BSJ Classroom: Inside the Patriots' passing offense -- Route conversions

Over the course of my writing career, I've been able to learn from some of the best in the game during one-on-one discussions, film review, and coaching clinics. I've been behind the scenes with the Texans as they gameplan for an opponent, watched film with the likes of Bill Belichick, Bill O'Brien, Charlie Weis, Paul Alexander, Jim McNally, Bob Wylie, Rod Rust, Ron Jaworski, Greg Cosell, Geno Atkins and a host of others. I've just tried to be a sponge and accumulate any insight they've shared, and then I've tried to pass it on to my readers.

In this series, I'll try to answer questions BSJ members have about certain things they don't understand about football — from the simple to the complex.

First installment: An overview of the Patriots' complex passing offense.

Today: Route conversions.

In the first installment, we touched on the parts of the passing offense that make the Patriots' scheme one of the more complicated in the league for players to execute: route conversions, sight adjustments, choice routes, and option routes.

The most basic of them is the route conversion. Basically, it's a pre-snap read by the receiver and quarterback based on what the defense is showing. Of course, it's not nearly that simple. The defenses are trying to disguise what they're doing, but Tom Brady has some things he can do to make the defense tip their hand.

For example, they can run a player in motion. If a defender goes with the player, then it's some sort of man coverage. The motion could also force the safeties to rotate, which will also be an indicator for Brady and the receiver. Knowing what kind of alignment the safeties are in is almost as important as knowing if it's man or zone coverage. Many deeper routes are predicated on whether there's a single safety (Middle of the Field Closed — MOFC) or split safeties (Middle of the Field Open — MOFO).

Let's take a look at something out of Charlie Weis' old Patriots playbook as an example. (For what it's worth, he confirmed to me the online version is legit — but the current New England playbook is far more advanced.) This is listed under "Individual Route Descriptions."



Back in 2003-04, when the Patriots' offense was basically in its 1.0 phase, there were a lot more individual routes. Now, most of them are multi-receiver concepts (two- or three-receiver groupings). Still, each route is described individually for each receiver (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3) even though it's part of a grouping. For example, "Sail" — which is still a very popular concept in the offense — features three different routes (Go, Bow and Flat).

Back to Pistol. As you can see, the receiver can run three different patterns depending on the defense:

Cover 2 (two deep, split safeties): Post pattern.
No deep safeties: Inside seam.
Single high safety: Over route.

Let's look at it in action with this clip from this past season featuring Brandin Cooks. I make no promises this is actually a Pistol route, but we're working off the same general concept.



That's, generally, how a route conversion works. Leave any questions in the comments and I'll try to get to them.

Coming tomorrow: Sight adjustments.