Last off-season I spent more time than normal listening to offensive coaches, and not just at clinics, because this past off-season we had an offensive coordinator to hire. This gave me a great opportunity to listen to the different candidates talk about their offensive schemes. The biggest thing that struck me at the end of this process was how incredibly important a pre-snap read has become to offenses. Not just for the QB, but also the OL and the skill players. Sometimes they both must be seeing the same thing without time to communicate. Sometimes the QB does not have to read anything post snap because of how strong the pre-snap read is.
The best defenses I have been a part of in my time in college have been the most simple, where our players can get lined up and play fast. A lot of times, for simplicity’s sake, disguise was brushed aside. After last off-season, my thought process changed a bit on this and the focus has now turned to finding easier ways to make the offensive players have to react to what we are doing post snap. With that in mind, I am going to do a couple of blog posts on disguise. Before last season I completed a blog post on disguising the secondary. This post will deal with disguising the linebackers and next month I’ll do another on the defensive line.
To me, there are two main ways to disguise your linebackers on the second level. One is to show and disguise who are the support / force players. The other is to show and disguise where and who is blitzing.
Let’s start with some ways to disguise your support players on defense. On the perimeter, receivers have to make decisions pre-snap on who the force players are; that is, to know who they have to block in the scheme. The QB often pre-snap will have to make a decision on the count in the box. How many run defenders are in the box? An example would be if it is a two high shell, two safeties high, means seven defenders in the box (no safety support) – call the run play. Conversely, if it is a one high or no high shell (meaning one safety in the middle of the field or no safeties), call the pass play. Here are two coverages we like to help disguise whether our linebackers are the force players or the safeties. We call them FIZZ and BUZZ, see Diagram #1 & #2. The movement from the outside linebacker to the passing strength happens post snap. He takes his normal alignment, five yards deep in the “triangle” between the end man on the line of scrimmage and the open #2 or however you teach it in your defense. Then on the snap he either shuffles in or out as his “read steps”. In FIZZ he shuffles IN with the safety coming down as the force player outside of him. In BUZZ the OLB shuffles OUT and is the force player with the safety coming inside of him. Again the movement does not happen until post snap, just a couple of shuffle steps as the OLB makes his read from his keys within the box.
We have found this to be a great way to disguise linebacker support on the perimeter. The offensive players on the perimeter must decide after the snap who to block which takes away their pre-snap read and a bit of their aggression and creates some hesitation. In the drop back pass game it has caused some issues for the QB as they see a linebacker leave a zone only to have a safety roll into that zone.
In terms of disguising linebackers within blitzes, I have two techniques to share with you. The first is our SHOW call (see Diagram #3). The premise of our Show call is to show pressure, then play coverage. This at times can help our DL get one-on-one opportunities with the OL while creating some urgency and/or panic in the offense. However, we don’t want to just tell the linebackers to “Show Blitz.” They may get up to the line showing a look or in a gap that they never blitz in. That makes it easy for an offense to determine that the linebackers are not blitzing, because, for example, they never run a blitz where all threelinebackers are coming.
So the way we use the SHOW call is to base it off a blitz we like against that week’s opponent. For example, in Diagram #3 we like the Sword blitz vs. an opponent. So this week our SHOW call = showing the Sword blitz. We will run the Sword blitz a number of times in the game, so it gives more validity to the pressure and helps better disguise which and if our linebackers are blitzing. The next week against a different opponent the SHOW call will equal a different blitz.
Another way we like to disguise the linebackers in pressure is through our Edge technique (see Diagram #4). Usually associated with an inside the box pressure, the OLB to the RB aligns on the line of scrimmage showing pressure off the edge. On the snap, if the RB releases to his side or blocks to the edge, the OLB takes him man-to-man. If the RB goes inside, then the OLB in the Edge technique drops over the middle of the formation and plays QB intentions. If the RB switches sides, then the OLB is involved in the inside blitz and the other OLB takes the Edge technique.
We like this with inside pressures because it can create some confusion for the protection with the OLB showing off the edge but the pressure coming inside the box. We also like that with in an inside pressure, if they try to swing screen or sprint out pass to get away from the inside pressure, the OLB in the Edge technique will cover these plays.
So there are four ways that we find helpful in disguising our linebackers whether it be in support or pressure. Find ways that work within your defensive scheme to make the offensive players determine post-snap what kind of scheme or pressure your linebackers are in. As always, feel free to email (jmcdonald@wesleyan.edu) me with any questions, concerns or feedback and next month we’ll touch on disguising the defensive line.