To Read Option, or Not

[30gut]

Originally Posted by Lotus

Agreed. And more read option play action passes.

To stop the read option defenses will send one guy take the QB and have another defender shadow the RB for the pitch option. We saw several teams (eg. Dallas, Baltimore) try this last year. This will leave defenders out of position for pass coverage. So when defenders set themselves to defend the read option run, it will not be difficult to go over their heads.

And the defender assigned to the QB is therefore (a) not playing coverage and (b) out of position to play the backside/cut-back play and (c) prone to bite on read action

The only way to truely even up the numbers against a zone read play is to replace the defender assigned to the QB, in college team usually do this by moving a S into the box and play only 1 deep FS which means (a) the team is playing man-to-man against the WRs which is a win for the offense or (b) the defense is playing some type of single post FS zone coverage, which makes it easier for the QB to read the coverages because the variety is narrowed down; especially when an offense is running up-tempo or no huddle