How To Maximize Your Best Player’s Production Inside Your Offensive System

Quick story for you Coach…

One season a few years back, we had a unique group of players. Most were not very good, unfortunately, but there were a few average players in the mix. We were young and rebuilding.

But one player we had was the exception. He was very good. In fact he was our go-to guy – definitely playing at the next level.

In my “great coaching wisdom” at that time, I knew that I should try to obviously get him the ball as much as possible since we really didn’t have anybody else.

So that season I built a playbook with ways to get him the ball.

Starting off the season, he was fantastic. We didn’t have anybody else even close to his level of athleticism.

He could catch. He could run. There wasn’t much he couldn’t do.

In fact, I was having him do everything. I was having him run the ball. I was spreading him out at receiver. You name it.

And then one of my biggest regrets in my football-coaching career happened.

It was around our sixth game into the season and I had a pretty good bubble screen set up for him that was working well.

He was always such a good athlete that he made me look good.

He could catch the ball and if somebody was close to him, he could make him miss and at least get five yards out of it.

So I didn’t really think much about it. I was just throwing’ bubble screens whenever I felt like it.

I was calling all my plays based on just getting him in space.

So midseason, in this particular game, we faced a solid team that had scouted us quite well.

Maybe you can guess what happened?

I had called Bubble Right – one of our favorite plays from the trips set, and when the other team saw it, their kid flied up from linebacker and just planted him.

I mean he de-cleated him…you know the whole snot bubble thing.

Fortunately he was ok, but I never called that play again because I didn’t know the one simple secret to building an offensive system that I know now.

But it was very frustrating at that time. In my mind I thought that I should know football better than this. I have studied football more then anybody I knew.

I kept thinking to myself, how could I keep this from happening again? Was it because I didn’t have enough talent on the team?

It wasn’t until a few years later that I discovered this simple secret to helping me maximize my best players production and also keep him safe.

I should have been able to keep that play in our offense…even against the better teams that scouted us well.

Here’s the one simple secret.

You need to have at least one play in your playbook for every other play you run that takes advantage of a team that doesn’t honestly read their keys.

In this case, I needed a play that I now call Bubble Slant.

Bubble Slant is where we run a slant with our blocking receiver and the bubble route stays the same.

Now when that linebacker tries to fly up, there’s not going to be anybody there to defend the slant.

It’s going to be wide open.

Now I have two plays that complemented each other by attacking the defense when they don’t read their keys.

Against good teams, this keeps my bubble screen safe to keep running because of the threat of the bubble slant.

Against poor reading teams, we will run the bubble slant and take the big gain until they stop jumping the bubble route.

I thought, “I wish, I wish I had done this sooner!”

So if you don’t have two plays that you can run to counter what the defense is doing then you’re going to get into jams like that where you just run that one play and they scout you and then they attack it and it’s over.

Conclusion

If you’ve got one talented guy or a great play for your top talents, then you have to find a way to also make him a decoy as much as you find a way to get him the ball.

That’s why this is one of the top core principle of a great offensive system.

You need to have two plays that can complement each other…one that you can go to when defenses play you honestly and read their keys, and another that you go to when they cheat to really make them pay.

Here are some examples of these kinds of plays that complement each other inside our Pro Style Spread Offense System to help give you ideas.

Essentially each play that is a core run play should work against any defensive structure that is playing responsibility sound defensive football.

Each of the complementary plays will look almost exactly the core play for the first 3 steps.

It is critical that you emphasize and practice the complements so they are indistinguishable.

It is also helpful to know exactly what to be looking for when you are running the core run plays so that you know when to call the complements.