How do you fake a blitz in 5v5 flag football?
In 5v5 flag football you fake a blitz by walking a defender up toward the line before the snap and sending him back into coverage when the ball moves. It costs you no defenders at all, and a young quarterback who sees somebody in his eyeline throws earlier than he meant to. It is the only free pressure available in a format where you have five players and four of them are already accounted for.
Your S 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 5v5
With five defenders, free is the only kind of pressure you can afford
Every real rusher in this format costs you a fifth of the coverage and leaves four defenders on four receivers with no help. A look costs nothing, which makes it the only version of pressure that does not have to be paid for somewhere else on the field.
The retreat is the whole skill, not the creep
Walking forward is easy and every child can do it. Getting back to a zone or a receiver at the snap is what makes the look a disguise rather than an abandoned assignment, and it is the half that has to be practised. Teach the retreat first and add the creep afterwards.
There is no rush line to respect when you are not rushing
A defender showing pressure from four yards has not broken anything as long as he does not cross the line before the ball is thrown. Coaches avoid this because they assume the seven-yard mark applies to everybody; it applies to rushers, and a faker is not one.
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 5 defenders, same alignment. One job changes.
- The instinctWrong5v5: the S takes the instinctive path.
Where a young defender goes when nobody has told him otherwise.
- The jobRight5v5: the S 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 show pressure, and what each one gives up
Walk one defender up and drop him
Where it excelsThe simplest version and the safest. One player moves, everybody else stays exactly where they were, and the quarterback's clock speeds up for nothing.
Exposed · the flatThe receiver he is responsible for gets a free release while he is walking forward, so a quick throw to that side is caught before he has turned around.
Show two and bring neither
Where it excelsMuch harder to read, because the quarterback cannot tell which is real and has to account for both. Against a team that has started ignoring your single faker, this resets the whole thing.
Exposed · the middle underneathTwo defenders out of position at once means the middle of the field is briefly unoccupied by anybody. A crossing route into that window is open for as long as it takes them both to recover.
Show pressure and actually bring it sometimes
Where it excelsMakes every future look credible. A disguise that is never true stops working after a quarter, and one real rush behind the same picture buys you the rest of the game.
Exposed · deepOn the downs you do bring it you are four on four with nobody spare, and you have chosen to be there for the sake of the bluff rather than because the situation called for it.
Walk one up, drop him, and bring it for real about once a quarter
Start with one defender and nothing else changing, because that is the version a young defense can execute without anybody ending up in the wrong place. Then rush from that exact look once a quarter so it stays true, and do it on a down where being four on four does not decide the game.
The numbers behind the decision
Your faker never gets back
Then he is not faking, he has left. Move him up later, at the last moment before the snap rather than as soon as they break the huddle, and give him a landmark to sprint back to rather than an instruction to cover somebody.
They stop reacting to it
Change which defender does it. The same player creeping on every passing down is a uniform rather than a disguise, and at this level a quarterback learns it within a quarter.
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 football playmaker, collect them in the football playbook maker, and print printable play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw it for your own team
Open the designer at 5v5, 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 fake a blitz in 5v5 flag football?
Does a defender showing blitz have to start seven yards back?
Why has my blitz look stopped working?
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.