all of this straight in the high schooler's already cluttered mind?  Keep your pants on!  That's what I'm going to talk to you about now.

So, you first have to look at how do I get into the under front if my secondary is divorced from the front.  If you keep your secondary rules in place, then the front is going to have to call strength opposite the read call in the secondary so as to get the 3 technique set away from the strong safety (SS).  In the middle of the field (MOF) this can be an issue, especially if you already have built in rules for the front to declare strength.  There are going to be times that the front rules are going to conflict with the secondary rules, putting the defense in a bind alignment-wise.  This can be easily illustrated in the Twins Closed concept with the ball in the MOF.  The SS, by rule, is to go to the read side as determined in the 4-2 by the free safety (FS).  Now if you simply call strength away from the read side, you are presented with a problem.  You now have a 3/5 to the TE side of the offense, and no 9 technique!  The trick here, would be to build into your front rules for the defensive end away from the read side to move to a 9 technique and basically you are in an Over looking front.  Still, I don't like this idea, and it presents a lot of rules that are too confusing to deal with.  This is not quite as troublesome when the ball is on the hash and the SS goes to the field, but it still can put you in a bind, forcing your defense into numerous "if this-then that" rules, which are the "quick and easy path" to paralysis by analysis. 

To combat the rule problem, I built this simple tag into our defense.  Our base fronts were all called with a number that set the Nose and the Tackle.  We could call 13 (Nose in a 1, Tackle in a 3) or 31, or 33 and the front knew how to align.  The numerical system also alerted the secondary they were not a part of the front, and aligned by their normal rules (see here and here for more info.).  However, if the front called was a name (Over, Under, Stack, Bear), then the front and secondary were tied together.  This meant the secondary threw their rules to the wind in terms of alignment and listened for the front strength to be called as to where to align.  This allowed us to more effectively run the Under front.  Now, our SS could be set as the 9 technique by either field/boundary or TE, whichever we so chose to do.  It's not perfect, BUT it has less rules than if you keep the front divorced from the coverage.  Not saying it can't be done, but this way is much easier and "cleaner" way of running the Under front from the 4-2.




4-2-5 Under/Blue Coverage


The next issue to tackle is the stand up 9 technique.  This player has got to be a fairly good ball player, even in the 4-3 scheme to be able to play back at LB depth and up on the LOS.  This becomes a question mark in the 4-2 scheme because this player is the SS.  However, if you look at how TCU plays their SS, it's not a far cry from what the 9 technique LB has to do in the Under front.  In years past I have played a true 9 technique, I have played my Sam at 3x3 off the near hip of the TE, and even played my Sam back in 90 technique (outside shade of the TE) at LB depth.  This all depended on the ability of the Sam LB I had playing there.  What I found in the 4-2, was most of our SS's were good enough to play 3x3 to 2x2 off the EMOL.  Sometimes we even tightened them down to 1x1, but never in a true 9 technique.  Keeping in the spirit of Patterson's alignment principles with the SS, we had the SS turn inside and look down the LOS reading the TE's near hip.  This is not that much different than what Patterson has his SS do vs. the 2 back run game, which is really where the Under front is at home.  Also, the SS is usually one of the best, if not the best athlete/defender in your secondary (at least the most versatile), so he should be able to perform these duties with little difficulty.

The SS is now free to work his normal adjustments as well from this look too.  If there is no TE he can walk out and apex the #1 WR to get a good release to the flats.  He's in a great position to force vs. nub sets as well, and is in an excellent position to blitz off the edge.  This idea of attaching the front to the coverage goes against most of the 4-2-5 rules/posts/articles you read out there, but if you are dead set on running both, this is a very simplistic way of getting the most out of both fronts.

So what coverages do you run with it?  You can run pretty much anything you want with it really!  You can run quarters, cover 2 (squat halves), robber, you name it.  I preferred to run 2 read out of it.  This keeps in line with the base coverage we teach so we felt it was important to keep that philosophy.  The area where this is weak, is against offenses that have the receiving strength away from passing strength, such as closed or nub sets.  A good adjustment here is to go corner over.  I'm a big corners over guy, so again, this "fit" into what we taught our guys to do.  Against 2x2, if they had a TE, we called the strength to the TE and kept our normal 2 read rules (TCU's blue coverage).  Against 3x1, we had to make sure the front strength was set to the receiving strength so we could play Solo and Special coverages and make sure the SS was on the correct side.  This is not a difficult adjustment to make, however.  Same thing against empty 3x2 and empty 4x1 you still had to make sure the SS got set to receiving strength so he would be set away from the 3 technique.  Again, not a huge issue. 




Corners Over





Under with Robber Coverage



Under with "Special" Coverage vs. Trips Open


Adapting the 4-2-5 to the Under front was not a huge ordeal, you just had to work out the details and the rest was very simplistic.  The Under front is one of the best 2 or 3 back defenses you will find out there in my opinion.  If you want to learn more, jgordon on Coach Huey's board and the outlawjoseywales (OJW) are by far some of the best Under coaches I have talked to on the "net".  These guys have given me TONS of insight on the Under defense and no matter what personnel I base out of, whether it be the odd or even front, I would make 100% sure I had the Under built into my defense!



Better yet, buy this book and end all of your Under front questions!

 Duece

Redistribution of Wealth...

I don't normally get political, but this struck me on the wrong nerve on the wrong morning.  Check out the article here on Yahoo news (and I use the term "news" loosely with that website).  The key most people miss when looking at redistribution of wealth is our country was founded on the principle that every American has the right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.  The key phrase people miss is pursuit.  Do you realize there are 4 generations of people living in New York City that have NEVER held a job before?  Amazing, they have lived on social programs and handouts all their lives.  The redistribution of wealth should be ruled unconstitutional, as it goes against what our founders built in this country.  Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox this morning.

Duece

Defending the Flexbone- Secondary

Being a DB coach, the secondary is undoubtedly my baby.  When defending the Flexbone, all players must have a tremendous sense of discipline and yet still remain aggressive.  The Flexbone offense will test your secondary both in the run game and run support and their reads and reactions to the playaction passing game.

To start, let's look at the Flexbone offense and why it presents a nightmare for your secondary.  The basis of the offense is around the old Run-n-Shoot double slot formation.  This formation is balanced, so you, as a defensive coordinator (DC) need to be balanced as well.  For more on balancing of your defense go here.  The offense also has 4 immediate vertical threats at receiver.  Even though 2 of these are RB/WR hybrids, they can still get vertical immediately down the seams, presenting the DC with some issues. 

The advantage the defense has over the offense, is most Flexbone teams are still 3 back offenses.  Even if he slots are hybrids, they are utilized more in the run game than the pass game.  Secondly, if you are forcing a Flexbone team to drop back and throw, you better be winning.  Most Flexbone teams are run heavy (we faced one last season that was 89% run, 11% pass) and therefor do not have complicated passing concepts you have to handle.  I compiled data from reviewing previous years films I had collected over the year of high schools and colleges running the offense, and interviewed a handful of Flexbone coaches I had come to know over the years either talking on forums such as the Huey Board, or The Option Football Society, or that I had coached against personally.  What I came up with was the following:

1. 72% of these teams passing game was playaction off inside veer (ISV), midline, and rocket.
2. The remaining 21% of the passing game was sprintout action, rolling mainly into trips (67%) or doubles/twins (23%).
3. Only 7% of these teams passing games were dropback action, 5% of this was 3 step, and the remaining 2% was 5 step. 
4. I did not find a single Flexbone coach who taught a 7 step drop passing scheme.

So, look at the bulk of what you have to defend, and that is playaction.  However, this is how Flexbone teams get you!  As a former Flexbone OC here's what I looked for in your coverage schemes:

1. Are they a 7 man front/middle of the field open (MOFO) defense, or an 8 man front/middle of the field closed defense (MOFC)?
2. If they are a 7 man front, do they break this 2 deep shell on motion (rotational cover 2/3).
3. If they are an 8 man front, do they rotate the middle of the field (MOF) player on motion?

The first question was more tied into the setting up the run game, but I also wanted to know "if" we had to drop back, what could we try to exploit.  Against rolling, even coverage shells, how aggressive is the invert player?  Can we throw behind him?  How does he read?  What is he reading?  And lastly, against the 8 man front MOF defender I looked for how aggressive he ran the alley on run plays.  I also looked if he was pattern reading our slot who did not motion, or was he rotating back and playing a deep 1/3 (when I refer to motion, I mean arc motion typical of Flexbone offenses).  Could we throw behind him, or under him?  These were all questions my staff and I used to ask of our opponent when breaking down film and game planning.




Arc Motion


So what passing concepts are you going to see?  Very simply put, Veer Pass is one of the top passes you will see, along with what most Flexbone coaches call Veer Switch Pass.  This is the passing scheme I will focus on for defending this offense since it us such a vital part of the Flexbone passing game.  OC's in this offense try to make their routes look as much like their blocking schemes as they can.  We ran Veer Pass vs. 8 man front teams, where our playside slot back (PSSB) would be loading down inside on a inside linebacker (ILB).  The slot would release inside as to block the ILB and run what some call a "whip" or "pigtail" route back to the flat.  His read was to get over the flat defender and expand if the flat defender was narrow (close to him) or squat if the flat player had expanded.  The playside wide receiver (PSWR) would run a takeoff route with a stutter as he attacked the corner, attempting to make the route look like a stalk block (typical block found in our perimeter load blocking scheme).  The backside wide reciever (BSWR) would run a sail route, which looked just like his across the field blocking technique.  Against MOFC, we tried to have him hit the MOF and turn upfield.  Against MOFO, we had him split the safeties, and against rotation, we had him square this route off into basically a dig route.  Veer Switch Pass looked just like out "switch" blocking scheme where the PSSB arced to the corner, and the PSWR cracked the FS.  We simply ran post/wheel with the backside sail route.  The backside slotback (BSSB) in both cases either blocked outside the playside tackle's (PST) block, or ran a swing route (pitch course).  If we had an aggressive flat player, we kept him running the swing, this allowed us to throw behind the flat player.

Load scheme



Veer Pass




Switch Blocking



Veer Switch Pass




So, how do you play your secondary Duece?  Well, I've always been partial to the rotational Cover 3, and I'll tell you why.  Like I stated earlier, the top goal of any defense when facing this offense is to get more bodies across the crease than the offense can block.  The other thing is you must attack certain points of this offense to reduce blocking angles and create defensive leverage.  The secondary is critical of this attacking philosophy.  I wanted the safety to the pitch side, being able to be aggressive and not have to worry about if #2 went vertical or not.  So I had my safeties cross read the slots.  There are numerous arguments for or against this, and I'm really on the fence with this one.  The reason I cross read, is that, when polled, most of the kids in the system told me motion caught their eye anyway, and it was hard to focus on a slot that did not motion, when the other one was moving (ahh...the high school mind).  This made sense to me, so rather than "forcing" (no pun intended) something on them that was difficult, I gave them the easier read.
However, Cover 3 is can be weak vs. the threat of 4 vertical receivers.  How do you play rotational Cover 3 AND still be sound vs. 4 verticals.  The answer is to play two coverages in one.  This was based around the motion that is ingrained in all Flexbone offenses.  They cannot hide this fact, they MUST motion a slot in a majority of their run game.  When they do this, they eliminate one of the 4 vertical threats.  So, vs. motion, we rotated into Cover 3, rotating the safety to the motion side, down to play flats/force and the safety away from motion to the middle 1/3.  Vs. no  motion, we played our standard or base 2 read/quarters scheme, where we pattern read the release of the #2 receiver.  Basically it's the best of both worlds.  The drawback is that you have to rep the reads of the secondary constantly so they become second nature when facing this type of offense.
So what were our safety reads?  Well, if your slot motioned, you thought pitch, and their eyes stayed on that slot for the duration of the play.  The safety to motion, would screw down to linebacker (LB) depth, and would work to stay in outside leverage on the pitch player.  If he saw the pitch (rocket) he immediately attacked his force point, so as to create a poor blocking angle for a pulling guard or arcing slot.  If it was not an immediate pitch he worked to the line of scrimmage (LOS) keeping his peripheral vision on the QB as to his intentions (run/pass).  We didn't want him to "fly" to the LOS if the pitch was not immediate for the simple reason I mentioned before.  OC's that find this player aggressive will try to throw behind him.  The closer to the LOS this player gets the harder it is for him to recover and defend the flats.

Rocket Toss



Safety reads vs. ISV



If the motioning slot inserted (midline follow/true iso) then the safety to motion still screwed down, to LB depth and played force looking for the spill by the inside defenders.  There was no new teaching here, as this was the safety's normal read in our 2 read/quarters scheme anyhow. 
If the motioning slot, redirected (what Flexbone coaches call "Twirl" motion), then the slot was to yell "Counter" and he redirected and rolled back to the MOF as the middle 1/3 player.  This sounds like a lot of moving, but to be honest I have rarely seen a Flexbone team twirl motion, and throw back to twirl motion.  Not saying it can't happen, I've just never seen it. 

Twirl Motion/Counter-Iso

The safety away from motion, basically became the middle 1/3 player.  The thing I drilled in his head was to key that opposite slot, because if he folded back inside, we wanted that safety to "freeze" and look for counter coming back at him.  The other item we wanted him to be able to get to was the seam by the slot that didn't motion.  He had to be able to wreck that route, anything else was "gravy" (as we call it in the South). 

If there was no motion, on the snap, the safety's eyes would flash to the near slot.  Vs. no motion, we were playing our base 2 read/quarters coverage scheme.  The reads then were pattern based, reading the #2 receiver to the side the safety aligned on.  This read allowed us to be very sound vs. the Flexbone's 4 vertical receiving threats.  Since we based out of this 2 read/quarters scheme, there was no new teaching to be done with the pattern reads, we had been doing them since day one of fall camp!

Cornerbacks

I'm not a fan of corner force, even though in my earlier days I was a pure squat 1/2's Cover 2 guy.  The thing I'm opposed to with corner force is the fact the offense can displace the corner so far he can become ineffective.  I tried all kinds of things to combat this, such as moving the corner hard and to the inside vs. a wide split, as well as turning his back to the wide receiver (WR) so as not to be cracked.  However, these techniques never yielded me much success (not saying it can't be done, my goodness look what Iowa did to Georgia Tech with Cover 2).  So what I'm going to talk about is what I did that had the most success defending the Flexbone. 

As I stated earlier, I played a rotational Cover 3 scheme, so the corners were always secondary force players.  However, Flexbone OC's will see this, and will begin to crack your rotational force player.  When a corner recognized a crack block by the WR, he yelled "rat" which was our term for a crack block.  The corner screamed off the backside of the crack and traded responsibilities with the safety.  In essence, the corner and safety did exactly the same thing as the defensive end (DE) and outside linebacker (OLB) do when gap exchanging (block down/step down).  The safety, upon hearing the "rat" call, settled his feet and  would open laterally to the blocker, and work over the top of the blocker becoming the secondary force player to that side.  We had the safety open at the receiver for two reasons, the first being we wanted him to see the block, so as not to get earholed.  Secondly, we wanted him to be able to work to a corner route if that was what the WR was doing. 




Rotational Cover 3 vs. Switch Blocking


Now, I know what you are thinking, most backside WR's in the Flexbone will cut across the face of the corner heading for the near safety on runs away (known to Flexbone coaches as the "across the field technique").  I still had my corners keying the #2 receiver as they always would in our standard 2 read/quarters scheme.  The corner only yelled "rat" if the slot to his side motioned.  If there was no motion, we were playing our standard 2 read/quarters scheme, so he needed his eyes on #2 anyway.  Again, multiplicity with simplicity! 




Across the field technique

 Other than crack-and-replace, the corner had a very easy job, don't get beat deep!  They played their deep 1/3 technique and we often told them they were to be heavy to the post, unless the #2 receiver released outside.  Remember the corner was looking for motion too, as this told him whether he was pattern reading #2, or bailing out and taking his deep 1/3. 

In my opinion this rotating secondary scheme gave you the best of both worlds.  It handled the 4 vertical threat by playing 2 read/quarters to 4 receiving threats if none of these receiving threats went into arc motion.  It played rotational cover 3, so the safety to the motion side could be aggressive vs. the run, and not have to worry about if the #2 receiver went vertical. 

Last, the simplistic nature of all this, was built into our defense from day one.  We based out of 2 read/quarters, and always mixed in rotational Cover 3 as well.  Our kids knew how to do this, so it was nothing new come the week we were facing a Flexbone team.  This is very important when facing this type of offense.  I have been a part of staffs that tried to put in the "defense of the week" vs. a Flexbone team, and frankly, it never works.  I build defending the triple option into my base defense, because in my opinion it's the most difficult of all offenses to stop. 

I'm not done yet folks!  I have yet to illustrate some other key points.  However I've talked on the Flexbone enough for now.  Later I will talk about:

The 4-3 vs. other Flexbone formations- Flexbone teams don't just stay in double slot, you need to be ready for all the adjustments out there for the various formations such as Trips, Over, and Tackles Over.

Drills for defending the Flexbone- Build these into your defense from day one!  Don't say "we don't see that offense" and let the Flexbone rear it's ugly head in the playoffs...you need to be ready to face this "basketball on grass" offense from day one!

And finally,
Some other schemes I've played/been a part of defending the Flexbone- Not all of us are 4-3 guys, I will talk about what I've been a part of and what I've had done against me as a Flexbone OC so the 3-3/4-4/3-5 guys can get something out of this discussion as well.

Keep reading!

Duece