During this time of the year when the new coaching staff is being sorted out and everyone is speculating who our beloved Giants will pick in the draft or possible FA signings, I figured we could use an old school football discussion focusing on the latest NFL trend... The Run-Pass Option.(beats trashing Josh Rosen. Lol)
Full disclosure: never coached or played. Just a big football fan and I was hoping BBI's very knowledgeable group of posters(past players and coaches) can break down, dissect, and explain how to defend the trendy offensive scheme that helped propel our division rival Eagles to their first Lombardi(it truly pains me to type that).
Correct me if I'm inaccurate with anything: QB in shotgun with the RB next to him. Ball is snapped, line starts run blocking, QB has the option to do a quick handoff to his RB, pull the ball out and throw a quick slant to his WR, or even just tuck it and run with it himself. With the split second decision being made by the QB as he eyes up how the defense is reacting to the play.
Man defense would just getting eaten up by the slant all day, right? Zone might come up short in keeping the run play to a minimum? Would love to hear some football insight and strategy.
Having said that, the keys are to have a defensive front that can win its assignments and play disciplined football. Then you have to have a secondary who can play aggressive, controlling receivers at the LOS to disrupt timing, which is crucial for the scheme to work.
Finally, you have to get pressure on the QB.
No easy task, but then again, it all depends on who you are up against.
One of the reasons that Philly looked so good on offense this year was the quality of their OL. Same with DAL recently. If you have the type of OL that can dominate the POA and the LOS you will be able to run comfortably, which opens everything else up on offense.
The more interesting thing is, what tradeoffs do you have to make when you adjust? What do you open yourself up to? Is there a way for an offense to mix in the option with other stuff to exploit new vulnerabilities?
Personally I’d attack an RPO team with a zone blitz and aggressively attack the offense. Can’t be predictable and have to attack gaps from all angles.
If you slide the coverage back I am handing the ball off to the runner.
The RPO tends to create a numbers advantage, eg by leaving backside defenders away from the ball unblocked. It often forces defenses to bring a safety up as an extra defender in the box to try and solve the numbers disadvantage. Teams will try to mix the safety looks as well, eg the up safety might rotate down at the snap and be a QB spy who is expected to run fill to his side, and the WILL drops to cover the pass.
You're trying to disrupt their reads and timing with rotation, hold contain, man on receivers, squeeze off cutback lanes, force the ball inside where more hats can quickly rally to the football.
You need speed too, thus a lot of nickel looks. Running man coverage means backs are turned to the QB and the football, there's a lot of single high safety, so there has to be communication.
Defend first down well to put them behind schedule, maintain 2-gap integrity, attack the mesh from the inside of the DL, squeeze cutback lanes and passing seams, try to set traps on where they read and pass to, and tackle well in space.
That's my layman's take.
Blow up either the runner or the passer.
A quality DT or the Other DT
You gotta mix things up. So. Sometimes it's a LB interior gap blitz.
Besides that. Discipline in your assignmemts and hammer the fuck outta the ball carrier.
Quote:
he almost always throws to the area right behind the run fake. I'm no DC, but I would think you would want to slide your coverage in that direction as the play develops. It helps to have good cover LB's, which is why Philly was so successful v. NE. They may be the only team in the league with worse LB's than us. Not sure how to explain what they did to Minny.
If you slide the coverage back I am handing the ball off to the runner.
Make it one dimensional, a common goal of an NFL defense.
Take the pass away or the run, make them do the opposite, to play into your strength.
The thing about the RPO is it extends drives, but it doesn't hit on big plays....it seems to me it's mostly slants and such that go for generally under 10 yards.
Ajay's long run is the perfect example. Half the defense was moving the opposite direction mostly because they had influenced the defense to do so.
It may very well end up that RPO stays a fixture or at least a subset of offenses for years to come, because if it is run well, it is only defensed by a very disciplined team.
But it also requires elements to be successful. It needs a good OL to hold the point of attack. It needs RB's that are able to read and adapt (and cutback a lot). It needs a QB with above average skills to read a defense pre and post-snap.
Similar to East running West roll outs/passing in shanny zone ball?
In that it's opposite directional when the change ups happen.
Lots of that.
I say blow it up before it gets going.
If you have great DTs they can adjust on the fly before either run or pass develops. It's why I don't favor stunts on DL. Not quick enough.
And as someone.mentioned. your dbacks have to divert possible receivers before the 5 yards rule. Or after.. simply by clogging the route. Practice squad.
Man cover might help also - in that your counter play receiver will still have at least that one DB on him.
Who is the teams typical change up WR? Man cover. For that spy db, ignore flow of play just watch the one backside threat player.
Would dropping a safety in the box influence the pre snap read of an RPO play call? And would doing so open up the possibility of a slant and go option for the single side WR? Take advantage of the D overplaying the base RPO(handoff or slant pass option).
That isn't a strength of Kap.
Don't confuse the RPO with the option. It doesn't rely on a mobile QB - it relies on making quick and accurate reads.
1. If you have a run stopping front then have your LBs read pass and force them to stop you. Tough with Ajayi and Blount playing well but we could do it when we had Hankins.
2. Blitz from the non-LB positions. The QB is having to read the LBs so you can run blitz a safety or blitz a CB effectively.
3. Show all out blitz and man up and just play try and get home in 2 seconds.
A quick single gap rush can fuck up -any- scheme?
As always. If you can destroy blocking, get rush -and- stop the run w 4...then you have an extra speed player or two for plays that go counter flow, backside, unnatended receivers. Etc?
3 corners in man cover.
That leaves another 4 players for disciplined zone duties.
-all - of whom must be able to run very quickly and have real zone football instincts and can tackle well.