LNBS: Calling options / Adding reverse action downfield

[Dante84]

Offense in the NFL is evolving rapidly, and outpacing Defense at a record pace.

Watching the close games the past few weeks, I’ve seen two “hook and lateral” plays, and it got me thinking:

If you can predict with a reasonable degree of certainty what the safety or corner will do in a particular coverage, you should be able to determine what they will do post-completion as they track towards the ballcarrier. At this point, you could anticipate - and plan for - where the next pocket of space will open up.

For so long it’s been a one hit approach: find the open man, and he runs in space until he scores, gets tackled, or goes out of bounds.

What if it was a combo approach? Find the open man, gain yards, and provide him with an option to lateral to a crossing receiver who should be able to get another chunk.

You see this with rugby runs all the time. Why not more often in football?

[Dante84]

[Pointer19]

I think you’d take a lot of risk out if the planned lateral receiver is running down the sideline so an errant or dropped pass goes out of bounds.