STUNTING IN THE DEFENSIVE SECONDARY
A team must be sound in its defensive secondary in order to be a good football team. All of us use certain basic principles, but we must be careful we do not “type” ourselves as this could be very costly if the opponents pick up our maneuvers while scouting our team.
One of the basic principles we try to teach our quarterback when we are discussing different phases of the passing game is where not to throw the football. While we might not complete the pass, as long as the opposition does not intercept it, we are not in too bad a position. Everyone knows the effect an interception can have on both the offensive and defensive teams.
In order to do an intelligent job of telling our quarterbacks where not to throw the ball, we must know the maneuvers of the opponent’s defensive secondary on action passes and on drop back passes. However, we always give our opponents credit for being as smart or smarter than we are. They, too, teach their quarterbacks where not to throw the ball. Consequently we try to make their job even more difficult by using some stunts in our secondary.
After we started to experiment, we found these stunts were actually serving a two-fold purpose. Not only was it confusing the opponents but it was also helping us to eliminate some problems of indecision that our corner men were having on certain occasions. By giving each man a specific assignment and by letting his assignment be determined by the flow of the offensive back and not by keying different positions, this greatly reduced our mistakes.
When we are using a particular stunt in our secondary, we never want to weaken our coverage at any point. To the contrary, we think we are strengthening it when we stunt. We have used four stunts successfully from time to time. We call our stunts “Thunder,” “Robber,” “Gangster,” and “Lightning.” After carefully analyzing these stunts, we came to the conclusion we were usually having two or three men exchange assignments, having defenders come from different angles, but still covering all the regular areas.
“Thunder”
“Thunder” is the name we have given to a stunt that will be between our defensive right halfback and right corner man, which will constitute one team, and our defensive left halfback and left corner man which will constitute a second team. Each team will be completely independent of the other team. What the stunt really amounts to is that the halfback and corner man will exchange assignments completely unless the flow goes away from them. For example, let’s say the offense runs an action pass to their right side. With an action pass of this type, our left corner man would ordinarily drop back eight yards deep and cover the short flat area. With “Thunder” called, however, he will turn to his outside and sprint back and cover the deep one-third of the field to his side. The left defensive halfback, who ordinarily would cover the deep area on this particular type pass, will come forward and outside and cover the short area the corner man would ordinarily cover. Not only have we given the quarterback an entirely new picture to look at, but we have strengthened our coverage by having our halfback come forward through the hook zone, going to the flat area. “Thunder” is illustrated in [Figure 81].
I mentioned earlier that one of the advantages of these stunts was that it takes away any point of indecision for our corner men. When we are using our regular coverage and the flow goes away from our corner man, he will sprint to his outside and cover the deep one-third area, but when the flow comes toward him he has to key the offensive end and determine if he is blocking, slamming, going down field to block or to catch a pass. The action our corner man takes will largely depend upon the action the offensive end takes. When we have “Thunder” called, the corner man knows on the snap of the ball, regardless of what kind of play the offense will run, he will sprint back and cover the deep area to his side of the field. ([Figure 81.])
The signal caller in our secondary can call “Thunder” for our right side only, left side only or both sides at the same time. If he calls it for both sides at the same time, then the direction in which the offense operates will determine which side of our defensive secondary will play “Thunder.”
Figure 81
“Robber”
“Robber” is another of our stunts that serves a two-fold purpose of eliminating indecision and is an element of surprise.
Our “Robber” will be someone playing defensive right or left halfback, depending upon our game plans. However, we will never have “Robber” called on both sides at the same time.
For example, let’s say our defensive left halfback will be our “Robber,” as illustrated in [Figure 82]. On the snap of ball, regardless of the flow, our left corner man will sprint back and cover the deep third of the field to his side, our defensive right halfback will cover the deep middle of the field, and our right corner man will cover the deep one-third to his side of the field. On the snap of the ball, our “Robber” can go anywhere he thinks the opponents will run. This is a very good element of surprise because we will get an additional defender at the point of attack and he can be very reckless due to the fact that he does not have any designated responsibility. We expect our “Robber” to try to second-guess the opponent’s quarterback. When a pass play develops, he is in a very good position to break up the short passes.
We do not use this as a steady diet, but we gain considerably by having the “Robber” pursue the ball recklessly.
Figure 82
“Gangster”
“Gangster” is a stunt we particularly like with a 4-5 defense or any 9-man front defense where our linebackers will line up a little wider than ordinarily.
This stunt will be performed by three men—a corner man, linebacker, and halfback. For example, we will use our defensive left side, as illustrated in [Figure 83]. On the snap of the ball, regardless of the flow, our left corner man will sprint back and cover the deep third area to his side of the field (the halfback ordinarily covers this area). The left linebacker will cover the short flat to his side of the field (the corner man ordinarily covers this area). The left halfback will come forward and cover the hook spot (the linebacker ordinarily covers this area). The remaining backs will cover their regular area.
The main advantage of this stunt is that by having our halfback come forward we are in a good position to stop all short passes in the hook zone. He is going forward and covering the same area our linebacker usually covers. Our linebacker has to key, sprint back, and set up, before he can get ready to go forward. You can see that we have definitely strengthened our coverage at this point and it is equally sound in the other area. We will only call “Gangster” to one side at a time.
Figure 83
“Lightning”
“Lightning” is a stunt between our linebacker and corner man only, and is illustrated in [Figure 84]. We first started using this stunt for the sole reason of eliminating any point of indecision for our corner man. It is a very simple stunt. As an example, if the flow goes toward the side on which we have called “Lightning,” the corner man will come across the line of scrimmage very fast and contain the ball carrier. He does not have any pass responsibility at all if the action comes toward him. The linebacker to his side will cover the short flat area if a running pass develops. Our corner man is coached to contain the passer so fast that a receiver does not have time to get very wide and our linebacker does not have any trouble covering the short flat area. The remaining backs will cover their regular areas. The call, “Lightning,” will be off if the flow goes away from the side we have called it on, or if a straight drop back pass develops.
We can call “Lightning” on both sides at the same time.
Figure 84
We do not use a stunt on every play, but with our regular coverage and using a stunt occasionally we can give the opposition’s quarterback a number of problems. He is looking at a number of different “pictures” when we employ these defensive tactics. Secondly, we feel it helps us because any indecision our corner men might have is eliminated when we stunt.