Having the right front and coverage is critical to defending the four-verticals package.
The increasingly popular air raid offense presents a predominantly short passing game, an attack that creates matchup problems in space, an often disguised running attack, and often lights out numbers.
The high-powered, pass-first air raid play, exhibited by such schools as Texas Tech and Washington State, has generated a buzz across the football landscape. Gridiron Strategies solicited opinions on how best to cope with this up-tempo style of play from Joe Klanderman, Defensive Coordinator at Minnesota State-Mankato; Joe Dettwiler, Head Coach at Wisconsin-LaCrosse; and Joe Daniel, Defensive Coordinator at Prince George High School in Virginia.
GS: What is your strategy against a four-vertical/air raid offense?
Klanderman: You must have some multiplicity. You have to give different looks. I like to pressure the line of scrimmage. I don’t necessarily mean blitzing. I mean pressuring different points of the offense, whether it’s pressing receivers or getting into some great cover downs against receivers or stressing different areas of the protection.
Dettwiler: It varies with on the strength of the quarterback. You have to be able to disrupt the timing of the passing game. You have to force them to do what they don’t want to do. Think out of the box. Give them a run look where they have to try and run it and then basically cover down as many receivers as you can.
Daniel: To defend the four vertical package, we want to stay away from cover three. First, we want to identify the most dangerous athletes, the ones they’re trying to get the ball to. When we identify them we’ll have a matchup of our best on their best.
We’ll also do a lot of work on pursuit and open field tackling. We’ll mix up man and zone play calling. Because it relies on quick passing, we’ll use a lot of disguise since the quarterback will be depending on a lot of pre-snap reads. Bring pressure with blitzes and stunts up front. We want to keep their offensive line off guard. Just like we’re looking for their best athlete, we will be looking for their weakest lineman and put pressure on him too.
What do you feel is the best cover package against this offense?
Klanderman: That’s where I really think you have to be multiple. You have to do a good job with pre-snap looks. You need a good balance between a couple of different things. You can’t sit in one thing and expect to have a whole bunch of success because the air raid offense is so adaptable and adjustments are easily made that you have to keep mixing it up. You also have to do a good job with your pre-snap looks so they don’t know what you’re in. We want our pre-snap looks to appear the same all the time. We have a couple of looks that we like to give but we try to show quarters all the time.
Daniel: That comes down to what your team does best. Because of the threat of four verticals, I’d stay away from cover 3. A cover 2 or a cover 4 gives you good coverage against the four verticals or man coverage. If you’re going to man coverage and we go to a cover 1, we’ll probably bring five rushers quite a bit. If we go to a cover zero we’ll bring six or even seven with players on a blitz peel if their player responsibility releases into a pass.
Dettwiler: With the onset of the new NCAA rules, I like a four-deep coverage. It covers the verticals and keeps your players in the game. If you have a high hole player, like a deep middle third guy, we used to look at it as an intimidation factor where we would strike the receivers in a four vertical package where we would give up the field vertical and hit the receivers. The thought process was that eventually they would start dropping the ball. But now if you try to do that, your guys are going to start getting thrown out of the game. Looking at it now, I think a quarters-type coverage is going to work best with the ability to play man-free coverage as a change-up.
What is the best front to apply pressure to the quarterback?
Daniel: I don’t have a best front. I don’t think there is a best front you can run. They’re all basically the same. When you get into a spread type offense, a 4-3 or a 4-2-5 are the same. We’re going to put our players out there in the front that fits them the best, that makes them the most comfortable. We know if our kids are confident they’re going to play faster and that’s the key.
Klanderman: We like to do a lot of stuff out of 2-3 techniques. It simplifies protections a little bit and enables you to exploit some things in protection. Sometimes when you’re in a 2-3 you can find out what you’re going to get and then develop some blitz packages or maybe some D-line games upfront.
Dettwiler: We’re a four-down team. With four down linemen there’s only so many ways to protect that front. A three down front can be protected in multiple ways, like a 3-4. But I also feel sometimes the best front to apply pressure is the one that the scouting tape of your opponent shows how they protect their quarterback.
A lot will depend on the arm strength and mobility of the QB. If he can run, even just out of the pocket, that becomes an issue for us. The question we have to ask every time is can he throw vertically. Can he throw the ball to the widest side of the field and be accurate? We often use a 2 Gap/2 Shell defense vs. the spread (See Diagram).
Most of these offenses are based on timing. How fast can they throw the ball? They have to put the ball right where it’s supposed to be at a certain time and, if you can disrupt that, it gives your defensive line the time to get back there. Teams who play air raid generally don’t want to run it very much. What you do when you take players out of the tackle box area is you force the offense to either run or throw into a bad situation. Your numbers are better for passing defensively and you’re using your players to your best advantage. When they do run the ball you must have the understanding that you’re down a player in the box from a defensive standpoint. Then, one player has to be responsible for two gaps.
You have some players that can account for two gaps and not just a single gap. That allows you to remove players out of the box. The best part about that is those six guys that are all in the back can function in any coverage they want to. Essentially, you’ve got two receivers and three defenders. So you’ve got three over two on the right and left side. It forces the offense to do certain things and allows the defense to be more multiple.
You can be a 2-high or cover 2 shell or you could play a three deep coverage and make it look like a two-deep coverage. It’s hard for a quarterback to pick up on it. The disguise is very advantageous for a defense and you don’t give up much. You can’t blitz a lot but I think sometimes spread teams want you to blitz. I think the more you’re able to sit back and disguise your coverages and cause frustration, the more you’re able to get on top of receivers and re-route them.
Do you feel press man coverage would be effective against this offense?
Daniel: I love press man coverage because with the distribution of the football you’ve got a lot of quick throws, short throws, quick screens and the best way to take those away is press man. We’re only going to press if they have a double set. Unless we’re in a goal line situation we’re probable only going to press one and normally it will be on the outside receiver who is on the ball.
To keep from getting picked you try and press everybody because rub routes can cause a lot of problems for you and you wind up with breakdowns. If passing either the outside receivers or passing up on the most dangerous receiver we want to make it difficult for him to catch easy passes or uncovered passes where he can get five or six yards before anyone has a chance to get him. We also want to make it hard for him to catch those screen passes.
Dettwiler: I do think it’s effective. I think you have to practice it. You can’t just say you’re going to do it the week you’re going to play a certain team. If it’s in your defensive package, it can be effective. You have to be willing to play it against other teams as well. If your league is not a press coverage league and you’re a press coverage team, you have something to offer that forces them to do something different during the week that they’re not used to.
The ability to disrupt and make the quarterback hold the football is very big in defending the spread. In my mind, spread coaches aren’t very patient. They want explosive plays. They want big chunks of yardage. They want a four-play drive or a two-play drive. You have to force them into a 12-play drive and make them burn clock.
Klanderman: It can work if you have the guys to do it. If you go all three wide, we’re going to be in a nickel so we have three corner types in the game. If you go four wide, we might even jump out into drive where we have five corner types in the game. If you’re doing that I think you can play man against the offense but I wouldn’t play man against a team if I didn’t feel comfortable with the matchups. I wouldn’t do it out of a base defense and get a linebacker on a receiver or in some cases I wouldn’t even do it out of a nickel defense and get a safety on a receiver.
You’ve got to be comfortable with the matchups and must have the guys to be able to do it. You need guys who can play man and win matchups in order to play man. I want to get the right personnel for us in the game whether it’s a three-wide, 11 personnel formation. I want to be in a nickel with the corner type for us in the game. Then if it’s 10 personnel, four wide types, I like to get into what we call dime with four corner types.
Do you change your philosophy or strategy based on the offense being in a 2 X 2 or a 3 X 1 formation?
Daniel: We’re definitely going to change whether its 2 X 2 or 3 X 1 because 3 X 1 almost becomes an unbalanced set. Whereas a wing-T team would move a lineman over when you get into 3 X 1 sets, its almost like an unbalanced set for the offense in an air raid or spread offense so it’s going to unbalance us somewhat.
We want to have at least two or three ways to handle trips formations. They can start to dictate to you if you only have one way to handle trips. We’re going to do three things with it. First, is a roll to a quarter-quarter half coverage which is our zone answer. Then, we’ll have some automatics where if you go to trips we’re going to blitz off the back side so when you’ve got your three receivers over there we’re going to bring our weak side safety and play cover zero man coverage and the three receivers coverage. So that’s our second answer. The last one is when we flip the weak safety over and slide our linebackers weak to get more of a cover 1 look.
Diagram: 2 Gap/2 Shell vs. Spread
Front: Set away from RB in GK or GQ - in GTB or TB set front to boundary
3 Tech: Press the edge through gap - force cutback
Playside End: Press the edge through gap force ball to cutback
Backside End: Q Player - shuffle down to replace OT
Mike: Press A gap to pull center off double team - mirror RB path for cutback
OLB’s: Run/Pass Read, Re-route #2 or #3 WR, drop to area based on Cover 2 or Cover 3
Safety: Cover 2, Cover 3 or Cover 4 - depending on formation/situation
Corner: Cover 2, Cover 3 or Cover 4 - depending on formation/situation
But we’ll still have man coverage on the single receiver side. We’ve got other things we can do but the big thing is we don’t want to get a linebacker on a receiver and have a mismatch. But we also don’t want you to dictate to us. So, we’re going to be able to play some zone, play some cover-man, and also play some cover 1 man. We also want the ability, if you go to a three receiver set so they can throw to a single receiver, then we can double cover the single receiver side. We want multiple ways to defend trips and it largely depends on what you’re trying to do out of it.
Klanderman: The 3 X 1 presents a little bit more difficulty because you have the threat of three verticals. I like to get good cover downs on those receivers. Mixing up coverages and doing some different things with the front that allows you to put yourself in good coverage situations is very important. The front and back always have to marry up. Sometimes in order to get great cover downs on receivers you might need to manipulate some things up front, whether it’s doing some stunts or doing some movements up front so you can get your guys in better shape in relation to those receivers.
Dettwiler: Our base 2 X 2 or 3 X 1 is a very easy adjustment for our defense. I’m fine playing cover 2 to both 2 X 2 or 3 X 1. I don’t see it being a major change. Your defensive group has to be intelligent enough to understand how to defend it conceptually. The 2 X 2 probably is a little harder for us. The way we play our defense for the 3 X 1, you can manipulate some things. A lot of times when you see the 3 X 1 the number one receiver to the trips is somewhat neglected. His options are limited now because it’s a long throw. When they put the ball on the hash and they put that guy way out there on the numbers, I don’t think he’s involved in the game as much as if he was in a 2 X 2 set.
The base philosophy is you have to force them to get impatient and make mistakes. Your defense must be very patient and sometimes vanilla. It’s a battle of wills when you come right down to it. Your defense has to be comfortable playing base defense and okay with a five-yard gain here or a four-yard gain there. If you’re going to pressure, you can’t mess around with one or two guys. If you’re going to bring pressure you have to bring everybody or at least more than they can block.