How do you disguise a blitz in 11v11 football?
In 11v11 football you disguise a blitz by showing more rushers than you send and sending them from places the protection has not counted. An offensive line declares who it is blocking before the snap, so the goal is to make that declaration wrong rather than to arrive faster. Walk defenders up, drop some of them, and bring a fifth from a spot that was never in the count.
Your NB ends up here. It is the instinctive place to go and it is the wrong one, which is why this keeps happening to teams who are trying hard.
When rushing is the right call in 11v11
You are attacking a counting system, not a single player's nerve
In flag formats a look works on the quarterback's clock. Here it works on five linemen who have to agree, before the snap, on who blocks whom. Showing six and bringing four leaves two blockers on nobody and one real rusher unaccounted for, and none of that is about anybody being frightened.
Dropping a lineman is available, and it is the best disguise you have
A defensive end who shows rush and drops into the flat is a player the offense has definitely blocked and definitely does not need to. No flag format can do this, because no flag format has a defensive line. It is the cheapest confusion at this size and youth teams almost never use it.
The vacated zone is bigger and better defended than in a small format
With seven in coverage you can rotate a safety to cover the space a blitzer left, which means the cost of pressure is a shifted shell rather than an empty hole. That rotation is the thing to practise; the blitz itself is easy.
Standing somewhere that suggests you are coming is free
It costs nothing, risks nothing, and makes a young quarterback throw earlier than he wanted to. A defense that shows pressure and does not bring it has spent no defenders and still changed what the offense did, which is the best trade available on this shelf.
It only works once your players can be trusted to fake it
A defender who creeps up and then forgets to get back to his coverage has not disguised anything, he has abandoned a zone. Teach the retreat before the show, because the value of the look is entirely in what happens after the snap.
The point is the quarterback's clock, not his protection
You are not trying to confuse a blocking scheme at this age, you are trying to make one player feel hurried. That is why walking somebody up into his eyeline works even when the defense behind it has not changed at all.
Where he actually has to be
Same 11 defenders, same alignment. One job changes.
- The instinctWrong11v11: the NB takes the instinctive path.
Where a young defender goes when nobody has told him otherwise.
- The jobRight11v11: the NB takes his actual landmark.
Where the job is. Say it out loud before the snap and most of this page stops being a problem.
This is the landmark. Give it a name your players can repeat back to you. A spot with a name gets occupied; a spot described in a sentence does not.
Three ways to disguise it, and what each one gives up
Show five, bring four
Where it excelsThe safest disguise on this list. The protection accounts for a fifth rusher who never comes, so one blocker is wasted and your coverage is fully intact behind it.
Exposed · the middle underneathYou have not actually pressured anybody. Against a line that protects well you have spent the down being clever, and the middle of the field is where the ball goes while you do it.
Show five, bring a different five
Where it excelsThe real thing. Walk two up, drop one and bring a safety instead, and the count they made is wrong in a way they cannot fix after the snap. This is how youth blitzes actually come free.
Exposed · deepA safety who blitzes is a safety not playing deep, and behind a five-man rush nobody replaces him. Any completion over the top with that shell rotated is a touchdown.
Drop a defensive lineman
Where it excelsA blocked player who is not rushing, standing in a throwing lane the quarterback has already decided is empty. It costs no coverage at all and the offense usually does not notice for a series.
Exposed · the flatYour pressure is now four minus one, so nothing is hurrying the throw. If they simply hold the ball and let routes develop, you have dropped a lineman into a zone he is not good at covering.
Show five and bring a different five
The disguise is only worth the practice time if the count ends up wrong, so vary which fifth man comes rather than how many. Pair it with a safety rotation so the vacated zone is covered by somebody rather than by nobody, and keep the dropped lineman as an occasional change-up rather than a plan.
The numbers behind the decision
They slide the protection to your shown pressure
Which is the disguise working. A slide leaves the away-side edge one on one, so the pressure is coming from the opposite side whether you called it there or not. Show one way and bring the other.
Your safety rotation is late
Then the blitz is costing more than it buys. Practise the rotation on air until it is automatic, because a five-man rush with a shell that has not finished moving is the most expensive snap a defense can play.
When not to rush
When you show the same look every time
A disguise you always wear is a uniform. If the same defender creeps up on every passing down, the offense stops reading it after a quarter and you have simply told them your coverage a second early.
With a defense that is still learning its assignments
Moving people around before the snap multiplies the chances somebody ends up in the wrong place. If your players are not yet solid from a static alignment, adding movement makes the defense worse in exchange for an edge they cannot yet cash.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free play designer, collect them in the free playbook maker, and print wristband play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw it for your own team
Open the designer at 11v11, put your defenders where this page says, and print it so everybody shows up on Saturday knowing the same thing.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
How do you disguise a blitz in 11v11 football?
What does dropping a defensive lineman do?
Do I need to rotate a safety when I blitz?
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Coach Ray Carroll
Coaches 5v5 flag football from kindergarten through 7th grade in San Mateo and San Carlos, California, and built RC Football to design, teach and print the plays his own teams run.