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Complimenting Routes
By: Kyle Cooper
Learning how to compliment your routes with other routes can really open up the field for your offense. We've already
discussed in previous articles the different ways to make your reads, respond to the blitz, and create proper spacing.
However, in this article we're going to show you how you can use a combination of routes to create perfect spacing. The
play that we're going to break down is the Strong-I Normal FL Drag play with the St. Louis Rams.
This play already does a great job of attacking the first two levels of the defense. Unfortunately, we don't have a receiver
that poses a threat at the 3rd level of the defense. Try running this play through without making any adjustments and
you can see how much easier the strong safety's job is when he doesn't have to worry about getting beat deep.
The St Louis Rams are in the Strong I Normal FL Drag play. We can alter the play to attack the defene's third level.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have come out in a basic 3-4 2 Man Under defense. Immediately after the play begins, Smart
strong safety Troy Polamalu begins sliding backwards as he prepares to cover the deepest threat on that side of the field.
On this play, Rams' weapon-laden wide receiver Torry Holt is running a drag route. Polamalu's job on this play is to stay
over the top, so now he will have to wait another second until another receiver approaches his area. Polamalu steps up
and looks to make a play as he finds tight end Randy McMichael running his corner route.
McMichael is the deepest threat on this play, meaning that Polamalu can now totally commit his coverage to just this
player without worrying about getting beat deep. Polamalu was able to get right up on McMichael and knock the pass
away. Fortunately, we know that we can get McMichael's route open much easier if we can just pull Polamalu away from
the play.
So alter Torry Holt's route--use hot routes to change Holt to perform a streak route. Holt's route will compliment
McMichael's route because it will now force Polamalu to drop deeper down the field. Otherwise, if Polamalu doesn't drop
deeper, then we can just simply look to hit Holt over the top for an easy six points.
Once again Polamalu begins sliding back after the snap. However, this time our receiver will continue running upfield.
Polamalu recognizes the streak route from Holt and quickly turns to start running with him to prevent from getting beat
deep. Holt's streak route prevents Polamalu from stepping up to jump on our corner route from the tight end.
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