Exploring Football Passing Game Concepts

Hey, welcome into Understanding Football. I'm Joel Klatt. This is the second of a two-part video on the passing game. We're installing some passing concepts. If you haven't watched the first video, please go back and check that one out. It was on quick game, three-step, one-step out of the shotgun, how to get the ball out of the hands of the quarterback quickly. In this video, we're going to talk about drop-back passing. We got three concepts that I'm going to go over. I'm going to teach you exactly what they are. I'm going to teach you how they work and why they would be good for a quarterback and why they would like to run them. So that's... what we're going to do in this video and also this is our third video in understanding football i'm going to be touching on some coverage terms and coverages in general i would highly recommend going back and checking out the first video in our series because i do talk about coverage and all the defensive coverages that i'm talking about in these videos but with all that being said let's get started and i'm going to start with one of my favorites it's called hank So this is Hank, and remember, I'm teaching concepts, not the formation, not the personnel group, and not the protection. So what you have to understand, first and foremost, is that once you learn this picture and concept called Hank, we can run it out of several different looks, many different looks. It can be all sorts of different personnel groups. It can be all sorts of different formations or movements and motions and shifts. But in the end, what I'm going to get as a quarterback is this picture. So let's talk about what it is. Hank, first and foremost, becomes a full field read. So this is only read after the snap. I'm not going to choose a side as a quarterback. I'm going to read Hank as Hank every time, regardless of coverage. So I don't really need to know how many safeties are back there. I don't really need to know if it's man or zone, although that would be helpful and I'm always going to identify that. But all you need to know is that my eyes are always, always and forever on Hank going to go to the tight end or the over the ball route first. So the first thing that we've got to understand is on Hank, the Hank route is number one. And he's running this between eight to 10 yards down the field. right over the ball, and he's always settling. And I'm going to teach you why he's always settling in a moment, but first you have to understand he's running up there and boom, he's settling. Now, what happens on the outside on each side is that we've got a curl flat combination. Curl flat meaning that you've got a curl and you've got a flat on each side. Now, how do you get to each of those sides? That's the issue. Because you're not deciding before the snap as a quarterback, you're actually deciding after the snap. And my eyes always go to number one first, and that's the Hank route over the ball. So how in the world do I process after the tight end? Let's say he gets covered. It depends on who covers him. There's always going to be linebackers in the middle of the field. So if somebody covers the Hank route, then they're basically going to what? grab him. And I'm not talking about physically, I'm talking about like in coverage, they're going to attach or cover the Hank route. What I'm going to do as a quarterback is I'm going to read curl flat to the side that he gets covered. So there's multiple linebackers in the field. Let's say these two linebackers like this in the middle of the field. Let's just say for the sake of argument. the this linebacker that he kind of runs across his face he's the one that covers him or attaches to the tight end i'm gonna ask you now what side do i read correct i'm going to the side of the catch so now i'm reading to the left side and i've got two to the curl three to the flat this is why i love this play i've got answers as a quarterback so all i've got to do is come out bang i'm taking a five-step drop on my fifth step that tight end should be turning around. If the linebacker's split and he's open and I can give him the ball, boom, he gets the ball immediately and I'm framing him up. Okay, that ball is going right on his frame. This is great on third down, third and six. Running Hank like this is such a great strategy because that linebacker generally won't attach to the tight end. Now, he does sometimes, but I'm going to generally get that tight end. Hank, boom. If I get an attached linebacker, I'm reading curl flat to the side of the attached linebacker. It's very simple. So now I'm coming back and I get an attach. So now I'm going to close up, close meaning I'm going to take a hitch step. Because remember, if I'm throwing Hank, I'm going to throw it on the fifth step. Boom. If I'm throwing curl flat, I'm going to take a hitch step. I don't have Hank. And now I step up. A hitch step means I step up in the pocket and I step up and I hitch up. And now I'm reading curl to flat and I'm high to low, high to low based on these defenders on the outside. And it's just a progression read on that side. If the curl is open, he gets the ball right on his frame. If he's not, I go to the flat. And if he's not open, now I'm running for my life on either side because I don't have that. a bona fide check down. Remember what I talked about in that first passing game concept video, though. What I can't do as a quarterback is go backwards in the progression. So what I can't do is come out, and I'm going to come out, and I'm going to read that Hank route. I don't like it. I got a backside attached. Now I'm curled to flat. I can't go, oh, let me go back to Hank. No, because you can't throw the ball late over the middle. You just can't. I can't go to the flat and then back to the curl because now I'm late, and the corner is closing. So once I leave a man in my progression, I've got to continue. Never go backwards. It's a cardinal sin for a quarterback. This is a great concept and a simple concept, in particular on third down, because you've got three routes that will likely get past the sticks, and even if you've got to throw it to one of those flat routes, you've got an opportunity for him to get up the sideline and potentially get that conversion. So I've got third and five, got third and six, third and seven. What do I want to hear as a quarterback? How about this? Let's go solo right off. 75, Hank. You don't need to know anything else except for Hank right now. I'll teach you all of those formations and personnel groups in a later video. So our next downfield passing concept is going to be drive. All right, now drive can be run out of a lot of different formations, but generally speaking, it's best out of a three by one. Three receivers to one side, one on the other. Now, in drive, because it's in a three by one, you can't always tag on the back side. And I'll get to all of that in just a moment. first, let's take a look at drive. So here's the concept drive. And this one is run by almost every single offense. And once you understand what drive is, it usually becomes a quarterback's favorite because there are a ton of answers in this concept. Okay. So what is it? So first of all, let me just explain that drive is just the foundation here. And it's this triangle in the middle of the field. Okay. So that's drive is that middle triangle. Now, what it is, is you've got a shallow cross route coming from this side right here. So that's the driver. He's the drive route. And then when you run drive, you've also got the basic from the tight end or the number three wide receiver on that side, the basic kind of that over route right there from the same side as the driver. If they were coming from opposite sides of the ball, so you had like the drive coming this way. and then the basic coming the other way, that would be called shallow cross. It's just a different way to get into a similar picture. What I'm explaining here is drive, where they're both coming from the same side, okay? So let's talk about the foundation first. Let's talk about drive. Drive is a seven-step read, okay? So I'm gonna take a quick seven and close because I've got my guy coming all the way across the formation, and I don't want... to put my eyes or excuse me or i don't want to read this until he gets all the way outside i'm not trying to throw this ball to the driver right here or right here okay i want to let him develop the picture and the spacing of the concept to get over to at least this spot over here all right so now we've got one right there now he's got a conversion in his route Based on coverage, if it's zone, he is going to hook up, which is why you've got that little hookup. Then the dotted arrow is man. It's man, and he's running away from man. One of the keys in that route is if I've got my drive route coming across the field as a quarterback, if he's going to sit down, I want to see his chest right here. If I see his chest, I see his numbers. Now I know what his read is, and we're on the same page, and I know he's going to sit down. in that backside hole right over here as he gets all the way across that formation. And he's going to be right over there on that side, and he's number one. If he's not going to sit, I want to see his chin and his shoulder like this. I need to see his shoulder, not his chest. You can't give me a false read. If you're a wide receiver out there, you can't give me as a quarterback the false read. You can't show me your chest and then run. There can be no indecision. You're either sitting or you're running based on those body postures going across the field. The number two man in the progression on drive is this basic route. And a basic route has no conversions versus open. He's always going to be running this kind of like what I would call a small dig or as like I said, a basic route from a tight end. Now, he's also got the same rules. He's going to sit versus zone and run versus man. So that's why you see that little hitch in the route right there. Okay, and he's number two. And it's the exact same thing. I need to either see numbers. or chin and a shoulder from my number two guy up on top. And then number three is the back after he checks in protection and he's number three. So there's drive. I've got this triangle read. and it's red, low to high, and then you're back down here to the check down on a seven-step clock, all right? Versus zone, I'm getting a sit down, I'm getting a sit down, and I'm getting a sit down. Versus man, I'm getting a run, a run, and then a burst. Out here, burst from a back means that he's a check down, he's gonna check in protection, and rather than just sitting there, he's gonna burst away from the defender. So that's drive. All right, well. Does it work against every coverage? Yeah, it kind of does. But now I can tag it with the X, and I'm going to throw a possible alert out here with the outside wide receiver, and this is when it gets really, really fun. So the first thing you have to understand, if it's not tagged, now this outside receiver on this side over here, he has to run the bus ticket release. Remember I talked about that in the three-step video on Why Stick, where he's got to get outside. Why? Because I've got... two different guys running that direction. So I've got to get the corner's eyes turned outside. So if he's not tagged, he's running an outside release go on that side. Now, he can be alerted. And alerted meaning that I can be pulled as a quarterback away from the drive concept. If he's in bump or jam coverage, primarily bump, it's one-on-one and I like my matchup. And he's running... a goal ball right there. So I'm like, well, shoot, I've got Marvin Harrison, Jeremiah Smith. He's down there. So I've got drive over here. I know I can always play drive, but look at that matchup. I've got an alert over there. I've got to be like a possible alert pre-snap where I'm looking over there and I'm like, I can throw a goal ball over there. Or we can tag the X into an out route, a curl route, but primarily something outbreaking because you don't want him. bringing eyes back in here to the middle of the field. So it's usually like an out route. So this could be like drive X out, drive X bench. A bench is just like a small little comeback at 12 yards. These are all terms that you could throw out there and you could run an X tag. And then the same X tag principles would apply as they did in quick game. Remember, go back and watch that video. What did I tell you? If you've got one-on-one in the X tag side, then you play the X tag. So it's all matchup based. Because remember, the set is three wide receivers to one side and one to the other. So you're forcing the defense to commit to either double covering your best wide receiver or having more people there for a foundational play like drive. This is why I would love to have X tag. Now, there's another alert. And it's a big alert. And I love it. My guy up here. If the alert into the... boundary is based on corner technique. The alert to the field or the wide side is based on coverage. Those are two different things. So this is a coverage structure alert. You have to go back and watch the first video when I discuss quarters coverage, cover four. Because if I walk up to the line of scrimmage as a quarterback and we've got drive, X tag, or just drive. I know that I always have a coverage alert on the top of drive and it only works against quarters. Cover four. Why? Well, remember in that video I talked about the pattern read safety and how the pattern read safety is going to sit or cover a vertical route that comes straight at him from number two or who becomes the number two release? Remember that coaching point? Well, now guess what? We get the safety right here. to sit. And when the safety sits on the tight end, because the vertical release is right into his face, guess who's not over the top? The safety. And so now I can throw that post versus quarters. Okay, so let's recap here. I'm the quarterback, and I've got this play on. Now, this play, as it's called in the huddle, would be, let's see, it would be Trey Wright zip, two jet, Z drive, X out. I come up to the line of scrimmage. I've got X out. I've got an X tag. Do I have a one-on-one? No, I don't have a one-on-one. All right. Well, now what's the coverage? Because I have a coverage alert. It's cover four. Woo, it's cover four. You bet. Let's go. So now I'm one to the alert. This is pre-snap. Now I'm two to the basic right down here, and I'm three to the check down right in front of my eyes, which is still the back. All right. Now I come up. I don't have a one-on-one with my X tag, and now it's cover two. I don't have a quarter safety. What do I do? I read drive. What's drive, Joel? What's the triangle read? Red low to high right over the football. And now I'm going to see if it's man or zone. Am I going to sit or am I going to run? Am I going to sit or am I going to run with the basic? And I've got to check down possibly with a burst versus man coverage. So I have answers as a quarterback. This is why I love, love these types of concepts, even in dropback passing game, is that it doesn't matter what the defense does. Now, I haven't gotten into protection, and yes, there can be protection issues, and I can tell you where I'm hot or who I'm going to throw to based on a blitz, but right now, we're just learning the concept and the picture. And this concept and picture is drive with an X-Tec. All right, let's get into the last drop back pass concept that I want to talk about in this video. And remember, please go check out the other videos. We've got part one of the passing game, the quick game. We've got the coverages out there. And as always, just... leave us your thoughts there. I want to get into all go. This is my favorite, my favorite. Now, if you do know football, you're going to immediately say to yourself like, Joel, that's cheating. That's not technically all go. You're right. This is technically all go special. And the reason that it's special is because it's out of a three by one set, not a two by two set. Okay. Two by two would just have the tight end or the second, a second wide receiver on the left side. But You have to understand that whether it's all-go or all-go special, it's the same thing. It's four vertical routes. I'm getting everybody running go routes, okay? And whether it's special out of three-by-one or it's regular all-go out of two-by-two, it's read the same for the quarterback. So remember when I told you, and I keep saying this, that it doesn't matter what personnel group we're in, it doesn't matter what formation we're in, that the picture, the concept is the same for the quarterback. So I can now run all-go or all-go special out of a number of different sets or looks, and it looks different for the defense, and it's the same for me as a quarterback. Simplicity for me and something that's hard for the defense. That's what we're after. Okay, so here's what we got. Let's run it out of the same three wide receivers, one tied in. We're going to be out of the shotgun in this one. So this is Zebra Group in the West Coast offense. This is 11 personnel out of a regular personnel offense. And we've got our three by one. And it's static, meaning that I don't have any motion here. So static meaning that it's still, okay? So we've got four verticals. Okay, where do we start? The first thing that you've got to do as a quarterback is that you've got to understand, is the coverage open or is it closed, okay? So we're back to that. So here we go. Let's start with this. Closed is the middle. And open, I'm going to put it on this. left side, open, closed. I don't necessarily care which coverage it is as much as it is about the nature of, is it open or is it closed? The middle of the field, meaning the middle of the field. Do I have two safeties up here? Meaning the middle of the field is open or do I have one safety in the middle of the field? Okay. That's going to determine how I read and what the progression is for all go. All right. Now let's talk about if it's open, the first thing. Okay. Now this is the simplified version and I'm just going to, for the sake of an argument, let's kind of like remove this go route right here. And really this entire side. I want to make a foundation that is a three-man progression where I can make a specific defender wrong. Okay. Well, versus open coverage. Now I've got a safety over here on that left side. Okay, and I want to make this guy wrong with my read. So the way that I do that is I read inside out, one to that diagonal, two to that go, and three to the check down down below. A couple of things that I just have to stress here is this bender or this go route that's going across the field towards that hash, he's got two things that he really needs to take care of. Number one is, he's got to get on top of that linebacker to his side. He can't run underneath him because if he runs underneath him, now the picture gets squeezed and this far side safety or weak side safety doesn't really have to move in order to cover both guys because the route, if he goes under, gets squeezed too far over to that short side. I don't want that as a quarterback. So it's really important that he gets on top. of that linebacker, and he gets on top and then starts to bend it right over the field. Because now that safety, he's got some stress. He's got to think to himself, like, do I need to be over here with eyes on the three-receiver side? What do I have from a matchup over here into usually the short side of the field if it's three by one? And now it's very simple as a quarterback. I'm just going to make that safety wrong. It's open coverage. I go two up on the safety and I just read it inside out. Where's the safety? Make him wrong. So now I'm going to use my eyes. If he wants to hang on that hash, keep him there, stare at the tight end, and then boom, you can throw that what I would call kind of like that whole shot go right over here to the outside. If he wants to get a little bit of width. right away, take them that way with your eyes. Five-step drop, take them over there. Yeah, come on. I'm going to stare at that go route. And then I come right back to the seam and I'm hitting them right down the hash. Okay. So I'm two up on what is becoming now the short side safety. All right. That's versus open coverage. So I bet you, you know exactly what I'm going to say when I talk about closed coverage, right? We're going to go two up on the middle safety. It's very simple. Very simple for a quarterback. Very difficult for a defense. Now here's my safety. Let's make him wrong. Where's my two up? Right down the middle. I got two up against the middle safety. I'm making him wrong. It's one, two, and three to the check down. Same rule applies for this tight end who's running. He's got to get on top of the linebacker. in order to grab the eyes of the safety and hopefully drag him across the field. And then really the one that you want is that hole shot. Hole shot meaning like you're kind of driving the football 18 to 20 yards down the field. You're not trying to throw it with a lot of air. You're not throwing it 40 yards down the field. You're driving the football kind of in the hole or in the vulnerability of the defense right in the seam. That's when it really becomes good as a quarterback. The clock for me is big five and close. I'll go over that at a different time in terms of the clock. But basically, I'm going to take five steps as a quarterback from under center, and then I'm going to close up, and I'm going to read that middle field player. Two up on the middle third. Now, there's a couple of dotted lines out here that you might be wondering yourself, like, well, wait, why do you have these dotted lines? Well, when you do get a closed look like this, generally speaking, you get... Free access corners. Again, you've got to go check out the first video in our Understanding Football sequence when I talked about coverage, because all these terms now are going to make more sense to you. Remember what a free access corner is. It's a corner out here that has deep responsibility. And if you get a middle field close, the nature of that defense is probably going to be, whether it's man or whether it's zone, is that these corners have deep responsibility on the outside. When those corners have deep responsibility on the outside, you don't really want to drag those corners down the field when you're trying to throw seam routes right down the middle of the field, because you could potentially be dragging those corners into a place where they can fall off and make a play. Fall off meaning get off of their route and potentially cover that seam route 20 yards down the field. So versus middle close, free access corners, I want to run comebacks or little like, not little, but like dropout routes right here. So that if the corner falls off and he comes up here and covers this guy right here, now I can just throw the dropout. So that conversion happens versus a coverage that's specific to middle close defense. So now I'm not running four verticals. I'm running two verticals and two dropouts. But remember, if it's open, I need all my verticals because we're going two up on the safety on each side. I have seen... Some teams, if their quarterback's arm is strong enough versus open coverage, read the wide side over here. I don't see it a lot. Generally speaking, you read the short side versus open. You read the middle versus closed. And my check down is always over the ball. This is my favorite concept. I'll run it out of a thousand different formations. I hope to run it five to eight times per game. There's an answer for every single coverage. It's a way to get the ball down the field. really force the issue against safeties. In particular, if you're getting heavy run defense, we can get the ball out of my hands fairly quick because it's a five and close and the ball can come out. So again, all go special is one of my favorites. So that's going to wrap it up for our downfield passing video. And listen, you've got to go back and watch everything. And then everything starts to make sense in sequence from coverage to quick game to now drop back game. Now I love your thoughts on what you thought of all this. And then I'd also love to know what you want to hear or learn about next. Obviously, I've got a bunch of ideas, but what do you want to hear from us here on our series of Understanding Football?

Hey, welcome into Understanding Football. I'm Joel Klatt. This is the second of a two-part video on the passing game. We're installing some passing concepts.

If you haven't watched the first video, please go back and check that one out. It was on quick game, three-step, one-step out of the shotgun, how to get the ball out of the hands of the quarterback quickly. In this video, we're going to talk about drop-back passing.

We got three concepts that I'm going to go over. I'm going to teach you exactly what they are. I'm going to teach you how they work and why they would be good for a quarterback and why they would like to run them.

So that's... what we're going to do in this video and also this is our third video in understanding football i'm going to be touching on some coverage terms and coverages in general i would highly recommend going back and checking out the first video in our series because i do talk about coverage and all the defensive coverages that i'm talking about in these videos but with all that being said let's get started and i'm going to start with one of my favorites it's called hank So this is Hank, and remember, I'm teaching concepts, not the formation, not the personnel group, and not the protection. So what you have to understand, first and foremost, is that once you learn this picture and concept called Hank, we can run it out of several different looks, many different looks. It can be all sorts of different personnel groups.

It can be all sorts of different formations or movements and motions and shifts. But in the end, what I'm going to get as a quarterback is this picture. So let's talk about what it is.

Hank, first and foremost, becomes a full field read. So this is only read after the snap. I'm not going to choose a side as a quarterback.

I'm going to read Hank as Hank every time, regardless of coverage. So I don't really need to know how many safeties are back there. I don't really need to know if it's man or zone, although that would be helpful and I'm always going to identify that. But all you need to know is that my eyes are always, always and forever on Hank going to go to the tight end or the over the ball route first.

So the first thing that we've got to understand is on Hank, the Hank route is number one. And he's running this between eight to 10 yards down the field. right over the ball, and he's always settling. And I'm going to teach you why he's always settling in a moment, but first you have to understand he's running up there and boom, he's settling.

Now, what happens on the outside on each side is that we've got a curl flat combination. Curl flat meaning that you've got a curl and you've got a flat on each side. Now, how do you get to each of those sides?

That's the issue. Because you're not deciding before the snap as a quarterback, you're actually deciding after the snap. And my eyes always go to number one first, and that's the Hank route over the ball.

So how in the world do I process after the tight end? Let's say he gets covered. It depends on who covers him. There's always going to be linebackers in the middle of the field. So if somebody covers the Hank route, then they're basically going to what?

grab him. And I'm not talking about physically, I'm talking about like in coverage, they're going to attach or cover the Hank route. What I'm going to do as a quarterback is I'm going to read curl flat to the side that he gets covered. So there's multiple linebackers in the field.

Let's say these two linebackers like this in the middle of the field. Let's just say for the sake of argument. the this linebacker that he kind of runs across his face he's the one that covers him or attaches to the tight end i'm gonna ask you now what side do i read correct i'm going to the side of the catch so now i'm reading to the left side and i've got two to the curl three to the flat this is why i love this play i've got answers as a quarterback so all i've got to do is come out bang i'm taking a five-step drop on my fifth step that tight end should be turning around. If the linebacker's split and he's open and I can give him the ball, boom, he gets the ball immediately and I'm framing him up.

Okay, that ball is going right on his frame. This is great on third down, third and six. Running Hank like this is such a great strategy because that linebacker generally won't attach to the tight end. Now, he does sometimes, but I'm going to generally get that tight end. Hank, boom.

If I get an attached linebacker, I'm reading curl flat to the side of the attached linebacker. It's very simple. So now I'm coming back and I get an attach.

So now I'm going to close up, close meaning I'm going to take a hitch step. Because remember, if I'm throwing Hank, I'm going to throw it on the fifth step. Boom. If I'm throwing curl flat, I'm going to take a hitch step. I don't have Hank.

And now I step up. A hitch step means I step up in the pocket and I step up and I hitch up. And now I'm reading curl to flat and I'm high to low, high to low based on these defenders on the outside.

And it's just a progression read on that side. If the curl is open, he gets the ball right on his frame. If he's not, I go to the flat. And if he's not open, now I'm running for my life on either side because I don't have that.

a bona fide check down. Remember what I talked about in that first passing game concept video, though. What I can't do as a quarterback is go backwards in the progression.

So what I can't do is come out, and I'm going to come out, and I'm going to read that Hank route. I don't like it. I got a backside attached.

Now I'm curled to flat. I can't go, oh, let me go back to Hank. No, because you can't throw the ball late over the middle.

You just can't. I can't go to the flat and then back to the curl because now I'm late, and the corner is closing. So once I leave a man in my progression, I've got to continue. Never go backwards. It's a cardinal sin for a quarterback.

This is a great concept and a simple concept, in particular on third down, because you've got three routes that will likely get past the sticks, and even if you've got to throw it to one of those flat routes, you've got an opportunity for him to get up the sideline and potentially get that conversion. So I've got third and five, got third and six, third and seven. What do I want to hear as a quarterback?

How about this? Let's go solo right off. 75, Hank. You don't need to know anything else except for Hank right now.

I'll teach you all of those formations and personnel groups in a later video. So our next downfield passing concept is going to be drive. All right, now drive can be run out of a lot of different formations, but generally speaking, it's best out of a three by one.

Three receivers to one side, one on the other. Now, in drive, because it's in a three by one, you can't always tag on the back side. And I'll get to all of that in just a moment. first, let's take a look at drive.

So here's the concept drive. And this one is run by almost every single offense. And once you understand what drive is, it usually becomes a quarterback's favorite because there are a ton of answers in this concept. Okay. So what is it?

So first of all, let me just explain that drive is just the foundation here. And it's this triangle in the middle of the field. Okay. So that's drive is that middle triangle. Now, what it is, is you've got a shallow cross route coming from this side right here.

So that's the driver. He's the drive route. And then when you run drive, you've also got the basic from the tight end or the number three wide receiver on that side, the basic kind of that over route right there from the same side as the driver.

If they were coming from opposite sides of the ball, so you had like the drive coming this way. and then the basic coming the other way, that would be called shallow cross. It's just a different way to get into a similar picture.

What I'm explaining here is drive, where they're both coming from the same side, okay? So let's talk about the foundation first. Let's talk about drive. Drive is a seven-step read, okay? So I'm gonna take a quick seven and close because I've got my guy coming all the way across the formation, and I don't want...

to put my eyes or excuse me or i don't want to read this until he gets all the way outside i'm not trying to throw this ball to the driver right here or right here okay i want to let him develop the picture and the spacing of the concept to get over to at least this spot over here all right so now we've got one right there now he's got a conversion in his route Based on coverage, if it's zone, he is going to hook up, which is why you've got that little hookup. Then the dotted arrow is man. It's man, and he's running away from man.

One of the keys in that route is if I've got my drive route coming across the field as a quarterback, if he's going to sit down, I want to see his chest right here. If I see his chest, I see his numbers. Now I know what his read is, and we're on the same page, and I know he's going to sit down.

in that backside hole right over here as he gets all the way across that formation. And he's going to be right over there on that side, and he's number one. If he's not going to sit, I want to see his chin and his shoulder like this. I need to see his shoulder, not his chest. You can't give me a false read.

If you're a wide receiver out there, you can't give me as a quarterback the false read. You can't show me your chest and then run. There can be no indecision. You're either sitting or you're running based on those body postures going across the field.

The number two man in the progression on drive is this basic route. And a basic route has no conversions versus open. He's always going to be running this kind of like what I would call a small dig or as like I said, a basic route from a tight end. Now, he's also got the same rules. He's going to sit versus zone and run versus man.

So that's why you see that little hitch in the route right there. Okay, and he's number two. And it's the exact same thing.

I need to either see numbers. or chin and a shoulder from my number two guy up on top. And then number three is the back after he checks in protection and he's number three. So there's drive.

I've got this triangle read. and it's red, low to high, and then you're back down here to the check down on a seven-step clock, all right? Versus zone, I'm getting a sit down, I'm getting a sit down, and I'm getting a sit down. Versus man, I'm getting a run, a run, and then a burst. Out here, burst from a back means that he's a check down, he's gonna check in protection, and rather than just sitting there, he's gonna burst away from the defender.

So that's drive. All right, well. Does it work against every coverage? Yeah, it kind of does. But now I can tag it with the X, and I'm going to throw a possible alert out here with the outside wide receiver, and this is when it gets really, really fun.

So the first thing you have to understand, if it's not tagged, now this outside receiver on this side over here, he has to run the bus ticket release. Remember I talked about that in the three-step video on Why Stick, where he's got to get outside. Why?

Because I've got... two different guys running that direction. So I've got to get the corner's eyes turned outside.

So if he's not tagged, he's running an outside release go on that side. Now, he can be alerted. And alerted meaning that I can be pulled as a quarterback away from the drive concept.

If he's in bump or jam coverage, primarily bump, it's one-on-one and I like my matchup. And he's running... a goal ball right there.

So I'm like, well, shoot, I've got Marvin Harrison, Jeremiah Smith. He's down there. So I've got drive over here. I know I can always play drive, but look at that matchup. I've got an alert over there.

I've got to be like a possible alert pre-snap where I'm looking over there and I'm like, I can throw a goal ball over there. Or we can tag the X into an out route, a curl route, but primarily something outbreaking because you don't want him. bringing eyes back in here to the middle of the field.

So it's usually like an out route. So this could be like drive X out, drive X bench. A bench is just like a small little comeback at 12 yards. These are all terms that you could throw out there and you could run an X tag. And then the same X tag principles would apply as they did in quick game.

Remember, go back and watch that video. What did I tell you? If you've got one-on-one in the X tag side, then you play the X tag.

So it's all matchup based. Because remember, the set is three wide receivers to one side and one to the other. So you're forcing the defense to commit to either double covering your best wide receiver or having more people there for a foundational play like drive.

This is why I would love to have X tag. Now, there's another alert. And it's a big alert. And I love it.

My guy up here. If the alert into the... boundary is based on corner technique.

The alert to the field or the wide side is based on coverage. Those are two different things. So this is a coverage structure alert. You have to go back and watch the first video when I discuss quarters coverage, cover four.

Because if I walk up to the line of scrimmage as a quarterback and we've got drive, X tag, or just drive. I know that I always have a coverage alert on the top of drive and it only works against quarters. Cover four. Why?

Well, remember in that video I talked about the pattern read safety and how the pattern read safety is going to sit or cover a vertical route that comes straight at him from number two or who becomes the number two release? Remember that coaching point? Well, now guess what?

We get the safety right here. to sit. And when the safety sits on the tight end, because the vertical release is right into his face, guess who's not over the top?

The safety. And so now I can throw that post versus quarters. Okay, so let's recap here.

I'm the quarterback, and I've got this play on. Now, this play, as it's called in the huddle, would be, let's see, it would be Trey Wright zip, two jet, Z drive, X out. I come up to the line of scrimmage. I've got X out.

I've got an X tag. Do I have a one-on-one? No, I don't have a one-on-one. All right. Well, now what's the coverage?

Because I have a coverage alert. It's cover four. Woo, it's cover four.

You bet. Let's go. So now I'm one to the alert.

This is pre-snap. Now I'm two to the basic right down here, and I'm three to the check down right in front of my eyes, which is still the back. All right.

Now I come up. I don't have a one-on-one with my X tag, and now it's cover two. I don't have a quarter safety.

What do I do? I read drive. What's drive, Joel? What's the triangle read?

Red low to high right over the football. And now I'm going to see if it's man or zone. Am I going to sit or am I going to run? Am I going to sit or am I going to run with the basic? And I've got to check down possibly with a burst versus man coverage.

So I have answers as a quarterback. This is why I love, love these types of concepts, even in dropback passing game, is that it doesn't matter what the defense does. Now, I haven't gotten into protection, and yes, there can be protection issues, and I can tell you where I'm hot or who I'm going to throw to based on a blitz, but right now, we're just learning the concept and the picture. And this concept and picture is drive with an X-Tec. All right, let's get into the last drop back pass concept that I want to talk about in this video.

And remember, please go check out the other videos. We've got part one of the passing game, the quick game. We've got the coverages out there.

And as always, just... leave us your thoughts there. I want to get into all go.

This is my favorite, my favorite. Now, if you do know football, you're going to immediately say to yourself like, Joel, that's cheating. That's not technically all go. You're right.

This is technically all go special. And the reason that it's special is because it's out of a three by one set, not a two by two set. Okay.

Two by two would just have the tight end or the second, a second wide receiver on the left side. But You have to understand that whether it's all-go or all-go special, it's the same thing. It's four vertical routes.

I'm getting everybody running go routes, okay? And whether it's special out of three-by-one or it's regular all-go out of two-by-two, it's read the same for the quarterback. So remember when I told you, and I keep saying this, that it doesn't matter what personnel group we're in, it doesn't matter what formation we're in, that the picture, the concept is the same for the quarterback. So I can now run all-go or all-go special out of a number of different sets or looks, and it looks different for the defense, and it's the same for me as a quarterback. Simplicity for me and something that's hard for the defense.

That's what we're after. Okay, so here's what we got. Let's run it out of the same three wide receivers, one tied in.

We're going to be out of the shotgun in this one. So this is Zebra Group in the West Coast offense. This is 11 personnel out of a regular personnel offense. And we've got our three by one.

And it's static, meaning that I don't have any motion here. So static meaning that it's still, okay? So we've got four verticals. Okay, where do we start?

The first thing that you've got to do as a quarterback is that you've got to understand, is the coverage open or is it closed, okay? So we're back to that. So here we go. Let's start with this.

Closed is the middle. And open, I'm going to put it on this. left side, open, closed.

I don't necessarily care which coverage it is as much as it is about the nature of, is it open or is it closed? The middle of the field, meaning the middle of the field. Do I have two safeties up here?

Meaning the middle of the field is open or do I have one safety in the middle of the field? Okay. That's going to determine how I read and what the progression is for all go. All right. Now let's talk about if it's open, the first thing.

Okay. Now this is the simplified version and I'm just going to, for the sake of an argument, let's kind of like remove this go route right here. And really this entire side.

I want to make a foundation that is a three-man progression where I can make a specific defender wrong. Okay. Well, versus open coverage. Now I've got a safety over here on that left side.

Okay, and I want to make this guy wrong with my read. So the way that I do that is I read inside out, one to that diagonal, two to that go, and three to the check down down below. A couple of things that I just have to stress here is this bender or this go route that's going across the field towards that hash, he's got two things that he really needs to take care of. Number one is, he's got to get on top of that linebacker to his side.

He can't run underneath him because if he runs underneath him, now the picture gets squeezed and this far side safety or weak side safety doesn't really have to move in order to cover both guys because the route, if he goes under, gets squeezed too far over to that short side. I don't want that as a quarterback. So it's really important that he gets on top.

of that linebacker, and he gets on top and then starts to bend it right over the field. Because now that safety, he's got some stress. He's got to think to himself, like, do I need to be over here with eyes on the three-receiver side?

What do I have from a matchup over here into usually the short side of the field if it's three by one? And now it's very simple as a quarterback. I'm just going to make that safety wrong.

It's open coverage. I go two up on the safety and I just read it inside out. Where's the safety?

Make him wrong. So now I'm going to use my eyes. If he wants to hang on that hash, keep him there, stare at the tight end, and then boom, you can throw that what I would call kind of like that whole shot go right over here to the outside.

If he wants to get a little bit of width. right away, take them that way with your eyes. Five-step drop, take them over there.

Yeah, come on. I'm going to stare at that go route. And then I come right back to the seam and I'm hitting them right down the hash. Okay.

So I'm two up on what is becoming now the short side safety. All right. That's versus open coverage.

So I bet you, you know exactly what I'm going to say when I talk about closed coverage, right? We're going to go two up on the middle safety. It's very simple. Very simple for a quarterback. Very difficult for a defense.

Now here's my safety. Let's make him wrong. Where's my two up? Right down the middle. I got two up against the middle safety.

I'm making him wrong. It's one, two, and three to the check down. Same rule applies for this tight end who's running. He's got to get on top of the linebacker.

in order to grab the eyes of the safety and hopefully drag him across the field. And then really the one that you want is that hole shot. Hole shot meaning like you're kind of driving the football 18 to 20 yards down the field.

You're not trying to throw it with a lot of air. You're not throwing it 40 yards down the field. You're driving the football kind of in the hole or in the vulnerability of the defense right in the seam.

That's when it really becomes good as a quarterback. The clock for me is big five and close. I'll go over that at a different time in terms of the clock. But basically, I'm going to take five steps as a quarterback from under center, and then I'm going to close up, and I'm going to read that middle field player. Two up on the middle third.

Now, there's a couple of dotted lines out here that you might be wondering yourself, like, well, wait, why do you have these dotted lines? Well, when you do get a closed look like this, generally speaking, you get... Free access corners. Again, you've got to go check out the first video in our Understanding Football sequence when I talked about coverage, because all these terms now are going to make more sense to you. Remember what a free access corner is.

It's a corner out here that has deep responsibility. And if you get a middle field close, the nature of that defense is probably going to be, whether it's man or whether it's zone, is that these corners have deep responsibility on the outside. When those corners have deep responsibility on the outside, you don't really want to drag those corners down the field when you're trying to throw seam routes right down the middle of the field, because you could potentially be dragging those corners into a place where they can fall off and make a play.

Fall off meaning get off of their route and potentially cover that seam route 20 yards down the field. So versus middle close, free access corners, I want to run comebacks or little like, not little, but like dropout routes right here. So that if the corner falls off and he comes up here and covers this guy right here, now I can just throw the dropout. So that conversion happens versus a coverage that's specific to middle close defense. So now I'm not running four verticals.

I'm running two verticals and two dropouts. But remember, if it's open, I need all my verticals because we're going two up on the safety on each side. I have seen... Some teams, if their quarterback's arm is strong enough versus open coverage, read the wide side over here.

I don't see it a lot. Generally speaking, you read the short side versus open. You read the middle versus closed.

And my check down is always over the ball. This is my favorite concept. I'll run it out of a thousand different formations. I hope to run it five to eight times per game. There's an answer for every single coverage.

It's a way to get the ball down the field. really force the issue against safeties. In particular, if you're getting heavy run defense, we can get the ball out of my hands fairly quick because it's a five and close and the ball can come out.

So again, all go special is one of my favorites. So that's going to wrap it up for our downfield passing video. And listen, you've got to go back and watch everything.

And then everything starts to make sense in sequence from coverage to quick game to now drop back game. Now I love your thoughts on what you thought of all this. And then I'd also love to know what you want to hear or learn about next. Obviously, I've got a bunch of ideas, but what do you want to hear from us here on our series of Understanding Football?

Transcript for:Exploring Football Passing Game Concepts

Transcript for:
Exploring Football Passing Game Concepts