Throughout my career, I've been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time as a coordinator on both sides of the ball. I can say, with complete certainty, that the more you can do from a scheme standpoint without confusing your own players, the better.
On offense, the way this is accomplished is through variations of personnel groupings, formation adjustments, motion, and by having built-in tendency breakers. Most teams only have three to five run-game schemes, but the ability to run it out of a lot of different looks creates problems for the defense. However, the basic blocking scheme/pattern remains the same for the offensive line, tight ends, and fullback. This is most commonly referred to as window dressing. Pass concepts are also similar in a lot of windows, the offense starts with a general concept and then the players are plugged in based on where they fit in a formation.
Defensively, creating pre-snap confusion is the best way to cause problems for an offense. In the run game, the offense needs to be able to determine and communicate who they are going to block. This determination or "count" typically starts to the play side and then works its way to the backside. More often than not, an unblocked defender is attributed to a missed count and a blown assignment.
Successfully defending the run is completely determined by properly fitting up the run concepts and making sure that you are gap sound. Creating confusion against the run is more challenging than attacking pass schemes. Teams tend to use five-man pressures against the run. Most of those pressures nowadays are some form of the bear front and have odd coverage behind them.
On the defensive side of the ball, my motto was always "let's stop the run and then have some fun." Obvious passing situations, to a creative defensive coordinator, can be one of the most fun parts of a game. The main objective is to disguise coverage and attack protections. Ideally, the quarterback should have no idea as to what coverage you are in pre-snap. This accomplishes a couple of things:
- It causes hesitation in terms of route progression and the decision as to where to throw the ball.
- It prevents the ability to adjust pass protection based upon where blitzers are coming from. Offenses want to uncover blitzes. Preventing that is a huge advantage.
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