3 articles from the master Bill Walsh:

2.

A Method for Game Planning Controlling the Ball With the Pass 3. Bill Walsh on the Play Pass
1.

A Method For Game Planning

BILL WALSH San Francisco 49ers
(MID 80's LECTURE TRANSCRIPT)

Planning for a football game today is somewhat different than the original concept of the game in which the quarterback was the field general and saw weaknesses during the game and called his plays accordingly. Obviously the game is much more complex today. I was fortunate to be involved with some of the great football coaches and programs. I have been afforded the experience that allowed us to conceive an offense, a defense, and a system of football that is basically a matter of rehearsing what we do prior to the game. What we do is call the plays. When I was with Paul Brown and the Cincinnati Bengals, his trademark was sending in messenger guards. He had great success. Paul Brown was the man that changed the game from one that was a rugged, slugging it out type of play, to a more sophisticated method. The advancing of teaching techniques, coaching techniques, the use of teaching aids, the use of film, the black board, etc. All were originated and developed by Paul Brown just after World War II. Part of his concept was a strategy in which virtually everything was spelled out. It was a system in which the plays were called from the sideline. He was criticized for it at the time, but today it is virtually done by everyone. One of the problems you have today is that you don't have trained quarterbacks who can call plays because it has always been the coach who called the plays. At Cincinnati we had a young quarterback, by the name of Greg Cook, who had a short career, but may have been the greatest single talent to play the game. It became my responsibility to call the plays from the press box. Paul would always ask, "What are your openers?" He wanted to know how we were going to start the game. He was thinking about two or three plays that he would start the game with; an off tackle play, a pass, etc. So we began to develop our franchise. When I left in 1975, we had a 11-3 record and the number one offense in professional football. A lot of it was related to disciplining a quarterback. At that time it was Ken Anderson. It was disciplining an offense to know what to expect when we called a play. Consequently we could call a play with the assurance that we could get something done. My next employment was with the San Diego Chargers and I was fortunate enough to have someone like Dan Fouts to work with. Now the list of opening plays began to number 10 and 12. In other words, we began to plan the opening sequences of the game. From there I went to Stanford and the list went to 20. We would have our first 20 plays to be called. Now with San Francisco we finally stopped with 25. What we have finally done is rehearse the opening part of the game, almost the entire first half, by planning the game before it even starts. Now why would you do such a thing? I know this, your ability to think concisely, your ability to make good judgments is much easier on Thursday night than during the heat of the game. So we prefer to make our decisions related to the game almost clinically, before the game is ever played. We've scouted our opponent, we have looked at films, we know our opponent well. If you coach at the high school level, often you are in the same league with the same coaches and you know them like a book. With out question you can make more objective decisions during the week as to what you would do in the game

than you can spontaneously as the game is being played. To be honest with you, you are in a state of stress, sometimes you are in a state of desperation and you are asked to make very calculated decisions. It is rarely done in warfare and certainly not in football; so your decisions made during the week are the ones that make sense. In the final analysis, after a lot of time and thought and a lot of planning, and some practice, I will isolate myself prior to the game and put together the first 25 plays for the game. They are related to certain things. What are the reasons for pre-planning your offense before the game? 1. ESTABLISH FORMATIONS to see the adjustments the opponent will make. You can't wait to find out when you are on their five yard line. Early in the game you are going to show certain formations to see what adjustments are. The coach in the press box knows what formations are coming up, so he knows what to watch for concerning adjustments. 2. BASE OFFENSE. You have to establish in your own mind how you are going to handle a base offense. In other words, you want to have certain plays to start the game in which you take on your opponent physically, man to man, and the coach upstairs as well as the coach on the field, is observing that. You get a better feel which way to run and what kinds of plays work best. Part of your plays are where you attack your opponent physically and find out where your matchups are. You want to find that out early in the game, so that some time later you have an idea of just what you want to do. 3. SET UP CERTAIN THINGS. In our case we later we can run the play pass that can win will play an opponent in which we will run run and throwing; so that later we can run case we want to set up the play pass. will run a given play so that the game for us. Occasionally we the play pass first, faking the the running play itself. In our

4. SPECIALS. One of the interesting things about Paul Brown Football is that he would always be terribly upset if someone would run a reverse before we did, or a run pass before we did. He would grab the phone and scream in my ear, "They did it before we did!" This was very distressing because it sounded so dated. But you know something, over the years, I found that Paul was 100% right. If you run your reverse first, and you can make 5 yards or more, the other guy won't run his. If you have a special play of any kind, get it into the game quickly. How many of you have had a ball game and you have practiced two or three things that you thought for sure would work. The game is over and you didn't try them or you are so far out of it, it doesn't matter whether you try them or not. Paul was right. Set up your special plays early and run them early. Get them done, it affects your opposition. This approach to the game has a good track record. When I was at Stanford, I was told by our student manager that in seven straight games, we scored on our first drive. This year in virtually every game, we scored early. Against the Raiders, a game we lost, in 17 plays we had two touchdowns. Our problem was later on. The point is that in every game, we will move the ball early. A year ago we moved the ball throughout the game. Last year, we just moved it early. Planning can make the difference. Those first twenty five plays can make the difference. 5. ESTABLISH SEQUENCE. If you have running plays with any sequence to them at all, you will want to start the sequence so you can establish something to

work from. If you can do this at home, or in your office, think and visualize yourself how you would like to see the game develop. Write down your plays and the corresponding formations. Believe me, it takes tremendous pressure off of you. If you feel confident going into the game, it makes you that much more confident. If you have the feeling that a lot of us have had before a game, that you are going to lose the thing, you are out gunned, etc., it certainly takes a lot of pressure off the out-gunned coach to know that you have done everything you could before going into the game. If you want to sleep at night before the game, have your first 25 plays established in your own mind the night before that. You can walk into the stadium and you can start the game without that stress factor. You will start the game and you will remind yourself that you are looking at certain things because a pattern has been set up. 6. ISOLATE THE SECOND HALF. In our particular case we have already gone into the second half, not in the detail that we did at the start of the game. In our particular level, every game is a tight one. If you win a game by a big score, you never expected to. If you lose by a big score, you never expected to. There is just never a game that you can count on. You might as well plan part of the second half. You hold certain things back that you think will be effective in the second half. Some are related to your original plan, others are related to your opposition in regard to what adjustments you think they might make. I will tell you this, I think we can do a better job with halftime adjustments on Thursday than we can at halftime the day of the game. It's that simple.

SITUATIONAL FOOTBALL
The question comes up how can you have 25 starting plays when you don't know what the down and distance will be or where you' 11 be on the field, etc. Let's get into the other part of the plan because that's the difference. We have 25 plays we have basically decided upon. We have talked to the line coach, who may handle the running end of it. Basically you look for a formula to win in those 25 plays. Let's talk about things we seldom practice but they win or lose a game. 1. BACKED UP OFFENSE. You won't worry about it until you are backed up, but one of the things we do as part of our plan, the offense will run any where from your own one foot line out as far as your own 8-10 yard line. What are you going to do when you look down at the far end of the field, you have the ball, your players seem like they are a mile away from you and you have to drive out. The defense certainly has a feeling about that. They feel if they have you in the hole, the defensive charges are going to be lower and harder, you know the Opposition is going to be blitzing. You know that who ever is supporting sweep plays is going to be up near the line of scrimmage. You know that the linebackers are ready to plug as quickly as they can because, obviously they have you in a jam. There are certain factors such as that that you look for when you scout the Opposition. In our case, we have probably four runs and two passes for the backed up offense. The passes, you hate to think of throwing, but you may be behind and have to throw. You do certain types of passes from that situation. Things that you can do the best with very little chance of interception.

We know when we are backed up, we can't fumble the ball. Certainly when we are backed up, we can't take a loss. We know that when we are backed up, a penalty against us is far more damaging, and we know when we are backed up we have to have room for out punter to punt the ball with a certain amount of poise. If he doesn't have the room, the ball is snapped very quickly to him, it's a bad punt, the return is good and it means 7 points for the Opposition. So backed up offense means something to us in our game plan, but also it means something when we practice. This all comes from experience, men. It wasn't ordained to me or any one else. It came through 25 years of coaching and some bad experiences with it. Generally when you practice this kind of work it has to be contact. It does not have to be scrimmaging where there is tackling, but there has to be full speed blocking where everybody gets a feel. You take your offense to the goal line, put the ball on the six inch line, offense huddle up in the end zone, defense huddle up and wait. Now the offensive coaches and the defensive coaches will discuss backed up football. The defensive coach will talk about the advantage they have and how to maintain it and what you must not allow the opponent to do. The offensive coach talks about the things I just mentioned. Now, the team has been spoken to, here are the plays we will be running, probably all year, we are going to fight our way out of here. And so you will practice it. You may be able to get that done twice or three times during the first two weeks of practice. What you are going to do is to back up your team to the six inch line, move the ball out to the two yard line, move the ball out to the four yard line, and in each case, talk about the things you are going to do and how to practice them. The defense, of course, is doing the correlating thing. Each week in practice when you play a given opponent, you have four plays, line up your team on its own one yard line and you run four plays to remind everybody if the backed up offense and what the problems will be. Most often the problem comes just inside the tight end. The linebackers or ends as you may call them, come underneath the tight ends. Often we will go to two tight ends, as part of that offense. But we practice it. Believe it or not, when your team is on the field and somebody punts the ball out of bounds, of some other disaster occurs and your offensive team runs out there, you can hear them talking about the backed up offense, what they have to do. When that starts to happen, your team is prepared to play football. You are doing the best job you can do, a thorough job. 2. 3RD AND 3 OFFENSE. The next thing we talk about is the 3rd and 3 offense. Naturally this is in your game plan. 3rd and 3 is a tough situation. We will practice it. We will allow certain amounts of time in our training camp for 3rd and 3 football. We set up the down markers, we line up the defense, offense, we have lectured it to our team as part of our situation football. Most often you are going to go to your best back with your best running play and you are not going to fool anybody at that point. You are going to depend heavily on that running back to get the extra yard or two with his ability, figuring that the block for the first two yards of it. 3rd and 3 to us may mean a pass in our style of football. We may throw 3 to 1 over running the ball because of some of the defenses we face. 3rd and 3 means something and you practice it. The first two weeks of practice you will hit on that. You will say, one of the toughest situations we have, men, is when it is 3rd down and approximately 3 yards to go. The opposition is not in their short yardage defense at that point, but they are going to come after you and it is a critical down. Occasionally the defense isn't quite as

aware as the offense of how important it is. In our 3rd and 3 offense we will probably have four runs. They may be the same as your backed up offense, and in our case, we will have two or three passes. You will practice those each week. You will say it is 3rd and 3 as part of your situation practice. We are going to have four plays, defense get ready. It will be live, not tackling. We are going to block it and we are going to make it. The runner will have the feeling of what he is after. He will come out of the huddle and see those 3 yards are the difference in this ball game, we win it or we lose it. He will learn how to control the ball, not take any silly chances, stopping, dodging. He has to bust up in there, use his blocking and get his three. 3. 3RD AND SHORT. 3rd and short can mean anywhere from 1-6 inches all the way to 2 yards. In this situation the 6 inch play may be different than the 2 yard play. Often there are plays that are somewhat different than your other plays. Most teams will stay in their same defense but they will have a way to play it. Everybody will pinch down, linebackers scraping, corners at the line of scrimmage, safety at the line, whatever. As we list our short yardage plays, we will list the play and we might list the formation, a 16 Power for example, may be the play that we use from 1 inch to 1 1/2 yards. Often 6 inches to go, we are going to quarterback sneak. Often 2 yards to go is too much for a sneak, who are we kidding, we are going to run an off tackle power with double team blocking. I really don't worry much about the play because everyone runs a slightly different offense. I do know, that you as a coach better anticipate the degree of what we call the short yardage situation. Again, you talk to your team during the two week period before your first game, you are probably only going to get about 10 minutes of it, and you are going to practice it. You are going to line up your team, you're going to have your down markers, you are going to show right now, we've got 2 yards to go and it is 3rd down. Here are the things we do, here's what to expect from the Opposition. We are going to move it right up to the tip of the ball on that yard marker. Meanwhile, the defensive coach is doing the same thing. Talking about it. Each week you are going to get four short yardage plays. To be honest with you, it would be more than that for us. 4. SHORT YARDAGE PASSES. One, naturally, is the one you try to score a touchdown on. The short yardage situation is the only time you are sure what the coverage is. Teams won't play around with it. If you are sure of the pass coverage, the time you might be able to score is on 3rd down and one yard to go and your team knows it. This is where we have them, they know the coverage, we know who is going to be blitzing and how to block it. We will also have a play, most often with the quarterback rolling out, running or passing to make the yard or two as one of our passes. So we have a TD play and we want it every week and we practice it every week. You may not use it for 7 weeks and you will win a game with it the eighth week. OPPONENT'S 20 YARD LINE (PLUS 20) By and large, if you have gotten to your opponent's 20 yard line with one or two first downs, the opposing head coach is desperate. The defensive coach is trembling because the head Coach is walking toward him. The head coach says, "Blitz, stop them now. Blitz, they are killing us." The defensive coach doesn't have time to explain that they have only made one first down and it was the silly offense that got them there. Most people get desperate, some people panic. Teams go to a man to man coverage, teams will blitz. So, on the plus 20 yard line, we are going to throw the ball and make a touchdown. Now we have a better idea

of what the pass coverages are. We know the man to man coverage is far more likely than a pure zone coverage. We know that teams are more likely to blitz 50 we are looking to throw for a touchdown. I don't recommend that unless you have a skilled quarterback One week it may be the 18 yard line or the 25 yard line, but that part of our football is special. We will have four passes that would be scoring passes. You might go the entire game and not use them because that situation doesn't come up. You move the ball from the 45 down to the 2, you are never there. You have passes and you are looking to break man to man coverage. You may have some special runs because a blitzing defense, if you trap it just right, you can score against it. Again, the first two weeks of football practice, you show your team. You show your team what you think is best in this situation. We will use the same ones all year, but we are going to practice them. You talk about it for ten minutes, you practice it offensively and defensively. During the week of practice before a game, there is situational football. You move the ball to the plus 15 or plus 18, wherever that breaking point is for you and your opponent and you run those passes. Now when your team comes out of the huddle on the 18 yard line, the guys are saying, "Look out for the blitz, here's our chance to score." The receiver is saying, "Throw the ball out front of me, don't make me stop for it." Whatever it is, you have those plays. In our case, most of our touchdown passes will come from this area. If they want to zone you, we have outlet people who we would throw to against the zone. We know that it gets tougher and tougher to score as you go in closer. PLUS 8 TO THE PLUS 3 OR 4. This is when your opponent hasn't got into his goal line defense. Often you will go to your backed up football. There are certain base block run plays against the three man line that you are going to run right at that point. You are looking to see if they have substituted their goal line defense. If they haven't substituted their goal line defense, you are looking for your 8 yard line or your close offense. You have certain plays that you would run. Again, going back to your two weeks practice before your opening game, you talk about it. "Men, there is a point from that 10 yard line in that they are going to stay in their basic defense. They are going to blitz us and we are going to have certain plays that we are going to run." We know that people can get underneath the blocker and make the stops. We know that we don't want to lose yardage. GOAL LINE OFFENSE. In this phase they have substituted their goal line defense. I suppose there are teams that don't substitute, but by and large, let's assume they do. They use 6 linemen and the gap charge. Often you have to make a change in the blocking patterns that you'll use to face up to that goal line defense. Like our short yardage offense, when we talk about our goal line offense, we are talking about what we need. Certainly there is certain situation where we need inches. So we would start our list with those plays where we need inches to score. We would move our list down to let's say the six plays we might run if we are sitting with 3rd down and 3 on the 3 yard line and they are still in their goal line defense. You will see varied charges. When we get to the six inch line or the 1 foot line, we are going to see everyone in the gap, coming straight ahead. When we are on the 3 yard line with 3 yards to go, often there is an out charge. There is a substitute man coming in for one of the linebackers. There is a free safety back in the game, those kind of things happen. We have to account for those situations. You can't account for these situations if you haven't planned to do it because you will look down at that far end of the field and you will just see

a bunch of bodies and rear ends facing you. You can't tell where you are. You have to have a method you have worked with and your coach in the press box has to tell you just where you are. We talk to our quarterback about signaling distance. He will put up his hands and you think it is something that it is not. He will signal and it looks like we need 3 yards and later you will see the film and we only needed 1 yard. You have ways to talk to him about what that means to you and then you have that part of your football developed. The first two weeks of practice you have to have some goal line football. Every week you have a certain number of plays. You place the ball on the 3 yard line, the 2 yard line, the 1 yard line, the 6 inch line, and the 1 inch line. Bring it out to the 3 and it is 3rd and 3 on the 3. Here's what we are going to run. Practice it that way and often these plays run together. Your players have so much more confidence, coming out of the huddle knowing what they have been in those situations before. Obviously, line splits make a difference. Hopefully there is an extra blocker on the weakside, the tight end or some big wide rear ended guy, to help protect his gap. But whatever you have, if you have planned it and fail, you can't blame yourself for losing your poise. You can't blame yourself for panicking if you have planned these things and they fail. You may really search yourself for the kinds of decisions you made on Thursday night, but you certainly can't make the decision during the game. As a coach, one of the things you are always fighting during the game is the stress factor, breaking your will. The stress factor will affect your thinking. I have been in situations where I could not even begin to think what to do. From that point on, I knew that I had better rehearse everything. END OF THE GAME (LAST 3 PLAYS). To save your own sanity, you'd better practice the last three plays of the game. I don't worry so much what they are. Don't get yourself in a position to try to think of something to do with just a few seconds left because you will always wonder why you didn't do something else. Through experience we said that we were going to have 3 plays. Often they are the kind of plays with a very low percentage. I have seen the Atlanta Falcons win their division in three consecutive games, I think it was, throwing the ball way down the field on their so-called planned play with a tipped pass. I won't talk about those plays in detail, but certainly one would be catching the ball and lateralling it. Our team has practiced those last three plays and when it gets down to that point, they go in the game knowing just what they are going to do. I say, "Good luck" and amazingly enough, a couple of those have worked. We walked off the field with our heads up. "My God, we almost pulled it out." Rather than throwing the ball up in the air and having it intercepted and humiliating you. 3RD AND 8 YARDS TO GO (OR MORE). You have plays that you are going to call for that kind of situation. A lot of high school teams will run the ball on 3rd and 8. If they can run it, they should run it because it is certainly the best way to attack somebody. 3rd down and 8 should mean something to you. Number one, the best single pass in Football is the hook. It's not an out. Percentages throwing an accurate out drop considerably compared to a hooking pass. Obviously, a receiver can adjust to a hook. The receiver can see the ball leave the quarterback's hands and the receiver can adjust to coverages. You will need some type of a hook pass that gets you 8 yards on 3rd and 8. You hear the sportscaster comment that the receiver did not run the distance he needed to make a first down. You have to school your team on the fact that half of the yardage you make forward passing is after the catch. If we have 3rd down and 15 yards to go,

it does not mean we are going to run a 15 yard pass pattern. We will generally throw the ball 10 and get up into the 20's. We remind our team, it is 2nd and 20, 3rd and 25, we are going to run a basic pattern, get all we can out of the completion and run for the rest of it. We are constantly reminding our receivers what their stats are running after the catch. Dwight Clark might be 4.2; Fred Soloman might be 9.3. This is one way you measure a receivers performance and his contribution to the ball club. 3rd down and 8 does not mean you have to throw an 8 yard pass. LONG YARDAGE - LAST THREE PLAYS. What are you going to do when you have 15 yards to go on a given down? You count on your best receiver catching the ball and then have running room to make the yardage. In each of these situations, you will practice them. TIME FACTOR. The next thing you talk about is the time factor in a game. There is a dramatic difference for example, between the end of the first half and the end of the second half. Obviously at the end of the game if you are behind, you are not going to be very cautious. You have to do certain things. Some of the gross errors are made at the end of the first half. So often teams leave the field after attempting to drive and score with time outs remaining. I suggest, if you have a so called two minute offense, you first decide whether you are going to score or run the clock out. You can run the clock out in a way that your principal and students won't notice. You have to call certain sweep type plays, but you are looking at the clock and you want to get the heck out of there. We know, we may try to go for it with a two minute offense, but the minute I see the odds start to turn the other way, I signal to our quarterback and now we watch the clock run. We want to get out of there. Let's say that we feel we can get into position to score and we have been a reasonably effective team in doing that. We are a team that uses our time outs. We want to use our time outs even if it is at the wrong time as far as the clock is concerned. What we really need to do is discuss strategy with the quarterback. We will give the quarterback two or maybe three plays to call. We will talk about what the defense is doing, what defense they are in, remind him what our game plan was. We are not going to be able to send plays in at that point. So we will set our strategy at the expense of the clock. We know that with a minute and 20 seconds left in the half, call your time outs if the clock is running because if that clock is running with a minute and 20 seconds, if you have any kind of play, by the time you run the next play you have probably run 20-25 seconds off the clock. You do that twice and it is now third down and you are really in trouble, because the other team is going to get the ball back. I say use your time outs and don't wait too long. Almost the first day of practice you install your basic running game. It might be a 16 Power or a 17 Power, whatever it is, you simply talk to your team in a meeting and tell them that we are going to call two plays. The quarterback is going to call the formation, the plays are going to be on a certain snap count, for us it is on set which is the second sound, and the quarterback is going to say "two plays" 16 Power twice. You come up to the line of scrimmage and you run 16 power on set. You don't jump around, you take your time and run it again. If you will do that in your early camp once or twice a day, just a couple of plays, you have established a system in which you can call your plays. Most two minute offensive plays are not elaborate plays. You can repeat the same one three or four times. It could be

a very simple hooking type pass or an out. The point is, all you need is the facility to do it. You simply say, two plays and name them. The next thing you might do is call your formation Red Right, check with me, you come to the line of scrimmage and say 16. Now you can run two plays. Remember if you huddle up it could cost you at least 25 seconds. The two minute offense is related to one, being able to call two plays in the huddle; two, to use your time outs; three, know when you are not going to make it. Those are the key things. FOUR MINUTE OFFENSE. Four minute offense does not mean you are trying to score. In the two minute offense you want to score points. Four minute offense, you want to use the clock and control the ball. This was brought home in 1972 when I was with the Cincinnati Bengals. With four minutes left in the game, we had an 11 point lead and had the ball. We lost the game. We know this, we can use 35 seconds on the clock by simply not going out of bounds, not throwing an incompletion and not being penalized. But 35 seconds is 4 forward passes that your opponent can get if you don't use it up. In a four minute offense, every play can use 35 seconds. All we really have to do is make a first down and we are going to win that thing. You must practice the four minute offense. It has to be live, you don't tackle people necessarily because you can blow the whistle when you think the man would have been stopped. You have to talk to your team about it. You are going to win the game and here is how you are going to do it. You are going to have the lead with four minutes to go and you are going to have a first down. You will win if you can maintain control. You know you have 35 seconds if you don't go out of bounds. You know the clock will stop on a penalty. You know that a fumble is disastrous, that if you can just squeak out a first down by good play calling and aggressive blocking, you will win. Always feel that when you go into a game, the other team has a one point edge on you. As a coach even if they have a 40 point edge on you, don't think about that. You figure every time you play, you are a one point underdog. They are one point better than you are. You will be a little more alert about it. If you think the opponent is one point better, you have to control the ball. We have plays that we are going to run. We are looking at the clock and unfortunately, we may have to throw a pass to get that first down, which we have had to do and have been successful. But we have practiced it and our quarterback knows the fears he can have with a mistake. Your four minute offense can win you the game. If you will talk about it, you will be surprised. If you practice it each week, four of five plays. You can say, here we are, on our 30 yard line, four minutes to go, let's see what we can do. Let's see if we can get a first down and how we will use the clock. Throughout much of this situational football, there is pressure on the offense. SNAP COUNT. One of the big mistakes you can make is to play around with the snap count. Any time we are backed up, we are going to snap the ball on set. Any time we are sitting there in short yardage, we are not going to play around with the snap count. We have seen teams try to draw teams offside and one of their own linemen moves and then it is 3rd down and 6 to go. We are going to snap the ball on the regular count that makes sense. Paul Brown has a certain snap count for every play and Paul was right because with certain plays it makes a dramatic difference in the way you use your cadence. The first thing you remind yourself, don't outsmart yourself. Give the offense every chance

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to come off the ball together. Further down the list you might say, let's disrupt the defense by getting them off balance. Your snap count is very important to you. If you are talking about offensive football, the running game is the most vital part of the game, but when you talk about your running game, what you are saying is you have to be able to run when you are backed up. You have to be able to run on 3rd and 3, you have to be able to run on short yardage. You have to be able to run through tough situations. In the professional level, the forward pass dominates the rest of the game. But if you can't run in tough situations, your chances of success are minimal. So what do we do? We take a sheet and list our first 25 plays. We keep a sheet and on one side of it are listed 25 plays that we are going to run. We have one square accounting for the second half of the football game and we have a block where we write in our adjustments at half time. I will show you two charts at the end of this talk. You start the game with the first 25 plays, but now it is 3rd and 3. You turn the sheet over and go to the 3rd and 3 list. You have listed the plays in the order that you would call them on 3rd and 3. You take it; turn the sheet over and go to your next play. Trouble; long yardage, you turn the sheet over and go to the long yardage category. Punt; get the ball back. You have your first 25 plays listed, but of course, somewhere in here you are going to be backed up. You have the ball on your 1 yard line; so don't fight it. Turn over the sheet and look at your BACKED UP OFFENSIVE PLAYS. You make a first down, turn the sheet over and now we are on play number 5. It works; go to number 6. It works; go to number 7; we are in pretty good shape. Oh, you got to the 20 yard line. You have another choice now. You can stay with your original list which might have been a basic run; or you can decide to try to get into the end zone with a pass. Say you don't quite make it and you are on the 8 yard line. You are on the 6 inch line. You look at these categories. You score a touchdown. By the time you get back to the sheet, you are behind 21-7, but don 't worry about it. You have a lot of plays on your list to call. So continue to go through your list. This is a way to pre-plan the game. We feel pretty solid about this. Write on the plan the opponent and the date so that you don't end up using last years plan. This is a format that establishes how you practice. The next thing is when do you practice these things. Obviously we have more time to practice than you do. But I will fake a plan for the high school coaches. If I remember right, you play on Friday night. On Saturdays you are cutting the grass, if I remember right. That is not a bad life. On Sunday you should go to church with your wife.

MON. - Review, etc. Install plays. TUE. - We will not cover the situations that much. WED. - 6 plays (4 minutes) 6 plays (3rd & 3) 6 plays (short yardage) 6 plays (goal line) THU. - Last 3 plays

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6 plays (long yardage) 6 plays (3rd & 8) FRI. - GAME When we plan our practice we don't talk about how much time we are going to practice. We figure that one play is one minute. So we go by the number of plays. In a given practice we will have 5 plays of short yardage, and 6 of long yardage. We will say "get 12 plays in 10 minutes" of drills. Each day you will have one segment of your game plan that you will practice. There is obviously time when you are going to cover your base offense and your base defense. But, you plan on certain days for these things to be done. You can live with this much easier than second guessing yourself. On the other side of the sheet is where the difference is. This is where we categorize all of the things we have talked about. Thank you very much.

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Controlling the Ball With the Pass

BILL WALSH former San Francisco 49ers and Stanford Cardinal My philosophy has been to control the ball with the forward pass. To do that we have to have versatility-versatility in the action and types of passes thrown by the quarterback.

Dropback Passes
We like the dropback pass. We use a three-step drop pattern, but more often we will use a five-step drop pattern of timed patterns down the field. From there we go to a seven-step drop. When our quarterback takes a seven-step drop, he's allowing the receivers time to maneuver down the field. Therefore, we will use a three-step drop pattern when we are throwing a quickout or hitch or slant which, by and large, the defense is allowing you to complete by their alignment or by their coverage. The five-step drop pattern for the quarterback calls for a disciplined pattern by the receiver. He runs that pattern the same way every time. He doesn't maneuver to beat the defensive back. Too often in college football, either the quarterback is standing there waiting for the receiver, or the receiver has broken before the quarterback can throw the ball. These are the biggest flaws you will see in the forward pass. Now when the receiver breaks before the ball can be thrown, the defensive back can adjust to the receiver. Any time the quarterback holds the ball waiting for the receiver to break, the defensive back sees it and breaks on the receiver. So the time pattern is vital.

Play-Action Passes

You can't just dropback pass. You have to be able to keep the defense from zeroing in on your approach. That's why the play pass is vital. By and large, the play-action pass will score the touchdown. The dropback pass will control the ball. For play-action passing, we have We will show different backfield line blocking. We will go to the we get to the opponent's 25-yard certain blocking fundamentals that we use. actions with basically the same offensive play pass as often as we can, especially as line.

Action Pass

The third category of pass that most people use is what we call the action pass, where your quarterback moves outside. There are a couple of reasons for moving outside. One certainly is to avoid the inside pass rush. For a dropback passing team we'll sprint-out "waggle" as we call it-outside to avoid blitzers who approach straight up the field on us. The other advantage is to bring yourself closer to the potential receiver.

We'll get outside to throw the ball and get ourselves closer to the man we want to throw to. When you can get outside, the trajectory of the ball can be flatter because normally there isn't a man between you and the receiver.

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The versatility also includes changing your formations. We continuously change receiver width and spacing. We seldom will line up our receiver with the same spacing on two or three plays in a row. If we want to throw the ball to the outside, we will reduce the split of the receiver. We need running room to the outside. We don't want the ball in the air very long. If we want to throw inside, we will extend the split of our receivers, so that there is more maneuvering room to the inside, and spread the defense. Our backs, as many teams know will cheat to get where they have to be. We know that if we throw to backs, the first thing on their mind is how to release out of the backfield. We are quite willing to move the man to get the release and sometimes telegraph what we are doing. We are quite willing to do that with the idea that when we want to break a given tendency, we simply line them up there and run something else. We will vary the split of the receivers according to the pattern and the coverage and, of course, to add versatility. The biggest problem you will have in the forward pass is when you have to throw the ball a number of times and, with a very limited inventory, you begin to throw the same pattern over and over. You get into trouble. The argument that you will throw the interception has to be qualified with how much you know about the forward passing game versus the running game. In our last game, our opponent fumbled five times, and we threw no interceptions. That might have been the difference in the game. Play Selection One of the factors involved with our success years ago with the Cincinnati Bengals was that we would begin to set a game plan for the opening of the game. We continued that at Stanford. In a given game, say, for instance, against Southern California, we ran the first 12 plays we had decided on in order. Of course, we ran out of lists because the first 12 worked and none worked after that. But the point is we went 12 plays in order, right down the line. We went eight straight games scoring the first time we had the ball. By the time we have completed 8 to 10 plays, we've forced the opponent to adjust to a number of things. We've kept him off balance with the type of thing we were doing, and we pretty much established in a given series what we would come to next. That's a good approach to offensive football. It forces you to go into that game with a certain calmness. You know where you're going, rather than having to say, "What in the hell do we do now?" Occasionally planned plays don't work, but we keep going. We don't change; we don't worry about it. We try to create an effect on our opponent. The effect is that he feels he has to adjust. We present different looks and dilemmas. We run the ball right at him. We throw the ball over his head. Meanwhile, because we know what the play is, we readily see what their adjustments are. We try to get a line on their first down defenses, but we take it from there. In Scoring Territory I have seen many teams march the ball beautifully, but right around the 15yard line, they are already warming up their placekicker, because right at that point defenses change, the field they can operate in changes, and suddenly their basic offense goes all to pieces. My contention is that if we are on their 25, we're going for the end zone. Failing at that, we will kick a field goal. In an evenly matched game, I

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don't want to try to take the ball from their 25 to the goal line by trying to smash it through people, because three out of four times, you won't make it. Unless you are superior. Of course, if you are vastly superior it makes very little difference how you do it. Why? First, every defensive coach in the country is going to his blitzes about right there. The pass coverage, by and large, will be man-to-man coverage. We know that if they don't blitz one down, they're going to blitz the next down. Automatically. They'll seldom blitz twice in a row but they'll blitz every other down. If we go a series where there haven't been blitzes on the first two downs, here comes the safety blitz on the third down. So we are looking, at that point, to get into the end zone. By the style of our football, we'll have somebody to get the ball to a little bit late-just as an outlet to get 4 or 5 yards, to try to keep it. But from the 25 to the 10, we're going for the end zone. Midfield Between our own 10-yard line and the opponent's 25, we operate our field offense. We know that on first down our ball-control passing is vital. By and large, on first-and-10 you'll get a 2-deep zone - zone-type defense. We can drop the ball off to a back late and still make 4 to 5 yards. Those 4 or 5 yards are as important to us as some other team making the same on an option play. You often will see us run with the ball on second-and-lO, because we want 5 yards. If you run a basic running play, you can get your 5. At third-and-5, we are right back with a ball-control pass, dumping to a back, and we're making it. If we can make 30 first downs a game, we'll win. Short Yardage We have standard passes to throw against a goalline defense. Too often people try to go in there and butt heads with good linebackers on the goal line. Too often they don't make it. If we get inside that 5-yard line, half the time we are going to throw the ball. Now, if you're marching through somebody, you can just close your eyes and hand the ball off But when it's very competitive, that goal-line pass is vital. So we have a series of those. We never call them anywhere else on the field. When we are around their 35-yard line in a short-yardage situation, if we don't see somebody standing deep down the middle, we're probably going to go for the six points. To make it on third-and-1 we will often throw to a back out of the backfield. Third-and-3 is the toughest of all to make. We have a certain list of runs and a certain list of passes. When we have a third-and-3, we don't grope. We go to it. Ball-Control Passing Don't isolate throwing the forward pass to a given down and distance. If you are going to throw the ball, you must be willing to throw on first down, not a token pass hoping for the best, but a pass that is designed to get you a certain amount of yardage.

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In our ball-control passing, we will use the five-step drop pattern on first down, because we know through the drilling of our quarterback, that we can get 4 or 5 dropping the ball off to a back, who is an outlet, or to a tight end. So we are quite willing to throw a ball-control pass on first down, and then go to our seven-step drop maneuvering pattern on third down. As you can see, most of our offense is based on ball-control passes, no matter what the situation. Figure 1 shows you a ball-control pass that Sid Gilman may have developed some time ago. It's one of the most effective forward passes we've used. FIGURE 1 Red Right - 22 Z-In

22 Z-In This is a five-step drop pattern. The quarterback takes five big steps and a hitch step and throws on time. The receiver splits 12 to 14 yards. The flanker releases inside for 5 to 6 yards and then bursts hard to the outside foot of the cornerback. What he wants to do is to get that cornerback on his heels. Then he'll turn in about three steps and catch the pass 12 yards deep. The fullback runs what we call a scat pattern. He doesn't have any pickup, and he releases to the outside. He never catches the ball more than 2 yards past the line of scrimmage, most often right at the line of scrimmage. If the backer blitzes, he looks for the ball early. Our tight end picks off the near end backer. He'll put his head past that man's shoulder, slow down, and make contact. He bounces off it and goes to the far guard position, turns and faces the quarterback, and watches his eyes because he's the last outlet. The quarterback throws the ball related to the sky safety. If the safety gives ground, he'll throw to the fullback. If the safety flattens out, we'll throw in behind him, in this case to the flanker. If it's man-to-man, the flanker runs a man-to-man pattern trying to beat the corner. If it's man-toman, the safety will often chase the tight end, and there will be a good throwing lane with the backer coming out on the fullback.

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When we throw to the fullback the ball should arrive to him a foot in front of his number. If the fullback has to reach, he will take his eyes off the ball, slow down or break stride, and probably get nothing out of it. Out Pattern The out pattern is a timed pattern thrown from a five-step drop. On a timed pattern, a quarterback does not take a hitch step. The receiver goes straight up the field as close to full speed as he can. At 10 yards he crosses over and breaks out. He catches the ball at 12 (see Figure 2). The SP doesn't care about the coverage, other than if they roll up, he runs a seam. He doesn't care where the defensive back is located, and he doesn't change his angle of release. He just runs the pattern. When he catches it, he goes up the sideline. We tell our backs, 'you want the sideline." The reason is that only one man can tackle you at a time, and he often underestimates a ball-carrier along the sideline. What we are after on 22 Z-In is a 7- to 9-yard gain to the fullback, or a 12-yard gain to the flanker. The fullback gets it about two out of three times. If the two primary receivers are covered, our quarterback will come back and look at the tight end. As soon as the tight end sees the quarterback's eyes, he slides laterally for the pass (see Figure 1). We have several other options off our 22 action, depending on the defense. We have a Z-in with fullback motion, a circle-out with our flanker, and a Y-out with the tight end. The key to the pass is the fullback. He should average 7 to 8 yards a catch. That's what we mean by ball-control passing. FIGURE 2 Red Right - 24 Double Square Out (OKIE)

The quarterback decides prior to the snap and just after the snap whether he's going to throw him the ball or not. The quarterback takes five quick steps. Notice I said five big steps in the Z in. Now that we're throwing out, the QB takes five quick steps. He can't lead the receiver with the pass because any time you lead a receiver who is running parallel to the ball, he'll never catch up to the ball.

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Throw right at the man's hip. If you throw into his body, the defensive back doesn't have any way to get to it. What we are trying to get here is the defensive back giving ground this way and then losing lateral ground this way. That's on single coverage. On this particular pattern both receivers do the same thing, but I would say most often the flanker gets it. The tight end takes an inside release, goes straight up the field, and runs a full speed crossing pattern, but never crosses the ball. The tight end on his basic crossing pattern is the one you go to on man-under defense. If a team is running man-under, that kind of an out is suicide. So if our quarterback sees inside-out coverage on wide receivers, reasonably close, his drop now goes right to the tight end; he's looking for the tight end to beat a man-under linebacker. M Pattern The backs play a key role. They check the backers on a blitz. After reading for the blitz, the back runs what we call an M pattern. In the M pattern, the back moves 1 1/2 to 2 yards back from his blocking position. When he is 6 yards deep and 3 yards outside the offensive tackle, he turns upfield looking for the M pattern. On the M pattern, the weak linebacker-some call him a defensive end-takes away the square out, we hold the ball, and pop it right off to the halfback (see Figure 2). There's also a tight end option off the double square-out pattern. As you can see in Figure 2, when both middle linebackers cover backs to the outside, and blitz one man, this isolates our tight end on a backer. He has a good chance of beating the backer. Hook Pattern Now let's look at the seven-step drop pattern. This is one play that we've almost worn out. On a seven-step drop pattern, our receivers will maneuver. We're going to run a blue left for us, a right, which is motion, and we're going to run a 79, which is weak flow pass protection. Now X is going to run a pattern on the weak side (see Figure 3).

FIGURE 3 Blue Right - 79 X-Hook

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You vary the width of the receiver. He may be 1 yard split or he may be 12 yards split, depending on which linebacker we are trying to beat. X works up the field, gets past the man who has short coverage, and turns in. We tell him to get past the W and beat the M. On this pattern we tell our receiver that he must go at least 12 yards and never more than 18 yards on the hook. Not because he can't get open, but because the quarterback can't wait that long to throw. A lot of it is predicated on pass rush. We say never less than 12, because we can't have a hook develop at 12 when our quarterback takes seven steps.

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BILL WALSH on the PLAY - PASS

from American Football Monthly INTRODUCTION The Play-Pass is the one fundamentally sound football play that does everything possible to contradict the basic principles of defense. I truly believe it is the single best tool available to take advantage of a disciplined defense. By using the play-pass as an integral pant of your offense you are trying to take advantage of a defensive team that is very anxious very intense and very fired-up to play football. The play-pass is one of the best ways to cool all of that emotion and intensity down because the object of the play-pass is to get the defensive team to commit to a fake run and then throw behind them. Once you get the defensive team distracted and disoriented, they begin to think about options and, therefore, are susceptible to the running game. In highly competitive football, it is very unlikely that you will be able to run the ball so effectively that you will not need to do anything else to move the football. There is no question that having the play-pass, as a part of your offensive arsenal, can allow you to get a key first down or big chunks of yardage. However, the play-pass and the commitment to it require more than just minimal inclusion in your team's offense. It must be practiced, on a regular basis, with painstaking precision, by every member of the offensive unit. The proper use of the play-pass must be planned for and anticipated by a well prepared coaching staff. Ball handling, play-faking, carrying out blocking assignments, running backs taking the proper courses, etc. must constantly be practiced. Actually, the entire offensive team can enjoy and take real pride in the fact that they are doing a good job with their assignments. The players find real satisfaction in this part of the game. They can achieve a real sense of purpose in the fact that they are doing such a good job of faking the run that a defensive player is taken out of position and becomes frustrated. Players will always respond to this kind of coaching-result-oriented teaching, with everyone knowing that their assignment is critical to the overall success of the play. Unfortunately, the necessity for fundamentals of ball handling and play-faking are sometimes overlooked by coaching staffs. These staffs will not take the time to make sure that the entire team understands what they are trying to do with a play-pass (For example, the back-side tackle must understand that he could be the critical factor in the tell-tale recognition by the defense that the play is a play-pass.) The coaches have the responsibility to make certain that everyone understands what the team is attempting to accomplish with any given play and how each individual player's execution factors into the entire equation of that particular play. Preparing to run the play-pass as part of an offensive package requires that it be given a specific period time in practice. One facet of this would be to schedule sessions before practice or after practice with the running backs, the quarterback and a center-you must have a center at all times. The coach will go through the drills. These sessions do not require being performed at full-speed. However, the techniques have to be detailed and repeated so the physical part of running the play will become second nature for each player. Often, after practicing this way and becoming accustomed to the philosophy of the play-pass, a second or third-year player will become very adept at play-pass faking. Whereas, during a game or a pressure situation, the freshman or rookie will revert to other things because he just does not have the poise to sustain the fake-poise is essential. Developing an effective play-passing game requires isolated sessions before and after practice, in spring ball, pre-season and during the season. In preparing the play-pass during the week of a game, there should be a period- a 10-play period on a given day-with nothing but play-passes in which the players really concentrate on their particular assignments for that specific game, as opposed to the overall play-passing scheme.

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I am convinced that the play-pass can be a valuable weapon for any offense. Coaches utilizing them in their offensive systems and teams for which the play-pass has become a major factor, create con-cern for the opposition more than other offensive designs. Future opponents know they can be fooled and subsequently burned by just playing disciplined and intense defense. The play-pass can fit into any form of offense from Wishbone to Wing-T to Run-and-Shoot. Why Does the Play-Pass work? Best single tool in breaking a defense. Regardless of coaching, defensive design and preparation, the well-executed play pass can distort defensive continuity. The pass rush can be compromised and slowed. Linebacker coverage can be negated or they can be forced out of position. Defensive backs can be distracted and lose their relationship with receivers. Defensive caution because of an effective play-pass game can add to the effective-ness of the running game. Specific defenders can be isolated if they are prone to being fooled, or commit to the run before accounting for their coverage responsibility. Zone-blitz concepts are best attacked faking at the dropping linemen.

The defense has a difficult time accounting for the play-pass in terms of both preparation and actual game execution. If your line blocking and backfield faking is well-coordinated and well-executed, the defense must account for that in the running game. So, this is the one action that along with other special plays can disrupt defensive continuity. This is why it is the best single tool in breaking a defense. It can be can be run to gain a first down with a hooking type pass or it can be employed to score from down the field with a pass that goes beyond the secondary defenders. It is extremely difficult to stop a well conceived and executed play-pass unless the defense is concentrating on it. And, when they begin thinking about whether a particular play can be a play-pass or a run, then the running game is enhanced measurably.

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I do not believe in necessarily establishing a run or establishing a passing game. I believe more in fully dimensional football where you are establishing your offense. Your offensive package will certainly include runs and certainly include drop back or action-passes, where the quarterback moves outside, but it should also include the play-pass. The fully dimensional offense, in addition to the various passes, will probably have traps, draws, and misdirection plays. The play-pass serves its purpose in this one category of offensive football in that you iso-late and then develop the needs that you have and how the play-pass can affect the defense and how it can be coordinated and complement the running game. Simply using a token fake to a back passing by the quarterback will not be enough. It takes a concerted effort by all the linemen, backs and the quarterback to establish a play-pass such that there are very few tell-tale indicators to any-one that you are really faking a run. The play-pass can be used at any time. In an obvious passing situation, where there is long yardage or the score demands that you throw the ball, then naturally the play-pass is not a major factor other than the faking of draw. The draw pass is probably the most effective single play-pass because your line-men are allowed to pass protect as they would on a drop back pass and you can still fake the draw to the back. It can be used even when your team is behind and it you need multiple passes to move the ball to get into scoring position. Unless, the defense has softened up so much that they would have plenty of room to watch a play before they have to react to it. If the defense is playing a very soft, loose defense to stop the pass, then the play-pass is not of much value. Linebackers are the players that are most affected by the play-pass because they have keys to readwhether the keys are to read the backs or linemen. Once they make a specific read, they are going to commit themselves to a run. The better job you do of faking, the more you can get a commitment from linebackers into the line of scrimmage. It is important to note that all we are really talking about is to have the linebacker take a couple of steps-that is enough. It is not as though you have to baffle them and they come flying into the line of scrimmage and tackle a phantom ball carrier. What happens is the effective faking may hold them (LB) stationary for a count or may get them to step forward or occasionally fill into the hole. It really is of no consequence how the linebacker is fooled because once he is hesitating and not quite sure, the damage should be done. The receivers, meanwhile, are driving down the field and are working in behind them. The play-pass that holds linebackers and then throws between or behind them, is an excellent source for moving the ball for that critical first down. You are always looking for that overly aggressive linebacker or the inexperienced one. Most importantly, you want the aggressive linebacker to work against because he is going to commit against the run and he is going to want to heat those blockers to the point of attack. More often than not, he is the man that will be out of position. You can take advantage of the very aggressive linebacker with a playfake to hit toward his responsibilities or his side of the field-to pull him into that line and open up a big hole behind him. With respect to defensive backs, as you look at scouting reports and evaluate tapes, you should focus your attention on the defensive backs looking into the backfield and either losing touch with their receivers or committing themselves to stop the run. These DBs will be your targets. You will find some defensive backs that will feather back and will be looking into the backfield and lose relationship to the receiver because they think the ball naturally was run into the line of scrimmage and basically stopped. So they will level off and the receiver can break in behind them. There are others, especially in the safety position, that are head hunters and they are going to come flying into a play. You are always looking for that weak safety that will attack the line of scrimmage and make the tackle. Often, he is the best player on the defensive team because he is supporting the run so well that he is into the line of scrimmage the minute he sees something or he thinks he sees it; therefore, he is the one you want to get behind. The same analysis applies to the strong safety.

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As you review and analyze tapes of your upcoming opponents, you are looking for specific defenders to attack. Again, as an example, you are looking for the outside linebacker who fails to get into the flat or is slow getting there because he is fooled, or the inside linebacker who will attack a running play so forcefully that he loses sight of the ball, or a safety who will commit to the run and lose his perspective of the field, or a corner who will look into the backfield and take his eye off his receiver, etc.. In every scouting analysis, you have five checkpoints to look for and develop: (1) the cornerback that you are attacking; (2) the weak safety; (3) the strong safety; (4) outside linebackers; and (5) inside linebackers. In a given week, it may be that none of the five are worthy of attacking. But, in another week, it could be the weak safety, inside linebacker, etc. You have five checkpoints and you may or may not use any grouping of those depending on who you are playing and their respective players' tendencies. Typically your play-pass is a first or second down play. The only play-pass for third down would be the draw fake. You set up the faking of the draw by running draws on first and second down. Thereafter, on third down, when you fake the draw, the defense will have seen it before and they do not immediately think down and distance-they just react. The draw is the one play that if called on first or second down can be developed to the point that the play-pass draw on third down is especially effective. That sequence of plays is the single best combination to run-the draw on first or second down, then fake the draw -on third down to slow up the pass-rush and to pull linebackers forward to get them out of position, and throw the hooking pattern be-hind them for a first down. But as far as the basic running play and the pass that comes off of it, then obviously first and second down are the times to do it. This would be true unless it is third down and three or four yards to go and the other team is still playing run. If they are in a mode to play the running game, then the play-pass is a good call. Key Elements of the PIay-pass Must appear as close to the basic running play as possible. Line blocking, at least at the point of attack, must simulate run blocking. The running backs must run the same courses as the run play, and must deliberately hold the fake through the line of scrimmage. The quarterback's mechanics must duplicate those of the basic run. His actions on both the pass and the run should be uniform. Those defenders that are being attacked must be pin-pointed. They could be inside linebacker, outside linebacker, weak safety, strong safety or cornerback, The design of the play should be directed at a specific defender. The more successful and often used running play is the logical action from which to play-pass. Ball handling and faking should be practiced as part of a regular schedule. Often after regular practice is completed. Here an appreciation for the intricacies of the techniques is established. Specific periods should be established during the practice week for team execution. (For example- A 10play period on Thursday for a Saturday game.) Short yardage and goal-line situations call for aggressive blocking below the pad level of the defensive line. Any easing up makes for easy diagnosis by linebackers and defensive backs. The faking back and the quarterback must know which defender they are going after. Their fakes are then directed to fool that man. There is a difference between fooling a corner and an inside linebacker, etc. It is vitally important that in terms of execution the play-pass appear as close to the running play as possible. Each and every player on offense must execute his specific assignment with the same degree of intensity and with the same mechanics he would use in the running play they are faking. One way to accomplish this goal is to have a drill where you have the offensive team facing a video camera and execute plays at full speed (for example, starting with a skeleton group- center, quarterback and backs). Using the video camera to film the drill, the quarterback hands off the ball-the first repetition. On the next play, he will hand it off again on the same running play, and, finally, on the third play, he will fake it. Approximately ten yards away, the offensive squad will be facing the team running the plays, with each player focusing on the players playing their own respective positions. All of them watch their position

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closely to see what that handoff looks like and then what the fake looks like. You must force your players to execute these plays exactly the same so that they appear almost identical. As an example, take the motion of the swinging of the quarterback's arms as he hands off the ball and where he (QB) looks, the pad level of the running back and the location of his arms, etc. These all must be replicated with exact certainty. This will force the defense to hesitate momentarily to determine the play being run-that moment is all that is needed. The line coach will not necessarily like the play-pass because his linemen must make contact at the line of scrimmage at least to the side being attacked. On the back side of the play, conceivably you could drop people back; but even in that case it can be immediately noted and read by an alert and wellcoached defense. It is not so much that the defender will say, "I saw that tackle do something, therefore, I need to this...", but it is more of a feel they can get for how the play is unfolding-the play just does not look right if you do a poor job in technique and the defenders can sense it. If your opposing team scouts you, as they inevitably will, they can determine that you are a play-pass team. They are going to look for the indicators-such as the tackle drops on his play-pass and he attacks on the run. The more sophisticated defensive coaches and teams will look for indicators of play-passes by any player that will give them a chance to make the initial determination and recognition of the play. The offensive line can be an easy place for defenses to find indicators. One of the easy reads for the defense, is if a lineman's helmet pops up. The helmets and pads of offensive linemen have to stay at the same level as on a run play. The secondary defenders, corners or safeties. will see those helmets pop up or the tackle drop back and they know immediately that it is a pass. (For example, if the corner to the open side of the field is looking through an offensive tackle right to the quarterback and he sees that tackle's helmet pop up and step back-he will not care what the fake is, unless it is a fake draw-he will automatically know that the play is a play-pass.) Obviously, the line blocking at the point attack must simulate a run. It is, also, very important that the offensive linemen block aggressively to the side of the ball that is being attacked. The action to the side of the defender that you are attacking is very critical. (For example, if the defender you are attacking is a cornerback and you want to get your receiver past him on a go pattern. You are certain that he looks back into the backfield and you can assume that he will drop from a 7 yard depth to about a 14-15 yard depth looking into the backfield. If he is a little bit mesmerized or if he relaxes a little bit because he believes a running play, your receiver can get past him and get maybe a step or two that he would not get otherwise. Consequently, you want to make sure that your offensive linemen to that side play very aggressively in their blocks and make certain that the back faking has his shoulder to the side where we are faking so that the corner buys the fake and the quarterback naturally hides the ball from that corner. The whole play may not need to fool anyone else but that specific corner because you are going to throw a pattern right behind that man.) So, you iso-late the man you are after then everything is coordinated to deceive that player. Whatever that man looks at during a running play must be exactly replicated to look like the run from his vantage point. The running back must run the same courses and must deliberately hold the fake through the line of scrimmage. Again, as with every position, it is critical that the running back know who the play is designed to fool-is it an inside linebacker, is it an outside linebacker-they must have an idea of who they are trying to fool and the ultimate objective of each aspect of the play. In most cases, the running back has a fake to make and a linebacker to pick up. So, as he is running through the line of scrimmage, he must keep his head up and his pads down, with his elbows to his sides and his right arm tucked as though he is clutching the ball tight against his stomach. While driving into the line, the running back needs to look for his linebacker. If the linebacker drops, typically the running back drives through the line of scrimmage and then continues to a position where he becomes an outlet receiver-this is a perfect example of what we are teaching-each player has a real job to do on every one of these play-passes.

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With respect to the back that is to remain in the backfield to block for the QB, he must drive on the same course used in his blocking technique, make contact and then ease up and get his legs underneath him to be able to hold his block longer. It is not necessary to move the defender; he simply needs to sustain contact. One of the critical break downs in the play-pass is that blockers pull up short and leave space between them and the men that are supposed to be blocking; everyone can see it, react and thereby negating the effectiveness of the fake. Remember, the play-pass is immediately given away when players do not make contact. This type of detail is what coaches must demand of their players. The quarterback's actions must duplicate that of the run. As I mentioned, we use the drill where we execute the run plays and play fake with the other quarterbacks and backs watching the team running the plays. The drill allows for very real clarity of exactly what we need to do to fool the defense. This type of objective review of each player's techniques creates awareness by each position player of how he should execute his own assignments and what acts or omissions will give away what type of play is being run. Once a team gets into a short yardage situation-third down and two or less on the goal-line, and when the other team has substituted their goal-line defense-the techniques change. Now the blockers must use the same techniques they use in those situations for a run so their contact is made lower and more aggressively. The faking is more intense and we may ask that the back drive into the ground one or two yards past the line of scrimmage as though the ball is underneath him so that the safety man or whomever we are attempting to fool cannot find the ball or dive over the top. More aggressive techniques are used in goal-line and short yardage situations and those techniques generally are used to protect a gap. Gap-type blocking becomes very important. Again, these are techniques that have to be understood. Diagram 1

Diagram 2

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Diagram 3

Techniques
Offensive Line The fake draw is the most readily utilized because linemen can employ basic drop back pass protection. And, because the draw play is one wherein the action is delayed the fake draw can hold linebackers longer. Basic man blocked action requires the onside linemen (center-guard-tackle) to employ controlled, quick protection. This is taught as a technique. Contact is made at the line of scrimmage. The defenders cannot be given space. Any space between the defensive and offensive linemen indicates to the defense its a pass. Contact should be sustained but in balance and in control, lunging forward can be disastrous. The ability to move laterally with the defender is critical. The backside linemen utilize short drops, but cannot back out beyond a two yard depth. They must keep

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their helmets and pads down. Play-passes designed with pulling linemen require the other linemen to get their head across the front of their defender to cut off penetration and possible lateral evasive action of the defenders reading the blocking pattern. The pulling lineman must pull decisively and not pull up early even with concern for pass protection. Contact must be initiated, but with control. This is a technique that must be practiced. Aggressive, controlled blocking with contact initiated by the offense is extremely important. These techniques must be identified, drilled, then practiced as a unit. Backfield Running backs should run courses using faking techniques simulating as closely as possible those of the running play. The back must be alert to blitz pick-up and identify responsibility prior to the snap. The back must run a course that can get the RB to the linebacker as soon as possible if he blitzes. Faking technique requires shoulders at waist-high level, arms and hands held exactly as in taking a hand off-except the far hand is placed flat against the stomach so the ball can be inserted in the pocket then pulled out smoothly. After receiving the fake, the back must continue through the line of scrimmage with both elbows inside the frame of his body preferably with the right arm positioned as though he has the ball. The biggest giveaway to play-pass is the running back's arms dangling or swinging away from his body. His shoulders should be below the eye level of the linebackers. This obviously makes it more difficult to find the ball. After the fake, the back then releases as an outlet receiver. In short yardage, the fake takes the form of driving into the ground across the line of scrimmage. In goal line situations, the fake can call for diving over the top. The back not faking the run must drive directly to his blocking assignment and make contact. As contact is made he must come under control to sustain contact. A complete giveaway to the play-pass is the other back pulling up short of his block. This must be drilled and emphasized. To play it safe, backs will tend to move cautiously to be sure of their block. If the man being blocked drops into coverage the back then becomes an outlet receiver or is assigned to help a lineman in protection. Quarterback All action of ball is at waist level. As ball is received from center, it is pulled to a position at the navel. As the QB moves moved toward the faking back to the exchange point, the ball stays at that level. When placed in the pocket, it is pushed straight out then pulled straight back. The ball should be extended to the RB so that at one instant it is held directly in front of him, clearly establishing the likelihood of an exchange. The common error, which nullifies the purpose of the playpass, is the ball never actually being in place for a hand off. As the ball is pulled back. the arm normally used to make the exchange is allowed to swing away from the faking back just as it does when the hand off is made. The best way to analyze this action is to drill the running play exchange then the corresponding play pass. The quarterback's mechanics for both should be as close to identical as possible. Note how the exchange arm always swings away as the running back receives the ball. And most often the quarterbacks head turns to follow the running back; the faking quarterback should have the same swinging of the head as if to follow the play. Faking to the right is simpler and easier to facilitate because the hand off is made with the left hand. It (the left hand) is allowed to swing away during the execution of the fake while the ball remains in the right hand or throwing arm. The fake to the left with a right handed quarterback requires more synchronization. The ball is extended with the right hand, pulled in momentarily to the left hand and hidden, then the right hand after swinging away retrieves the ball. The quarterback should finish each play pass in the normal drop of a right hander (if right handed) This means faking left still brings him back to a normal drop. Actually faking left can be more effective, because the ball is completely hidden, but timing of quick developing pass patterns is less exacting. The quarterback must snap his head back to his primary receiver after completing his fake. At this point, efficient body mechanics become critical. The timing of play passes is even more critical than drop back

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passes. The defenders you are attempting to fool will only be distracted for a moment. Specific steps are required just as there are with pure drop back action. Usually the third step of the drop is where the fake takes place. Then the necessary two or fours steps are taken. (Five or seven-step drop respectively). Timing is critical. Consequently, a five or seven-step drop is dictated by the type of pass pattern or the quarter- back's physical requirements in smoothly getting the ball off. The quarterback must understand that play pass blocking is not as sound and can break down. He must be prepared for a pass rusher to get off of his blocker and be penetrating early. The quarterback must understand this, concentrate down field, and possibly take a hit just after he throws. Receiver Spacing is critical in attacking specific defenders. Linebackers are drawn into the line to throw hooks behind them or to allow crossing receivers to get past them. An aggressive weak safety can be pulled forward to get a post behind him. Therefore, receiver splits, in order to get to that critical area, are extremely important. As receivers drive down field, do not look at defenders. Do not have eye contact unless simulating a block on them. You want them to concentrate on the faking in the backfield. This usually occurs with hooking patterns vs. zone defenses. If simulating a block, stare the defender down approaching from the exact same angle.

An interview with Bill Walsh on the PLAY-PASS. AFQ: When do you typically throw a play-pass? BW: Typically the play-pass is thrown between the thirty-yard lines. Play-passes work best when the opposing team is in their base defensive mode and you can anticipate those defenses that you've seen through your scouting preparation. You would prefer play-passes against the zone. although that is not a specific requirement. There are still cases where man-to-man defenders will he fooled and will take their eye off of their assigned coverage and the receiver can come out wide open. So, if you do have a man-toman coverage, you have a chance to make a big play. But, typically you are looking to beat a zone defense because the hooking receivers can get open behind and between the linebackers. AFQ: What is the progression of the QB's reads? BW: The quarterback will have a primary, an alternate and, finally, an outlet. So, he must look for the primary, next the alternate, and then the outlet. These are the mechanics that you use on either a playpass or a drop back. The QB rarely looks short and then throw deep as an alternate. Usually, you look deep and end up throwing to an alternate that is hooking or the outlet, who is within five yards of the line. The outlet is always within five yards of the line of scrimmage because you can then simply dump the ball to them. AFQ: Do you account for the fact that the play may breakdown initially? BW: Not often. To me a play-pass is a play that develops between the offensive tackles. An action pass is one where the quarterback comes outside with the ball. In an action pass. you would have an outlet receiver pretty fast like a bootleg or wag. But inside the tackles, you are counting on your play-faking to accomplish certain things and for the play to develop. Rarely is there somebody who the QB can throw to real quickly unless you are throwing a three-step drop slant and then you are going to get the ball off. If a quarterback is forced to scramble, which often happens in a play-pass because the pass-protection can break down, the quarterback begins moving laterally. so all receivers must move laterally with him and on a slight angle back toward the line of scrimmage to make certain that the defenders cannot get

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underneath them to bat the ball down or intercept it. But this has to be part of play-pass practice work-a scramble drill. in which the quarterback comes out one way or the other and the receivers all understand that and react accordingly. But, the one thing you do not want is the quarterback to start scrambling or moving unnecessarily because you still want 10 be in position to throw an accurate pass and you do not want to have to throw it on the run and outside the pocket. AFQ: What is the biggest potential obstacle to a successful play-pass? BW: Play-passing gives up or concedes the ability to effectively deal with wide stunts and some blitzes. What you are looking for is a very base defense to run play-passes against. You are taking a calculated risk when you run a play-pass that the defense could be running some sort of stunt or something that you cannot block effectively. The quarter-back must understand this and be prepared to get rid of the ball or take a hit if necessary.

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