How do you stop the sweep in 11v11 football?
In 11v11 football you stop the sweep by beating the block rather than by finding an empty spot, because here the sweep is escorted. Your force defender takes on the kick-out block with his outside arm and shoulder free, keeps his outside leg back so he cannot be turned, and squeezes the run back inside. The player who actually makes the tackle is the alley defender filling between the force man and the football, and on a sweep at this size it is almost always the safety rather than the corner who decides how many yards it gains.
This is where the down was lost. There is no room outside your CB, so the ball never tries to go there. He chases width anyway, and the carrier cuts up inside him into the alley that opens behind it. The safety who was supposed to fill that space is arriving from twelve yards away.
Why the sweep keeps working in 11v11
Somebody is assigned to block you, by name
This is the difference that makes every other difference. At 11v11 the tight end kicks out, the tackle reaches, and a guard may pull round in front of the ball. Contain is no longer a matter of standing in the right place, because a player is coming to move you out of it. Leverage now means keeping an arm and a leg free rather than keeping a yard of grass.
The failure is the alley, not the sideline
Corners at this size align near the numbers, so there is barely a body's width of field outside them. A ball carrier is not going to run round that. What he will do is watch the force defender chase width, then cut up inside him into the alley between the force man and the pursuit, which is exactly the space a safety exists to fill. Losing a sweep at 11v11 nearly always means the alley was empty, not that somebody got outrun.
You have eleven, so the job can be split three ways
Force, alley and cutback are three separate assignments at this size and they belong to three separate people: usually the corner or outside backer forces, the strong safety fills the alley, and the backside end or corner has the cutback. In flag formats one player does all three by standing in the right place. Here, three players each do one thing badly if you do not name which.
Contain is a job, and nobody was given it
Every coach knows somebody has to have the edge. Almost nobody says a name out loud before the snap, so on the play it turns out to be whoever guessed. A responsibility that is understood in general and assigned to nobody in particular is not a responsibility, and the sweep is the play that finds that out first.
Running at the ball feels like defense, and it is the thing that loses
It is the instinct every child has and every adult rewards from the sideline. But running at where the carrier is now is running at where he used to be, and the shortest line to a moving target always arrives behind it. The defender who wins the edge is the one running to a spot the ball has not reached yet.
An angle is the only thing that beats speed
You cannot coach a slower player into catching a faster one, and pretending otherwise is why the same team beats you twice. What you can do is stand somebody where the fast player wants to go and make him turn. A turn costs him more than it costs you, and every yard of that turn is a yard your slower defenders get back.
The same play, fitted two ways
Same offense, same eleven-or-five defenders, same alignment. One defender's angle is the entire difference between the two pictures.
- The wrong angleBefore11v11: the CB crosses the carrier's face and the run gets past him.
The CB goes to the football. By the time he arrives the football has moved, and there is nobody behind him.
- The right angleAfter11v11: the CB keeps his leverage and turns the run back inside into the rallying defender.
The CB works to a spot the ball has not reached yet and keeps it inside him. The run turns back into everybody else.
The turn is the tackle. Nobody has touched anybody here. The carrier has simply run out of the direction he wanted, and the defenders arriving from inside get to him while he is deciding.
Three ways to fit a sweep, and what each one costs
These are not preferences, they are fits, and the whole defense has to run the same one. A front where two players think they are forcing and nobody thinks he has the alley is worse than any of the three done badly.
Corner forces, safety fills the alley
Where it excelsThe classic answer and the one your players will have seen on television. The force job goes to somebody already outside the formation, so he does not have to travel to get there, and your safety gets to attack downhill at a run rather than sit and wait.
Exposed · deepYou have used both of the players who were responsible for the deep part of that side. Play action off sweep flow is the counter, and it is the single most common way a sweep-first offense scores: the same look, the same flow, and a receiver running behind a corner who has come forward.
Outside linebacker forces, corner stays over the top
Where it excelsNothing behind you ever breaks. Your corner keeps his deep responsibility on every snap, the offense never gets the play-action shot, and the run fit is still sound because the backer is a bigger player taking on the kick-out.
Exposed · the combinationYour outside linebacker now has the edge on runs and a receiver on passes, which are two jobs that pull him in opposite directions before he knows which play it is. Any combination that releases a tight end past him while flowing the backfield his way puts him in a conflict he cannot win.
Spill everything, and let the alley players run it down
Where it excelsThe force defender takes an inside path on purpose and forces the ball wider than it wanted to go, into unblocked defenders arriving from the second level. Against a team that is better than yours at the point of attack, making them run further is how you survive.
Exposed · the middle underneathSpilling asks your linebackers to run sideways on every snap. The counter, the cutback and any play-action that holds them for half a second all attack the space they leave, and a spill fit with a linebacker who guesses is a defense that gives up the longest run of the game rather than the most.
At 11v11, corner forces and the safety fills
It is the fit that puts each job on the player already standing nearest to it, and it is what the rest of football does, which matters more than it sounds: your players have seen it, your assistant coaches have seen it, and nobody has to unlearn anything. Pay for it by making your free safety honest about the deep middle and by practising the play-action shot until your corner stops biting on flow. If he cannot stop biting, move the force job to the outside linebacker and accept the conflict instead.
What to say at practice
- 1
Force with your outside arm and outside leg free
Take the kick-out block on the inside half of your body. The arm and the leg nearest the sideline stay clean, so the blocker cannot turn your shoulders and the ball cannot get outside the part of you he has not touched.
- 2
Squeeze, do not chase
Work back toward the football while keeping your outside free. A force defender who runs at the sideline has opened the alley himself, which is the picture at the top of this page.
- 3
The alley player fills downhill and inside out
Your strong safety attacks the space between the force defender and the ball, arriving from the inside so the carrier cannot cut back under him. He is the player who makes this tackle, and the force defender is the player who makes it possible.
- 4
Somebody has the cutback, and he does not chase
The backside defensive end or corner stays home on every perimeter run. The counter to a well-fitted sweep is the ball coming all the way back, and it only works if every one of your eleven ran to the ball.
What a good offense does about it
They pull a guard in front of it
A pulling guard arriving at speed is a different problem from a tight end kicking out, because he can log you inside as easily as kick you out. Teach the force defender to read which shoulder the puller shows: if the blocker's helmet goes outside, squeeze the ball inside him; if it goes inside, the ball is going outside and the force man has to get wide of him fast.
They run it the other way after you overplay it
Every sweep team has a counter, and the counter exists because your defense started flowing. This is the reason the backside assignment is on the list above and not an afterthought. One player who does not chase turns a twenty-yard counter into a four-yard one.
Play action off sweep flow
The most expensive thing on this page. If your corner forces and your safety fills, the whole side of the field behind them belongs to the offense for one snap. The answer is not to stop fitting the run, it is to make the free safety's deep-middle rule absolute: he never comes forward on flow, ever, regardless of what the play looks like.
When this is the wrong fix
When the sweep is bait
A good offense runs the sweep to make you widen, then throws or runs back inside the space you left. If a team has scored on the sweep twice and comes out in the same look a third time, expect the counter. The fix is not to stop playing the edge, it is to make sure the inside defenders stay home while the edge does its job alone.
When your edge player cannot be trusted to stay outside
The whole answer depends on one defender never letting the ball get outside him, not once, not to make a highlight. A player who cannot resist chasing the ball is the wrong player for the job however fast he is, and no amount of repetition fixes it inside one season.
When you are already winning by three scores
Selling out to stop a two-yard run is how a comfortable game becomes an uncomfortable one. Play the deep part of the field, make them run it, and let the clock do the work. A sweep that gains six yards and stays in bounds is a sweep that helped you.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free flag football play designer, collect them in the 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 stop the sweep in 11v11 football?
Who has contain on a sweep in 11v11?
What is the alley in football?
Why does my defense keep giving up big sweeps?
Related guides
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.