How do you stop the deep ball in 5v5 flag football?
In 5v5 flag football you stop the deep ball with a rule rather than a coverage: one defender is the deepest player on every snap and he never comes forward, whatever the play looks like. With five defenders and four eligible receivers you have exactly one man to spare for that job, and spending him on a rusher instead is how a defense ends up with nobody behind anybody. Depth beats speed, and it is the only thing that does.
Nobody is standing here. Your CB is the closest defender to this spot and he is 16 yards away from it when the ball arrives. That is not a beaten defender, it is an empty one, and no amount of effort closes that gap after the throw.
Why the sweep keeps working in 5v5
Your one spare defender is the deep help, or there is none
Five against four gives you a single free body. If he is rushing, every receiver is covered by a defender with nobody behind him, and a receiver who wins is uncovered all the way to the end zone. In this format the choice to rush and the choice to be beaten deep are frequently the same choice.
Four verticals is four races and you have four defenders
Send everybody deep and a five-player defense is in four individual sprints. The only way that is not a coin toss is if somebody started deeper than everybody, which is a decision made before the snap rather than a reaction to the routes.
A rule survives the fake, and a read does not
Every deep ball at this level is preceded by something that looks like a run or a short throw. A defender told to read will come forward; a defender told he is never the first man to move will still be there. Say it as an absolute and it works on children.
Everybody came forward and nobody stayed behind it
The deep ball is almost never a coverage failure, it is an arithmetic one: at the moment the ball was thrown there was nobody deeper than the receiver. That is a decision somebody made before the snap, and usually nobody realised they were making it.
One rule fixes this, and it is not a coverage
Somebody is the deepest defender on every single snap and he never comes forward, whatever the play looks like. Not a read, not a judgement, a rule. Rules survive play action and reads do not, which is the whole difference between a defense that gets beaten deep once and one that gets beaten deep all season.
Depth beats speed, and it is the only thing that does
You cannot coach a defender into being faster than their fastest receiver. You can start him ten yards deeper, which converts the race into one he begins ahead in. Every deep-ball answer in football is a version of that sentence.
The same concept, covered
Same offense, same alignment, same defenders. One man's landmark is the whole difference.
- What happenedOpen5v5: the defense plays it wrong and the receiver is uncovered.
Your CB goes where the play tells him to go rather than where the ball is going. By the time he reads it the throw is already gone.
- The fixCovered5v5: the same defender takes the receiver's landing spot instead.
He takes the spot the concept is throwing to, and gets there before the ball. Nothing about his speed changed.
Cover the spot, not the man. At this age a defender who chases a receiver arrives behind him every time. A defender who stands on the spot the play is throwing to makes the quarterback find somewhere else, which is usually nowhere.
Three ways to keep somebody behind it, and what each one costs
One defender plays deep on every snap
Where it excelsThe simplest rule in football and the one that ends this problem outright. He never comes forward, so there is always somebody behind the deepest receiver, whatever the offense does.
Exposed · the middle underneathFour defenders now cover four receivers underneath with no help at all, and the middle of the field is where that gets found. Everything in front of him is slightly easier for them all afternoon.
Play everybody deeper and nobody deepest
Where it excelsNo single defender is removed from the game, and all four cover their man from a cushion that makes a deep route hard to win. It keeps five players genuinely involved.
Exposed · the flatEverything short is free, and a patient team simply takes six yards a play. You have not conceded the big one, you have agreed to lose slowly instead.
Press everybody and disrupt the release
Where it excelsNobody gets a clean start, so the timing of a deep concept never arrives. Against a young quarterback who throws on rhythm, this ends deep balls before they are thrown.
Exposed · deepOne beaten press is a touchdown, because by definition nobody is behind it. It is the highest-variance answer on this page and the one that loses games outright rather than slowly.
One defender plays deep, every snap, no exceptions
Give it to your slowest reliable player rather than your fastest, because the job is standing still and staying back rather than running with anybody. Then say the rule the way it has to be said: you are never the first defender to move forward. Pay for it by accepting that the middle of the field is softer, which is a trade every good youth defense makes.
What a good offense does about it
They run it to hold your deep man
That is the counter and it means the rule is working. He is allowed to come forward once the ball has crossed the line, and not before. Give him that as the exact trigger rather than telling him to use his judgement.
They only send one deep and flood the rest short
Then your deep defender is guarding one receiver and four are covering three. Let one of your underneath players carry the vertical route from below while the deep man stays central, rather than moving the deep man to him.
When this is the wrong fix
When it is costing you everything underneath
A defender playing deep is a defender not playing short, and a team that throws everything in front of you will march down the field five yards at a time. Being beaten slowly is better than being beaten quickly, but it is still being beaten.
When they cannot actually throw that far
Plenty of youth quarterbacks cannot reach twenty yards in the air. Playing a defender thirty yards deep against one of them is removing a player from the game. Watch a warm-up before you decide how much depth you need.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free play designer, collect them in the free playbook maker, and print football 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 stop the deep ball in 5v5 flag football?
Can you rush and still defend the deep ball in 5v5?
Who should play deep safety in 5v5 flag football?
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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.