Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look

by Pat Kirwan

On offense, there are five linemen and a quarterback on every play, leaving five interchangeable offensive pieces. Personnel groups are identified by the number of running backs and tight ends on the field on a given play, in that order. If a team sends out two running backs and one tight end, it’s called 21 personnel. If it sends out one back and two tight ends, it’s 12 personnel.

A fan should recognize that coaches see the field as divided into five zones—coming out of your end zone to the 10-yard line; your 11-yard line to your 49-yard line; midfield to your opponent’s 31; the Green Zone, which is your opponent’s 30 to his 20 and your last chance to throw seam routes and deep balls; and the Red Zone, or the 20 to the end zone.

Come game day, it’s not what the coach knows that matters, it’s what the players know. Or as Marty Schottenheimer used to say, “When you’re in trouble, think players, not plays.”

The Z receiver is usually a little shorter but often is a thicker, more physical guy who is going to line up on the same side as the tight end.

The slot guy usually plays on the weak side where he can take advantage of the attention being paid to the X. The

the number of steps a quarterback drops is usually half the number of steps a receiver will take before the ball is delivered.

Several years ago, I created a formula to measure the explosion quotient for players in the defensive front seven and offensive linemen: BENCH PRESS (number of reps at 225 lbs) + VERTICAL LEAP + STANDING BROAD JUMP = EXPLOSION NUMBER On the snap of the ball, the front seven and the offensive line are going to engage physically. It’s a series of adjacent bar fights, and we need to be able to project who has the athleticism to win these all-important battles in the trenches.

prospect with an Explosion Number of 70 or higher has my attention. A guy with that capacity for explosiveness is going to win his share of bar-room brawls at the line of scrimmage, so I’m comfortable that he has the athleticism to play in the NFL.

I created a simple formula to see how many plays behind the line of scrimmage a prospect averaged per game: SACKS + TACKLES FOR LOSS/NUMBER OF GAMES PLAYED = PRODUCTION RATIO In this formula, I’m looking for someone scoring 1.0 or better.

believe every team should have a form tackling drill every day in practice, followed by the one-man sled drill, open-field tackling drills, and live tackling in 9-on-7 drills. None of that goes on much anymore, but in the places that it does, you notice.

As you watch the replays of a defender missing a tackle, there are several things you can look for to identify where the tackler failed:

Did the defender close the gap to the ball carrier? That’s called “reducing the field.” If a defender winds up having to reach for a guy, the runner is going to bust right through that arm tackle.

Did the defender make good contact with his shoulder pads? A tackler has to bend at the knees and make sure his head is up. Too often, a defender comes in bent at the waist with his shoulders and head down, a position that n...

Did the defender accelerate his feet through the tackle? As soon as you hear the contact of the pads, the tackler’s feet need to be accelerating through the ball carrier. If they’re standing still, they’re not maximizing their power. Similarly, look and see if the tackler’s feet are too close...

Did the defender know who he w...

Did the defender take a bad angle of pursuit?

Did the first defender on the scene try to strip the ball instead of making the tackle? Coaches have done a great job of teaching the strip, but that shouldn’t take the place of the tackle. The first guy in is the tackler; the second guy goes for the strip.

A lot of broken tackles are the result of reading and reacting slowly. If a guy can’t get off his block or is slow to diagnose what’s happening, he can’t get disengaged in time and winds up reaching and missing the play.

rugby-style tackling, what he calls “shoulder leverage tackling.” It’s designed to take the head out of the tackle—keeping “eyes on the thighs” is a recurring teaching point—putting an emphasis on player safety while maintaining the physical integrity of the

as long as you have great players who fit that system. It’s not the scheme as much as it’s the players in it.

Speed Rush A pass rusher has to be able to get off the ball and beat his blocker on the edge.

Bull Rush This is simple mass against mass, strength against strength.

Crossing the Face A defender will start with a speed rush but on his third step, he’ll cut back across the face of the blocker and go inside. Basically,

Conversion This is the most popular and most effective technique in today’s game—converting power to speed or speed to power.

Defensive tackles have to be able to square up and go power against power, driving their blockers backward until their heels are at the quarterback’s toes. Even

On a Fire Zone call, one of the rushers jumps at the tackle as if he were a blitzer. Simultaneously, another linebacker or a defensive back blitzes from somewhere else. Then, that first rusher suddenly stops his forward progress and drops back into coverage. As

its essence, a pure blitz is about simple math—the defense is sending one more player than the protection is able to block. The Fire Zone takes it one step further. It convinces a lineman that he’s blocking the right man and then sets another man free.

Zone corners line up to the outside of the receiver, funneling him inside where the safety or linebacker can pick him up. Man corners line up inside the receiver and try to force him outside. They use the sideline as a second defender and try to lure the quarterback into throwing a deep fade or other lower-percentage passes.

Today, a team must have a contingent of safeties on the roster who as a group can perform these four functions: drop into the box to support the run; play deep middle coverage; cover half the field in two-deep coverage; and blitz.

Most guys are three-step punters. That means they catch the ball, step right, step left, and then punt.

The three prominent entry points for information are auditory (hearing), visual (reading or seeing), and tactile (touching or physical demonstration). It’s always interested me that coaching staffs don’t take the time to figure out how their players learn.

To me, analytics is only as credible as the people that produce the data. Which is why I value the work being done by John Pollard and STATS LLC, a company that uses former NFL coaches and scouts and college coaches—real football guys—to generate data that can be most helpful to people making football decisions.

FORCE CONTAIN PLAYER: There are three ways to get an eighth defender in the box: bring a safety down between the inside and outside linebackers (Buzz); drop the safety down into the box outside the outside linebacker (Sky); or bring the cornerback outside the outside backer (Cloud).