Who should rush the passer in 11v11 football?
In 11v11 football four players rush on most downs and the real question is who the fifth is, because the offense can block four and struggles to block a fifth it has not counted. The best candidate is rarely the fastest defender on the field; it is whoever can arrive from a place the protection has not accounted for. Against a young offensive line, where a rusher comes from beats how quickly he gets there almost every time.
Your SS 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
Blockers exist, so beating a man replaces arriving at a spot
Every other format on this shelf has nobody blocking the rusher. Here five linemen are assigned to it, which means the skill is defeating a block rather than covering ground, and the player who is best at that is often not the player who runs fastest in a straight line.
The protection counts before the snap, and it can be wrong
An offensive line declares who it is blocking based on what it sees. A fifth rusher arriving from a spot they did not include in that count comes free, and free is the only kind of pressure that reliably works at youth level. That is a puzzle about disguise rather than about athletes.
Whoever you send leaves a zone that is findable
The space a blitzer vacates is fixed, and every decent offense has a quick throw into it. So the fifth rusher decision is really a decision about which part of your coverage you are prepared to leave empty for two seconds.
Not automatically your fastest player
The job needs discipline far more than speed, because a rusher who runs past the quarterback has done less than one who never left. Your fastest player is usually your best cover defender too, which makes sending him the most expensive version of a decision you have not thought about.
The right player keeps his feet under him and his eyes up
What actually beats a young quarterback is somebody arriving under control, in front of him, while he is still looking downfield. Sprinting flat out at a moving target is how a rusher ends up behind the play with his momentum carrying him away from it.
It should be the same player most weeks
Rushing is a skill and it improves with repetition, so rotating the job around the team means nobody ever gets good at it. Pick one, coach him, and let him own it. A defense with one competent rusher is better than one with five occasional ones.
Where he actually has to be
Same 11 defenders, same alignment. One job changes.
- The instinctWrong11v11: the SS takes the instinctive path.
Where a young defender goes when nobody has told him otherwise.
- The jobRight11v11: the SS 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 candidates for the fifth rusher, and what each one costs
An outside linebacker
Where it excelsHe is already near the line, so it costs nothing to disguise and the offense has to respect him every down. The simplest fifth rusher to add and the easiest for young players to execute.
Exposed · the flatThe flat behind him is the most obvious hole on the field, and it is exactly where a coached offense throws. If they have a hot route, this is the call it is written for.
A safety, from depth
Where it excelsHe is the player the protection is least likely to have counted, so he comes free most often. Arriving late from ten yards is also harder to pick up than somebody standing on the line.
Exposed · deepYou have taken a man out of the deep part of the field, and behind a five-man rush there is nobody to replace him. A completed deep ball here is not a gain, it is six points.
A corner, off the edge
Where it excelsThe shortest distance to the quarterback on the field and almost never accounted for by a youth protection scheme. When it works it ends the down instantly.
Exposed · the combinationHis receiver is now somebody else's problem and that somebody has to get there while also doing his own job. Combination coverage at speed is the hardest thing on this list for a young defense to get right.
The outside linebacker first, the safety once they have adjusted
Start with the fifth rusher who costs the least to teach and give it to an outside linebacker. Once the offense has shown you the hot throw into the flat, bring the safety instead on the same look, so the picture they have learned to read now means something different. Keep the corner blitz for a down where losing the game on the next snap is not possible.
The numbers behind the decision
Your four rushers all arrive in the same gap
Then you do not have a fifth-rusher problem, you have a lane problem. Four players in one gap is one rusher and three spectators. Widen two of them before you send anybody else.
They slide the protection toward your blitzer
Good, because a slide leaves the opposite edge one on one. If they are sliding to your fifth rusher every time, the pressure is now coming from the other side whether you call it or not.
When not to rush
When he cannot be trusted to stop
A rusher who chases the quarterback out of the pocket and keeps going has opened the sideline behind him. If a player cannot be coached to pull up and mirror, he is the wrong player for the job whatever his forty time is.
When he is also your only tackler
Sending your surest flag puller seven yards away from where most plays end is a trade most coaches make without noticing. Somebody has to finish the play, and pressure that produces nothing has cost you the player who would have.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free play designer, collect them in the flag football playbook builder, 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
Who should rush the passer in 11v11 football?
Is a safety blitz better than a linebacker blitz?
Why does my blitz never get home?
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.