How do you keep the quarterback from escaping outside in 7v7 flag football?
Rush at the quarterback's outside shoulder rather than at the quarterback in 7v7 flag football, so that the only direction he can move is back toward your own defenders. He cannot carry the ball across the line here, so containing him is not about stopping a run. It is about refusing to let him reset outside the pocket where your underneath defenders have their backs turned.
Your LB 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 7v7
You are containing a thrower, not a runner
The quarterback may not cross the line of scrimmage himself under these rule books, so nothing he does with his feet gains a yard directly. What escaping buys him is time and a better throwing angle, which against five eligible receivers is worth more than the run would have been anyway.
A quarterback outside the pocket beats zone coverage, not man
Your three underneath defenders are facing the receivers. When the quarterback drifts wide they have to hold their areas and watch him at once, and one of those two jobs always loses. Keeping him between the hashes keeps their heads in one place.
The seven yards give you room to take an angle
Starting deep is usually a cost, but for contain it is a gift. A rusher who begins seven yards back has time to aim at a shoulder rather than at a body, which is a luxury a tackle-football edge rusher lining up on the ball never gets.
Rushing straight at the quarterback opens the sideline
A rusher who takes the shortest line is a rusher the quarterback simply walks around, and once he is outside there is nothing but grass. The fix costs nothing: approach from slightly outside and squeeze in, so the shortest way out of trouble runs back into your defense.
Contain is a sentence you can say to an eight-year-old
Stay outside his shoulder and make him go where your friends are. That is the whole technique, it needs no vocabulary, and a child who can repeat it back will do it. Most failures here are not technique failures, they are a coach never having said it in words that fit.
The rusher who never touches anybody can still win the down
A quarterback who has to move sideways is throwing off balance, late, or not at all. Tell your rusher that making the throw ugly counts as success, because a player who thinks only a sack counts will chase, and chasing is what lets the quarterback out.
Where he actually has to be
Same 7 defenders, same alignment. One job changes.
- The instinctWrong7v7: the LB takes the instinctive path.
Where a young defender goes when nobody has told him otherwise.
- The jobRight7v7: the LB 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.
Two ways to take the edge, and one that fails
One rusher, outside shoulder
Where it excelsCheapest contain available. One player coming from width keeps the quarterback inside without anybody else changing what they were doing, which matters when five of your seven are busy with receivers.
Exposed · the flatIt only closes one sideline. A quarterback who reads the angle early simply goes the other way, and the flat on the far side is now the emptiest part of the field.
Two rushers, one on each shoulder
Where it excelsBoth sidelines are closed and the quarterback's only remaining move is backward, which costs him depth and time on a clock that is already running against him.
Exposed · deepFive defenders on five receivers with no spare. You have bought containment with your help, which is the wrong trade on any down where they can throw it over the top.
Rushing straight at him
Where it excelsIt is the fastest line to the quarterback, so on the rare down where a young passer stands completely still it gets there first.
Exposed · the middle underneathIt opens both sidelines at once and puts the centre directly in your path. This is the default a player picks when nobody has told him otherwise, and it is the reason most 7v7 quarterbacks escape.
One rusher at the outside shoulder, and tell him which sideline he owns
Naming the sideline is the part coaches skip. A rusher who knows he owns the right-hand boundary will take the angle without thinking about it, where a rusher told to contain will aim at the quarterback and hope. The instruction has to be a direction, not a concept.
What to say at practice
- 1
Say the sentence an eight-year-old can hold
Run at his outside shoulder and never let him get past you to the sideline. That is the whole instruction, and it is shorter than the word contain.
- 2
Aim at grass, not at the player
Point him at a spot a yard outside the quarterback. Players who aim at the quarterback arrive where he was, and the escape happens in the gap they left behind them.
- 3
Make him finish the rush facing inside
Even if he does not get there, his shoulders should end up turned toward the middle of the field. That body position is what actually closes the sideline.
The numbers behind the decision
He keeps stepping up through the middle
That is the cost you accepted, and it is usually the right one. If it is genuinely hurting you, drop your middle underneath defender two yards deeper so the step-up runs into somebody rather than into space, and accept the shallow crosser that opens.
They are rolling the pocket on purpose
A designed roll beats a reactive rusher every time. Put your contain player on the side the formation is heavy to, because a roll almost always goes toward the receivers rather than away from them.
Your contain player keeps running past him
He is aiming at the quarterback instead of at the grass outside him. Walk it at half speed in practice and stop him at the moment of the pass, because a player has to see where his own momentum took him before the correction means anything.
When not to rush
Against a quarterback who will not move at all
Contain is designed to stop escape, and a statue does not escape. If he is standing still and throwing on rhythm, a wider path only means arriving later, and you should either come straight or not come at all.
When you have two rushers and both contain
Two players approaching from outside leaves the middle wide open and hands a running quarterback the easiest lane on the field. If you send two, one of them squeezes and the other takes the inside. Two contain players is nobody containing anything.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free play designer, 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 7v7, 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 keep the quarterback from escaping outside in 7v7?
Does the quarterback running matter in 7v7 if he cannot cross the line?
What does contain mean in flag football?
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.