One of my favorite benefits of having a multiple style of offense is the ability to adapt our running game with different formations to each defense that we see week in and week out. This week we are facing a throwback style of defense in the 5-2 Double Eagle. Even against our spread formations, the defense stays the same. Here’s an example of what I am talking about.
Here is the 5-2 against a more traditional I formation that is a staple in the Multiple Pro Style Spread Offense. Against the I Formation, your numbers are not very favorable to run the ball with the safeties playing aggressive against the run.
The defensive assignments in this odd front defense are simple. The Ends are coached to apply force pressure and keep everything inside of them. Line and Linebackers each have gap responsibility and are all aligned shaded into their gap. Most teams will reduce to 3 and 5 techniques on the weak side where there is no tight end as seen above. The strong side typically has a shade nose, 5 and 9 technique. The Corners and Safeties are playing Quarters or Cover 4 which is most like man coverage with their eyes on their keys to determine if it is run or pass.
Spread coaches see this alignment against their 2×2 and 3×1 and start drooling with all the passes that they want to throw. But what about running the ball? In a 2×2 look it is at best 6 offensive blockers vs 7 defenders – and that’s running your QB. Against the I there are 7 blockers against 8 defenders that don’t have to worry about pass defense. You are still outnumbered. I never like running the ball where we are outnumbered no matter what the formation. You will find it very difficult to beat good teams trying to run the ball when they have you outnumbered. You will also find it difficult to beat teams by only throwing the ball…unless you have the real deal at Quarterback! Even then some days the weather and pressure of the game can make you wish you had a strong running attack.
My solution when I see defenses outnumbering us is to make sure we have formations where we can put the numbers back in our favor when running the ball. Here’s an example of a formation I simply call Double Tight Wing.
Notice what this formation does to the 5-2. First, it spreads out the front 5. Now there are two nice bubbles for us to attack on the inside. A and B gap to the weak side and B gap to the strong side. Also we can now get the End on the strong side blocked down by the Z so we can get the toss outside to the perimeter. When we run to the strong side we now have numbers as long as we pull our Guard. While we might not always get a blocker to the Corner – I’m fine with that. I don’t mind letting their corner try to tackle our running back because even if he does tackle him – it should already be a nice gain. And if the Corner is cheating a lot, play action is going to really hurt them!
Toss Strong:
Power Strong:
Iso Weak:
The best part of all this is that we don’t have to teach a whole lot new. The base plays are the same except for our Z, who only had to learn his assignment on the End for toss or to go to the Safety for Power and Iso. Of course we can run a lot of other plays from this but it’s best to keep it simple.
If you want to really get the advantage – try running this as a separate package of plays. When you call the Wing personel group, have a second and third Tight End come in for X and Z. If you have some depth at TE this would be a great formation to get them all in and show other teams a challenging running lineup.
