the funny thing about route combinations
by jt (2018-10-15 17:46:22)

In reply to: The "was the TE open on 4 and 1" question.  posted by LondonDomer


usually one route is designed to free up the other--for example, against a cover 3 look, you will often see an inside receiver/TE run a quick out (1 route) and the outside wr run a quick slant. That's designed to exploit the hole in the zone coverage as the corner plays outside technique as he has deep third and the ss/olb has flat and will follow the quick out and not be able to recover to defend the slant. However, I have noticed it more and more this year that teams are overplaying the first option (in this example, the slant) and giving up the "clearing" route (quick out) and qb's are sometimes not sure what to do.

That kind of looks like what's happening here--Kelly likely assumes that the defense will flow to the first out and not be ready for the second/layered route over top. If you notice, the defensive back/OLB (can't tell which position he is) stays flat and doesn't attack the quick flat, and from depth (where the qb is, of course) that makes it look like he's still in play on the layered route. Book needs to learn to read that better, as he really isn't in play on either route. Charlie Weis used to refer to this (probably still does, I assume) as "getting middled." The guy plays the middle/splits the difference and it causes the qb some hesitation.


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