Defending the Spread

I think it’s important to address some things teams will do to stop the spread offense. When the zone read offense first came into popularity, the simple inside zone read play was killing defenses. Many defensive coordinators then devoted their attention to developing stunts to stop this play. The fundamental strength of zone blocking, however, is that offensive linemen are blocking zones and not men – no matter what stunt the defense does (i.e. if they twist or blitz or whatever), the offensive line will still have everyone accounted for as long as they block their zone. Given this, defensive coaches have developed more stunts to disrupt the reading aspect of the inside zone play than the actual inside zone itself.

Arguable the most popular stunt against the spread is a “switch” stunt with the backside defensive end (the read key) and the backside inside linebacker. The backside defensive end comes hard down the line to stop inside zone run, influencing the QB to keep the ball instead of give. By coming hard down the line, the DE is effectively taking the inside linebacker’s normal A-gap responsibility. The LB, then, fills for the stunting DE off the edge. Thus the QB gets a keep read but runs almost immediately into a LB coming around the edge. This stunt is effective because it appears to take away both plays, and can lead to a big hit on the QB attempting to run the ball. Moreover, it forces the offense to adjust and think about running inside zone in new ways.

There are two decent ways of beating this stunt. The most basic response is to run inside zone with two backs in the backfield. Use the FB to block “back” on the backside DE, simply locking him off from disrupting inside zone (We call this inside zone “back”). This eliminates the read but allows a team to run inside zone even if the DE is attempting to give a keep read. An adjustment off of this is what we call inside zone “ark” (Ark means “Around the read key”). Instead of having the FB block the read key, he runs around the read key and turns the corner, looking to block the stunting inside LB – the QB likely gets a keep read then runs with the ball, with a FB leading him through the alley. IF they don’t have a switch stunt on, this can be an even better play with a keep read, as the FB will likely have no one to block until the free safety – with a good cut off this block, a QB keep can easily become a touchdown with “ARK” blocking.

~ by qbmello on September 29, 2008.