Who should your rusher be in NFL Flag?
In NFL Flag your rusher's job is different from any other format, because the quarterback is not allowed to run the ball across the line and therefore will not try to escape upfield. What he does instead is drift sideways behind the line looking for something better, so you want a player who can mirror lateral movement and stay patient, not one who charges. Speed matters less here than in any other version of this decision.
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 NFL Flag
He cannot escape forward, so you are chasing sideways rather than closing
A quarterback who may not cross the line has only one direction available to him, and it is across the field behind the line of scrimmage. Your rusher is therefore mirroring rather than closing, which is a different skill and suits a different player from the one every other format wants.
Whoever you send is not covering the centre
The centre snaps and releases on a route, so the four defenders left have four real receivers. If your rusher is the player who would naturally have taken the centre, you have created the uncovered man that this format punishes hardest.
The no-run zones are the only downs where the job is simple
Inside five yards of midfield or the goal line the offense cannot run, the field is short and the throw is quick. There your rusher is simply closing space against a known pass, and you can send whoever is nearest rather than whoever is best suited.
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 5 defenders, same alignment. One job changes.
- The instinctWrongNFL Flag: the LB takes the instinctive path.
Where a young defender goes when nobody has told him otherwise.
- The jobRightNFL Flag: 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.
Three candidates, and what each one costs you elsewhere
Your most patient player
Where it excelsMirrors the drift, stays square, never commits early. Against a quarterback who is legally forbidden from running past him, patience is worth more than acceleration and this is the player the format asks for.
Exposed · the middle underneathHe is often the defender you would have put over the middle, which is where this format's crossing concepts live. The routes that come open are the ones he would otherwise have been standing in.
Your fastest player
Where it excelsIn a no-run zone, where the throw is coming quickly and the only thing that matters is covering seven yards before it leaves, raw speed is exactly right.
Exposed · the combinationOutside those zones he overruns a quarterback who is only moving sideways, and you have given up your best cover defender for a player who was never going to run anyway.
Nobody, and spy instead
Where it excelsKeep everybody home and put one defender at the line watching. He comes only when the quarterback commits, and against a player who cannot cross the line there is very little to commit to.
Exposed · the flatNothing ever hurries the throw, so a composed quarterback works through his progression at his own pace and the last read eventually comes open underneath.
Your most patient player, and only outside the no-run zones send nobody
Pick the defender who can stay square and mirror rather than the one who can close, because closing is a skill this format has legislated away. Better still, on most downs send nobody at all and give that player the centre, then use your quickest defender as a rusher in the no-run zones where speed is the only thing being asked for.
The numbers behind the decision
He drifts to the sideline and you are chasing
Do not chase. Take an angle that cuts off the direction he is drifting and let him come back into the middle where your other defenders are. A rusher who follows a drifting quarterback is a rusher being led away from the play.
Your rusher was covering the centre
Then re-assign the centre out loud before you send him, every time. This is the most common uncovered player in NFL Flag and it usually happens because a coach changed the rush without changing anything else.
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 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 NFL Flag, 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 NFL Flag?
Does speed matter for a rusher in NFL Flag?
What happens to the centre when I send a rusher?
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.