Offense in the NFL is evolving rapidly, and outpacing Defense at a record pace.
Watching the close games the past few weeks, I’ve seen two “hook and lateral” plays, and it got me thinking:
If you can predict with a reasonable degree of certainty what the safety or corner will do in a particular coverage, you should be able to determine what they will do post-completion as they track towards the ballcarrier. At this point, you could anticipate - and plan for - where the next pocket of space will open up.
For so long it’s been a one hit approach: find the open man, and he runs in space until he scores, gets tackled, or goes out of bounds.
What if it was a combo approach? Find the open man, gain yards, and provide him with an option to lateral to a crossing receiver who should be able to get another chunk.
You see this with rugby runs all the time. Why not more often in football?
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