How do you stop the sweep in 7v7 flag football?
In 7v7 flag football you stop the sweep by putting your outside linebacker on the edge before the ball gets there, because the version of this play that hurts you is the jet sweep and its carrier is already at full speed when the ball is snapped. Waiting to see it is losing to it. The edge defender leaves on the motion rather than on the handoff, takes a path to a spot outside the carrier, and turns him back into the two extra defenders that seven a side gives you over five.
This is where the down was lost. Your LB took the shortest line to where the ball was, which is always a line that finishes behind where the ball is going. Once it is outside your outside man, nothing on this field catches it, and every yard after this point was conceded three seconds earlier.
Why the sweep keeps working in 7v7
The carrier is at full speed before the ball moves
A jet sweep receiver crosses the formation in motion and takes the ball going sideways at a sprint. There is no moment where he is standing still deciding, which is the moment a 5v5 sweep gives you. Your edge defender has to be moving on the motion, not on the exchange, and a defense that has not practised leaving early will always be a step behind this play.
You finally have somebody to spare
Seven defenders against five eligible receivers is the first format where the arithmetic is comfortable. That is what makes forcing with a linebacker realistic here and not at 5v5: you can put a dedicated player on the edge without leaving a receiver uncovered, and you still have three defenders behind it all.
The motion tells you which side, and it tells you early
This is the only warning any defense gets about a perimeter run, and at 7v7 it is a loud one. Teach your outside defenders to call the motion out loud as it starts, so the edge assignment has already changed hands before the snap rather than during it. A defense that is silent pre-snap is a defense reacting to a play that started two seconds ago.
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 angleBefore7v7: the LB crosses the carrier's face and the run gets past him.
The LB goes to the football. By the time he arrives the football has moved, and there is nobody behind him.
- The right angleAfter7v7: the LB keeps his leverage and turns the run back inside into the rallying defender.
The LB 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 meet the jet, and what each one costs
All three of these beat a jet sweep some of the time, and they fail in three completely different places. Pick the failure you can live with against the team you are playing.
Widen the outside linebacker on the motion
Where it excelsThe cleanest answer and the one that needs the least athleticism. A linebacker who starts widening as the motion starts is outside the carrier before the ball is handed off, and the play dies for two yards without anybody having to be fast.
Exposed · the middle underneathHe has left the middle of the field to do it. Every jet sweep fake with a route behind it attacks exactly the ground he vacated, and at 7v7 that is the most common companion call in any playbook. If you widen on the motion and they have the fake, you will see it.
Bump the whole front toward the motion
Where it excelsEverybody slides a few yards toward the side the ball is going, so no single defender has to cover unusual ground and nobody's assignment changes. It is the version you can teach to nine year olds in one session.
Exposed · the flatYou have moved your defense toward one sideline, which means the far flat is now a long way from anybody. A quick throw back to the side the motion left is the counter, and it does not need to be a good throw to gain eight yards.
Ignore the motion and play the ball
Where it excelsNobody moves until the ball does, so nothing is ever out of position and none of the fakes work. Against a team that motions on every snap regardless of the call, this is the answer that stops them from pulling your defense around by the nose.
Exposed · deepThe actual jet sweep now beats you to the corner, because you conceded the head start the motion was there to create. You are betting that the fakes outnumber the real ones, and against a team that just runs it, you lose that bet all afternoon.
At 7v7, widen the outside linebacker
You have two more defenders than a 5v5 coach and three of them are playing behind everything, so losing one linebacker to the edge is a cost you can absorb and losing the corner is not. Widen the outside backer on the motion, leave the corners alone, and accept that the fake behind it will get somebody open underneath for six or seven yards. Six yards is a result. A sweep to the corner is not.
What to say at practice
- 1
Call the motion, out loud, as it starts
The two outside defenders call "over, over" as the receiver crosses. It sounds small. It is the difference between one player leaving on time and three players leaving late.
- 2
The edge defender leaves on the motion, not on the ball
He widens as the motion widens, keeping himself outside the point the carrier is heading for. If he waits to confirm the handoff he has already lost the race, because the carrier was moving and he was not.
- 3
Take a path to a spot, not a path to the man
Run to where the carrier will be, which is further toward the sideline and further downfield than where he is. Every defender who runs at the ball carrier at a sprint arrives exactly where he just was.
- 4
Second man outside in, and he is the one who pulls the flag
The edge turns it back; the next defender inside takes him. Two players, two jobs, and neither of them is doing the other's. This is the part 7v7 can afford and 5v5 cannot.
What a good offense does about it
They motion both ways before the snap
Two motions is a way of asking your defense to change the edge assignment twice in three seconds, and most youth defenses get it wrong the second time. The fix is to name the edge by position rather than by person: the outside linebacker on the side the ball ends up on has it, whoever that turns out to be, and nobody trades jobs mid-motion.
They run jet action and hand it inside
The counter to everything above. If your outside backer keeps widening and the ball keeps going inside him, the answer is not to stop widening, it is to keep the inside linebacker home rather than letting him flow with the motion. One player chases the jet. The other one does not move until the ball does.
Your edge defender keeps getting there and stopping
Common and fixable. A player who reaches the edge and then squares up has turned himself into a target rather than a wall. He should keep working toward the sideline the whole way, so the carrier never finds a still defender to make a move on.
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 football 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 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 stop the jet sweep in 7v7 flag football?
Should the corner or the linebacker have contain in 7v7?
How do you stop a team that motions every play?
Is the jet sweep legal in 7v7 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.