Defending Stretch Read

Betz and Andrew Coverdale reminded me on twitter recently about an old video I had made on Defending Stretch Read. I lost all the tags for these clips on my old computer, so this film has been burnt twice and is not high quality production. 

Mistakes

A big mistake in defending Stretch (and one clip of Pin and Pull Sweep) is the DL to the frontside not getting Vertical.  The DL must get upfield and help to "Build a Wall" to the frontside of the play.  The backside DL must pursue in their gaps.  The godfather of the Wide Zone or Stretch Play is Alex Gibbs, who was adamant about cutting on the backside to eliminate pursuit so the Running Back could safely cut the ball back.  The backside DL must stay on their feet and stay in their moving gap.

Force Play, LB Play, DL Play

The Force player must set the edge and make the ball inside while constricting the space for the Back.  The one LB clip shows the LB busting his butt to put his nose in the gap, and the DL is working on the principles described earlier: frontside getting vertical, backside pursuing in their gap.

Stunts and Pressures

Stunts and Pressures must be built with the fundamental goals we have in defending Stretch: getting Vertical on the frontside and Pursuit on the backside.  If your DL have a problem doing that, your job as a DC is to help them.  The first thing your players can do is to recognize the Side of the Back and the depth of the Back.  If you are Away from the Back and the Back is level with the QB, you can expect there is a good chance that Stretch is coming your way.  

DL to the frontside can loosen their shades to help them to get Vertical, and DL to the backside can tighten their shades to help them to stay in their gap.  Another thing you can do to help the backside DL is to slant them.  Setting the Front to the Back and running a Pirate stunt is a great way to help the backside to pursue quickly.

You can also run this in conjunction with 2 Trap Coverage to the Boundary, which is a nasty combination.  The clip shows Stretch coming to the Trap Corner and he is able to Force the ball inside but the DL running the Pirate must be careful to get vertical quickly.

Sending edge pressure away from the Back can be an effective change-up but the frontside have to slant and then get upfield quickly before the next OL can block them.  The same can be said for the frontside DL in a double edge pressure.

Now, there is one thing you do not want to do and that is to blitz to the side of the Back with a full DL movement.  The reason is that the frontside of the play will slant and get washed wide instead of getting vertical.  They can't get vertical when they are moving horizontally with the OL pushing them horizontally as well.  This is a big problem and is why when you are bringing pressure to the side of the Back that you only want to slant the backside of your DL so they can pursue but leave the frontside alone so they can get vertical.

If you have questions, leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter at @BarryHoover.

Defense 3