Football Fundamentals - RPO Pass Concepts - 3rd Level Read

By -
We've now touched on the basics of a "read offense", route concepts behind the LOS, and then the quick routes that are often attached to the RPO schemes. Now let's take it a little bit deeper and look at third level RPOs. We already looked at a few of these that are attached to quick pass concepts like the pop pass. In this post, we will look at a handful of concepts that attack third level reads.



5-Step Post

The most common of the third level reads (made very popular at Baylor), this route concept is fast enough to allow for a basic run option read while putting the safety in conflict to defend inside help on the quick post as well as play his run fill.



 Seam

Seam is similar to the 5-step post, only it works with an inside receiver. Here, he will typically have a slight stem outward before breaking back into the seam if the safety crashes down on his run fit. This is typically a play that is run in the same direction as the primary run threat. This is effectively the pop pass we talked about in the last post.



 Pole
Pole is an outside receiver putting the safety in conflict by running directly to the "pole". This is only a slight difference from the 5-step post, but it immediately works closer to the center of the field. This is more commonly used in the red zone area.



 Fade/Stop
Now we are going to get into something a little different. Here, rather than throwing something because your "read" shows it open, you are making a third level read to indicate if you are taking a "shot" or not. In that way, it is almost an "alert" attached to a run.



Here, you're going to read the route side safety. If he plays the run or stays flat and inside, you know you have one-on-one with a fade or back-shoulder to the outside. A lot of teams may convert to a 5-step post if the safety crashes.

Smart Football

Wheel-Post
Shot play. In this case, your read is either the defender lined up over the slot or the concept side safety. The "post" receiver is going to stem to rub. If the read defender works toward the LOS underneath the rub, you pull and throw the wheel. The read has to be quick, default is to give. This should typically be paired with a run concept where you can extend the mesh point (i.e. something to the outside). Often, these alert concepts can become "dead" pre-snap if there is a 3 over 2 look from the defense.


Etc.
That does it for the basic route concepts of RPO. In future segments we will look at the run schemes that can be paired with it (basically any scheme) and look at some Pass Run Options.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football Fundamentals: Twins Passing Concepts

By -
Image
In this post we will look at some of the standard route concepts run from a twins alignment. Obviously, these can be paired with other routes (some I'll show including a RB), but this is to get the fundamental understanding of the routes. I'll try to explain the concept briefly, as well as provide names for what you'll hear the concept called elsewhere at times (these things get lots of names, some people use the same names but have different meanings too, so it can get confusing). If a number is visible near the end of a route, that is the nominal yardage the route will be run to. For more information on specific routes, we took a look at the  route tree earlier . In this article I will not discuss routes that utilize rub concepts close to the LOS (such as a switch concept). I will have a later article dedicated to rub routes from a Twins set. Many of these are similar to the TE-Flanker Concepts discussed earlier.
Read more

Football Fundamentals: The Tite Front Defense

By -
Image
The defense du jour against modern spread attacks is what is commonly known as the “Tite” front. Over the past couple years, you’ve seen Big 12 teams run it increasingly often, and SEC and other teams start to incorporate variants of the look more often as well as they begin to deal with an increasing number of spread formations. But what exactly is the “Tite” front? Like any front, say, a 4-3 Under, it isn’t necessarily any one thing. You can have single-high, two-high, or even three-high safeties. You can attach your overhangs differently. And with Tite, it may even mean different box numbers. And of course, there are multiple techniques that can be employed along the way. This post is a primer to the Tite front. At the end, I’ll link some of the better articles that get into greater depth for those interested, but for now, we need to understand the basics, so that we can understand how to attack it.
Read more

Football Fundamentals: 2x2 and Mirrored Passing Concepts

By -
Image
We are going to continue our look at various passing concepts, this time with 2x2 and mirrored passing concepts. In this post we are going to trim out the concepts that are designed to attack the middle of the field and put those into a separate post. 2x2 concepts allow an offense to attack a defense based on post-snap looks and coverages via a simple read of the safety. Completely mirrored concepts, when the same concept is run on the both sides of the formation (such as all-hitches), is something of which I'm not a huge fan, but there are advantages to it. You look at something like all-hitches, which overloads underneath zones, and you see a viable option in the short passing game against zone heavy teams; similarly, completely mirrored concepts can allow you to pick on certain defenders or to a certain side of the field based on defensive look. We'll also look at "base" concepts, which see the outside receivers run the same route, and a third receiver work the mid...
Read more