sch the ™, he THE OUTSIDE ZONE PLAY Denver Thank you. | am going to go quickly and will not tell many stories. | am going to be jumping and try to give you as much as | can give you in the next hour. Some of it will be important to you, and some of it will leave you with many questions. The wide zone is a catchy term. It first started in my world with Coach McNally and the Cincinnati Bengals. He had a big running back by the name of Ickey Woods. That was the first exposure |had with this play. | studied the play andknew | wanted to get it into a system. | had a chance to study under Joe Gibbs and Joe Bugel, who were running what they called the wide gap. They were experimenting with the play. However, John Riggins and some of those other guys could not get out wide enough for them torunit effectively. Nevertheless, they were trying to find a way torun the play. When | went to the San Diego Chargers, we ‘started running the play. | saw it emerge there with acouple of great young backs we had on the teamat that time. Ihadit in the back of my head that if | could ever get into a position to dictate the source, | would run this play. When I say dictate the source, | mean to influence the person in charge of the running game, | was going to feature this play. At San Diego, \had to incorporate the play with about eight other offenses the coordinators wanted me to teach. If you get a chance to install your offense, make sure you are prepared to run what you want to do and do not mess it up. | went to a couple of other jobs and they did not want to make this system the feature play. Finally, | went to Denver with a friend who wanted me to put in that system. As| putin the system. | realized it does not work as a piece or part of an offense. It is a different concept. If you come with that idea, you are going to get into trouble. If you think you can get enough from this hour-and-a-half talk to make you great at running the ball, you are fooling yourself. The offense is what it is and does not have room for other things. | work with colleges during the course of the year. They call me and want me to install this offense into their program. | have worked with 15 colleges over the past five years, installing this play. Ihave spent time with them in the spring and followed up during the fall with the concept. | have watched some of those schools try to make it part of the many things they do in their offensive package. However, it is extremely hard because it does not fit that way. It requires so much time, effort, and work, that you run out of time. Today, | will take you through the wide part of the concept. | will explain the way | understand it and how I teach it. If you have questions, ask them right now because you may not be able to talk tome later. This systems works, but you cannot work it and do other things. You do not have enough time. You do not have enough time to learn the intricacies of how this functions and fits together. It takes every spare minute of your time. | have had to change all my styles of coaching that have gotten me to this point to get the concept taught am going to jump into the play, andif you have any questions, ask them. | will not embarrass you, but! amnot going to sit around and waste your time. When we talk about the landmark for the back in this system, we refer to the butt of the tight end. The landmark is the same, regardless of whether thereis a tight end or no tight end. If there is no tight end, we run to the ghost position in the alignment. We run this play with the eight play going right and the nine play going left.The back takes a drop step to be aligned to his path. They can use either a hop or turn type of drop step in their technique. Each back may do it differently. It is not an exact technique, and you need to use what works. The important thing is to get the shoulders turned and going directly to the landmark. If you watch the players who play for me at Denver and the ones at Atlanta, you will see some different drop steps. Some of them do not do it very well. You also have a problem with the fast backs. We have to force them to take a bigger drop ‘step because we gear the timing off of everything that will happenin the play. The drop step keeps the mesh always the same. The quarterback open steps to the play. There are people in our league who reverse pivot the quarterback to get into the play. It bothers the defense, but | do not believe in it. We open the quarterback out at a 45-degree angle, and the mesh area never changes. The ball is never going to be on the ground. We work left and right repeatedly in practice to ensure the ball will never be on the ground. truly believe that has something to do with our success in running the football. It allows us to end the season with the fewest balls on the ground. That occurs because we are at the same mesh point at all times. The quarterback puts the ball into the back’s pocket and bursts out the other side on a naked action away from the play. He takes two quick stepsin that action every time he runs the play. He has tomake sure he does not bump the running back ashe bursts away from the handoff. The quarterback gives the ball to the running back between the back’s first and second step. The running back has one good step, and he is about to hit the ground with his second foot when the quarterback begins to seed the ball. On the third step, the runner has to make a decision. If the runner does not make the decision on the third step, you have the wrong running back for this offense. Most young players want to wait for things to happen. In this offense, there is no “wait for things to happen.” On the third step, the running back is either going downhill or taking the ball outside. The reason 52 the decisionis made on the third stepis the timing of the blocks within the offensive line. On the third step, the of fensive linemen make their push on the defenders. The push of the offensive line and the cut of the back must coincide. The back does not know where the cut will be until he gets his third step on the ground. He makes his decision on that step and commits to it. Whatever decision he makes, he lives with it. He does not dodge defenders or double cut with the ball. He takes what the picture says and gets the ball upfield or outside right away, It is hard to teach, and one of the problems is me. | donot coach the backs, and when they make the double cut or bounce the ball, it makes the linemen look like they have blocked no one. The back has to take the ball upfield and make the yards he can. He has to take the dirty play and live with the toughness of the play. Too many coaches allow the back too much freedom. Running backs have never been taught this type of concept. They have never beenina situation that has to exist for the play to be effective. We ask the running back to read the first defensive lineman from the outside-in (Diagram #1). If the defense aligns in a four-man front, the read is the 7- technique defender. @©® T CE E T OOKOCOO O Diagram #1. Running-Back Read In a 50 front, the read defender is the § technique aligned on the offensive tackle. The steps andmesh are the same, but the read defender ichanges. We coach the running back to make his |. decision off the movement of the read defender. As " soonas the defender moves, the back knows where to run the ball. It is my job as the offensive line coach to get movement in the defensive front. We coach the running back to take what the - defense gives and read the defenders from the outside to the inside. When the defense aligns in a3 technique and a7 technique, the read can get very fast for the running back. It is particularly fast on the weakside play. In an over front withno tight end to the weakside, the defenders align in a 3 technique and 5 technique (Diagram #2). The back , sees the quick outside movement by the 5 technique and must read the movement of the 3 technique inside or outside to determine his cut. He » reads the movement of the first defender quickly and makes his decision off the number-two read of the inside defender. O® ET T gE B QOROOO Diagram #2. Weakside Read Defensive linemen will align outside and fall back to the inside or align inside and fall outside. If ‘the running back takes his three steps, he can read the movement of the defenders. He makes his decision from where the defenders are going, not where they are aligned. Usually, the best player on your team is the quarterback. If it is not the quarterback, it is the Tuning back. Most of the running backs who come into our system are tremendously talented players, but they have never been told to read anyone. When | ask the running backs where the read defender moved, they donot know. Their backgrounds to run with the ball, and that is all they know. These gifted athletes have to learn the system. However, before long, everyone on your team watching a scrimmage is looking for the read. They understand the concept and know what the decision of the running back should be. When the offensive linemen know when the back has made a mistake, it becomes a real testy issue. The backfield coach will not like the system because you are telling his backs where torun. | also tell the backs to bust into the hole and take what they can get. They do not like that because they all believe they can make 90 yards out of nothing. They cannot. The long runs come when the back busts through the seams and comes out running. If you will stay with that philosophy, it will help you. On a reduced look to the two-man side of the offensive line, the back reads the movement of the 5-technique defender as his number-one read. His break comes off the number-two defender over the offensive guard. That read happens fast. The same thing occurs to the strongside of the front. The back reads the 7-technique defender for his quick read. The movement of the 7 technique tells the running back to take the play outside or turn upfield. From that read, his attention focuses to the 3- technique defender for his cut upfield. The whole concept behind the zone play is to take care of the offensive line stunts. If the defense is a 3-4 alignment with a linebacker over the tight end, the movement reads will come quickest of all the defensives (Diagram #3). The defensive end over the offensive tackle is the number-one read, with the nose tackle being the number-two read, If the defensive end slants inside, the back knows immediately where he takes the ball. He knows he goes wide with the ball. The wide receivers are an important part of this play. | cut players in college and pro ball who do not block safeties. if the wide receivers will not block safeties, they will not play on my team. | may have 53