5v5 Offense

The two plays every 5v5 flag football team should install first are Mesh against man coverage and Flood against zone. Nobody may block, so the rest of 5v5 offense is spacing: three receivers and a back spread across a field wider than four defenders can honestly cover.

Pick your format

Everything below is written for this format. Press the pill again for all of them.

What changes at 5v5

Every run is a footrace

No player on the field may block, so a sweep is the back against the corner and the receivers win it by running their defenders away from the ball. That is why ten runs are written for five a side and none of them is a blocking scheme.

The back is one of your receivers

With three receivers and a back, the back has to be a real part of the pattern rather than a checkdown. On Flood he is one of the three levels, which is the biggest single difference from the larger formats.

The rush starts seven yards away

There is no blitz in the usual sense, because the rules put the rusher off the ball. A quarterback who throws on rhythm is gone before he arrives, so the answer to pressure is timing rather than protection.

Start here

Concepts

Five passing concepts written for five a side, each with a diagram of three receivers and a back. The cards past them are concepts not yet written at any size. The first two simulate for everyone; the rest need a Coach account.

Mesh
Two crossers run opposite ways two yards apart, so any defender chasing one has to get through the other.
QB reads
Which crosser comes out of the traffic clean. It is a look, not a progression.
vs Man
Both defenders arrive on the same grass at the same moment. One goes over, one goes under, and whoever goes under is late.
Flood
Three routes to one side at three depths, flat then out then sail, stacked in a single vertical slice of field.
QB reads
High to low. Look at the sail first; the moment a defender commits, the level above or below him is open.
vs Man
Three routes, three defenders, nobody wrong. Against man a flood is three separate races down one sideline.
Unlock
Four Verticals
Four receivers running straight, spaced so no deep defender can cover two of them.
QB reads
Count the deep defenders before the snap. Three deep means the seams win; two deep means the middle does.
vs Man
Four one-on-one races with no help. The concept is doing nothing. Whoever is losing his matchup is the throw.
Unlock
Spot
A corner over the top, a hitch sitting underneath and a flat running away from both, a triangle out of one bunch.
QB reads
The flat defender. If he runs with the flat, the hitch is open behind him; if he sits, throw the flat.
vs Man
Traffic. Three receivers off one spot means three defenders trying to follow through the same two yards of grass.
Unlock
Smash
A hitch at five yards under a corner route at twelve, both to the same side and in the same throwing window.
QB reads
The deepest of the two defenders. If he stays, take the hitch; if he leaves, the corner is behind him.
vs Man
No conflict at all. The corner sits on the hitch, the safety runs the corner route, and smash becomes two separate one-on-ones.
Unlock
Slant-FlatSoon
One receiver breaking inside, a back running outside underneath him. Two routes, opposite directions, one defender between them.
QB reads
The flat defender, and nobody else. He picks one and you throw the other. One read, one beat.
vs Man
Both are covered by whoever is on them. The flat is a hard cover from inside leverage, the slant a hard cover from outside.
Unlock
StickSoon
An inside receiver to five yards who sits down against zone and keeps running against man, with a flat route under him.
QB reads
Read the coverage off the stick route itself: if he sat, it is zone and he is open; if he ran, it is man and you have the flat.
vs Man
The stick never stops, so the defender never gets to pass him off. It is a chase, and the flat underneath is a second problem.
Unlock
Double SlantsSoon
Two receivers on the same side both breaking inside, stacked so one defender is between them.
QB reads
Whichever slant the inside defender does not take. Fast, flat and off the back foot.
vs Man
Two inside breaks from outside leverage. Both defenders are running across the field with no help inside them.

Formations

Where everyone lines up before the ball moves. Every formation page covers each team size in its own section, so these are the same twelve wherever you coach.

Bunch
Three receivers clustered inside about six yards, usually to one side, with nothing outside them.
What it creates
Traffic before the snap. Three defenders have to stand in one small square of grass, then the receivers leave it in three directions.
vs Man
Three defenders in a space the size of a car, each obliged to follow somebody out of it. Whoever guesses wrong is beaten at the snap, and nobody has run a route yet.
Trips
Three receivers to one side, spread across the field rather than clustered, and one or none to the other.
What it creates
An arithmetic problem. Three receivers running into two defenders' areas leaves somebody uncovered before anyone has run a good route.
vs Man
Man travels with the receiver rather than the space, so spreading out costs the defense nothing. Three defenders follow three receivers and trips has bought you very little.
Stack
Two receivers on one track, one directly behind the other, rather than side by side.
What it creates
A free release for the back man. Nobody can get hands on him without going through the receiver in front, so he leaves the line clean every time.
vs Man
Two defenders standing in each other's way, having to agree before the snap on who takes the front man and who takes the back one. Whichever they pick, one of them starts late.
Empty
Nobody in the backfield. Every eligible player is split out, and the quarterback stands alone.
What it creates
Maximum receivers and a defense with nothing left to guess about. Every player who could catch it is already where he is going to start from.
vs Man
Everybody is covered and nobody is spare, because the offense has put every eligible on the field and the defense has had to answer each one.

5v5 play collection

From the premium collection: diagrams without the written breakdowns the concepts above have.

All Hitches
Quick Game
Everyone to six yards, turn, face the quarterback. The most completable play in the book and the one to open with: it tells you immediately whether the defense is playing off or pressing, and the answer sets up Quick Slants and Smash for the rest of the day. Against soft coverage take it every snap until they come up.
Open in the designer
Quick Slants
Quick Game
Three-step timing. The ball is out before the rusher gets home, which makes this the answer to a defense that sends every play. Throw it to the slant away from the rush and let the receiver run after the catch. If the defense is pressing, the slant beats it inside; if they are off, throw All Hitches instead.
Open in the designer
Bubble
Screen
Catch it behind the line with a teammate already in front of you. Z bubbles out of the stack; Y, the outside man, screens the first defender to show. This is a yards-after-catch play and a leverage test: if the defense does not have a man over the stack, it is free yardage every snap until they do.
Open in the designer
Sprint Out
Run
An RPO off the sprint. The back snaps it and releases on a corner into the window between the seam and the out; the quarterback sprints the trips side reading the flat defender, and the ball on his path is the decision point. If that defender comes up, throw the corner behind him. If he drops, keep running. Give the quarterback one defender to read and one rule before the snap.
Open in the designer
High Low Drag Rt
High-Low
The install's bread and butter, and the first thing to teach. The outside man runs a post and the middle man a dig at the same ten yards, so one defender has to choose high or low and is wrong either way. Underneath it, the backside receiver drags all the way across, which gives the quarterback a moving target at four yards when both of the deep answers are covered. Coach the read in that order: post, dig, drag, and throw the drag on the run so the receiver can turn upfield with the ball.
Open in the designer
High Low Drag Lt
High-Low
The same concept from the other hash, and worth installing on the same day rather than a week later. Everything a coach says about the right-handed version is true here with the words swapped, so a team that has the read down gets a second call for free and an opponent that has taken away one side has taken away nothing. The drag now comes from the single receiver side, which means the quarterback is turning back against his own body to throw it: rep that throw before it matters.
Open in the designer
High Low Rt
High-Low
High Low Drag with the underneath route changed and the backside man sent deep. The post and the dig are unchanged, so the read a team already owns still works, but now the shallow crosser comes from inside the formation at eight yards rather than from the backside at four, and the single receiver clears out the whole boundary. Use it when a defense has started jumping the drag, because the man who was sitting on that route is now the man the crosser runs away from.
Open in the designer
High Low Lt
High-Low
High Low from the left hash. The crosser works back toward the single receiver side, which is the side the safety is usually leaving, and the go route on the boundary is what makes that space exist. If the deep middle defender chases the post, the crosser comes open late and in front of the quarterback, which is the easiest throw on the page. The backside go is rarely the answer and is never the first look, but it has to be run at full speed for the rest of it to work.
Open in the designer
Jet Slant Fade
Quick Game
A three-step concept off a jet fake, and the fastest ball in the book. Both outside men run fades and the slot runs a three-step slant underneath, so the quarterback has a high answer on each sideline and a low one in the middle before any rush can get home. The jet fake is the part that makes it work: it moves the second level a step in the wrong direction, and the slant is thrown into the space that step leaves. Against a team that plays its corners tight, take the fade.
Open in the designer
Scissors
Crossers
Two shallow crossers at different depths, running past each other in opposite directions, with a post over the top and a dig behind them. The depths are the play: three yards for one, five for the other, so they cross cleanly instead of colliding, and a defender who tries to pass one off is late on the other. It is the best man-coverage beater in the install because two men running opposite ways through the same ten yards cannot both be covered by defenders who have to run with them.
Open in the designer
Smash Quads
High-Low
Smash on both sides at once, which is what an empty set buys you. Each outside man hitches at five and each inside man runs a corner at ten, so both flat defenders are put in the same bind at the same time and the quarterback simply throws to whichever one guessed wrong. Read one side pre-snap and do not change your mind. The hitch is the answer against soft coverage and the corner against a defender who jumps it, and a ten-year-old can be taught that sentence in a single practice.
Open in the designer
Curl Wheel
High-Low
The inside men run to the sideline and turn up it while the outside men curl back at ten, so the two routes on each side trade places. A defender who follows the curl loses the wheel behind him, and one who carries the wheel leaves the curl sitting in front of him. It is the natural answer to a team that has started squatting on the hitches in Smash. The wheel needs time, so this is a five-step drop and the curl is the check-down when the rush wins.
Open in the designer

Showing 12 of 18. See the whole 5v5 collection.

Run game

Ten runs written for 5v5, none of them a blocking scheme, because nobody may block and a run succeeds by moving defenders rather than moving bodies.

Sweep
The ball carried wide and turned upfield outside everybody, before the defense can get there to meet it.
The read
The last defender with outside leverage. If he stays home you cut up inside him; if he chases inside you keep going and beat him to the corner.
Toss
A sweep with a faster delivery: the ball pitched to a back who is already running wide, so it reaches the edge half a second sooner than a handoff could.
The read
The same key as the sweep: the last defender with outside leverage. The toss buys the runner an extra look at him before he has to decide.
Dive
The ball handed straight ahead through the middle, as fast as the exchange allows. No angle and no race, just the shortest distance to the yards you need.
The read
The middle defender. If he sits in the hole, the back takes what the collision gives; if he drops into coverage, the hole was his and he has left it.
Jet Sweep
A receiver in full-speed motion takes the handoff as he passes the quarterback and keeps going. He reaches the edge already at top speed, and nobody standing still can match that.
The read
Whether anybody ran with the motion. If nobody did, you have one more player to that side than they do; if somebody did, the side he left is a man short.
Counter
The back takes one step one way to pull the defense with him, then takes the ball back the other way into the space they just left.
The read
The defender on the side the play finishes. If he chased the first step, the counter is open; if he stayed home, the fake bought nothing.
Reverse
The ball starts wide one way, then a receiver coming back the other way takes it from the runner. The ball changes direction, and so, a second too late, does the defense.
The read
The defender on the far side. If he chased the sweep, the reverse has that whole side to itself; if he stayed home, it is a slow play into a man who was waiting for it.
End Around
A receiver comes around behind the quarterback and takes the ball going the other way. One handoff, not two: a reverse without the part that gets fumbled.
The read
The defender on the far side, the same as the reverse. Whoever is on the side the receiver finishes has to decide whether the fake inside is real.
Option
The quarterback runs at one defender with the back trailing him, and leaves that defender alone on purpose. Take the quarterback and the ball is pitched; take the back and the quarterback keeps it.
The read
One defender: the pitch key, usually the edge. The quarterback does not read the defense; he reads that man, and gives the ball to whichever player he did not take.

By situation

The situational answers for five a side. The Cover 2 card opens a 5v5 situation page; the rest open the site's original pages, one of them among its most cited, which stay in place until their replacements earn as much.

Three answersvs Man coverage
A defender on every receiver and nobody deep.
Three answersvs Zone coverage
Nobody is chasing your receivers. They are guarding grass.
Three answersvs the Blitz
They are sending everyone. You have about two seconds.
Three answersvs Cover 2
Two safeties deep, and a hole between them.
Three answersRed zone
A short field. The deep routes you like have nowhere to go.
Three answersShort yardage
Fourth and one. You need a yard, not a play.
Three answersThird and long
Past the sticks, not to them.
Three answersTwo-minute drill
The clock is the defender you actually have to beat.