Who should rush the quarterback in 7v7 flag football?
Your spare defender, which in 7v7 flag football means one of the two players left over once five have been assigned to the five eligible receivers. It is almost never your fastest player and never the one covering their best receiver. The job wants somebody who takes the same angle every time and does not bite on the first thing that moves.
Your DB 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
For once you have a genuinely spare player to spend
At smaller sizes every rusher is taken out of coverage that needed him. Here two defenders are surplus to the five receivers, so the question changes from who can we least afford to lose into which of these two is actually suited to it. That is a nicer question and most coaches still answer it wrong.
Speed matters less than it does anywhere else
Seven yards against a seven-second clock rewards a consistent angle far more than a fast one. The rusher who arrives at four seconds on every single down is worth more than the one who arrives at three on the downs he guesses right and at six on the ones he does not.
The centre is in the way and that is legal
The centre is the only ineligible player and he stays in front of the quarterback. Nobody may block, but a stationary player is the rusher's to go around, so the job includes navigating a body without making contact. A player who panics at traffic is the wrong choice.
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 7 defenders, same alignment. One job changes.
- The instinctWrong7v7: the DB takes the instinctive path.
Where a young defender goes when nobody has told him otherwise.
- The jobRight7v7: the DB 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, and what picking each one costs
The spare underneath defender
Where it excelsHe is already off the ball, he is nobody's coverage, and he can be on the mark before the offense is set. Choosing him costs you the least of any option because he was the surplus player to begin with.
Exposed · the middle underneathHe was the player who would otherwise have doubled the middle of the field, so shallow crossers get a cleaner run through the middle than they had before he left.
Your fastest player
Where it excelsHe covers seven yards quicker than anybody else you have, which on a down where the offense holds the ball is the difference between arriving and watching.
Exposed · deepYour fastest player is usually the one who can run with their best receiver, and spending him here means somebody slower is matched on the one player capable of beating you by himself.
A different player every down
Where it excelsThe offense cannot set their protection or their hot read against a rusher whose identity changes, and at this size the quarterback genuinely is scanning for where he is coming from.
Exposed · the flatNobody gets good at it. The angle, the timing and the discipline to stay outside are all learned skills, and rotating the job means seven players who are each mediocre at it instead of one who is reliable.
One of your two spares, and the same one every week
Pick him on temperament rather than on a stopwatch, tell him he owns the job, and let him get good at it. The rusher is the one defensive position at this size where repetition beats athleticism, and it is the position coaches most often hand to whoever asked loudest.
The numbers behind the decision
Their best receiver is lined up in front of your chosen rusher
Then he is not your rusher on that snap. The assignment follows the offense rather than the depth chart, and a defense that will not move the job when the formation changes is a defense that has effectively told the offense where the spare player is.
He keeps getting held up by the centre
Change his start rather than his effort. Moving him to the width of the field takes the centre out of the path entirely, and it costs about half a second of arrival time that he was losing to the detour anyway.
Your league wants the rusher declared
The high school books ask for a raised hand until the snap. Once you are declaring anyway there is no surprise left to protect, so pick your best angle player and let the offense look at him, because knowing he is coming is not the same as stopping him.
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 flag football play creator, collect them in the football 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
Who should rush the quarterback in 7v7 flag football?
Should your fastest player be the rusher in 7v7?
Should the rusher change every down in 7v7?
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.