What are the best red zone plays in 11v11 tackle football?
Play-action, because the run is real. Inside the twenty an 11v11 defense has to respect the run with its linebackers and safeties, and a convincing fake moves them two steps toward the line of scrimmage. Those two steps are the entire difference between a covered route and a touchdown, and no flag format can create them, because no flag format has a run threat that a defense must honour.
Three answers, in the order to try them
- Start here
Waggle
Start here
The run fake pulls the linebackers forward and the quarterback comes outside with the route running behind them. In the red zone at eleven a side this is not a change-up, it is the base call, and it is worthless in every flag format because a handoff there obligates nobody.
- If they stay in coverage
Smash
If they stay in coverage
Against a defense that refuses to bite on the run, go back to putting the corner in conflict. The hitch at the goal line and the corner to the pylon is the same answer here as at seven a side, thrown into a smaller window.
- If you need a rhythm throw
Snag
If you need a rhythm throw
Three options in one quarter of the field, all on time. With eleven defenders compressed into twenty yards, a concept that gives the quarterback a spot to throw to beats a concept that asks him to find somebody.
What changes at this size
The run threat is the play
This is the clearest example in the section of a situation that is genuinely a different problem at eleven a side. In flag football, play-action is decoration: there is no blocking and a handoff does not obligate anybody, so the fake moves nobody. At 11v11 inside the twenty, a defense that does not commit to stopping the run gives up a touchdown on the ground, which means it must commit, which means the linebackers and the strong safety are moving downhill at the snap. Every passing concept in the red zone is built to exploit that movement rather than to beat coverage. The second difference is compression in the other direction: with eleven defenders in a twenty-yard field the passing windows are smaller than anywhere else in football, so the throws are timing throws and the answer is usually a design that puts a defender in conflict rather than a receiver in space.
When not to call it
If you have not established the run
Play-action only moves people who are worried. A team that has not run the ball all game gets no movement from the fake and has wasted a down on a slower dropback.
Inside the five
The field is now too short for the corner route to have anywhere to go. Down there it is the fade, the pick concept or the run, and everything else is decoration.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the flag football play creator, collect them in the flag football playbook builder, and print wristband play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw any of these in about a minute
Open the designer, change the routes, save it to your playbook.
Open the designerRelated questions
What are the best red zone plays in 11v11 tackle 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.