Inside Veer: How Adding a TE Gives You and Advantage on the Defense (Part II)
By Payton Haynes, Offensive Coordinator, Luther College
3-4 Defense – Adding TE to the playside
Adding a TE to the playside of the formation against a 3-4 or an odd front defense can give you an extra blocker to help account for a defender that might be causing an issue when running inside veer. There are two different formations that can give you this advantage depending on if you are trying to help account for a linebacker or secondary defender. It is best to teach your offense both of these formations and switch them up throughout the course of the game to keep the defense guessing.
Double-teaming the playside linebacker
Diagram 3
Double-teaming the playside safety
Diagram 4
Final Thoughts
These few little adjustments when adding a TE to the field can make a large impact to an option style offense. Try adding simple tags for your TE to tell him where to line up and what defender he needs to block in each formation and situation. The more formations you can give a defense when preparing for an option offense can take time away from knowing their basic assignment keys and a TE is an easy way to quickly add formations to your playbook. Make sure you focus attention to these schemes in practice and put your offense in difficult situations to prepare them for when they see it live on game day.
