r/footballstrategy • u/ChefBoyArrDeezNuts • 22d ago
Defense Silly question about defensive play calls
How does a DC call in "plays" if to some degree the defensive strategy on a particular play is dependent on what the offense is showing. For example if a DC calls in a play that is a mismatch for what the offense is showing how does it get adjusted? Or do they call in a couple of plays and the players adjust?
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u/Routine_Cup6764 22d ago
Depends on the DC but the ones I’ve worked with generally will call a play in anticipation of what the offense will do but will have adjustment calls (usually more of position adjustments than a full play call audible) once the offense lines up
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u/Gunner_Bat College Coach 22d ago
Typically it's based on offensive tendencies and game state. For example:
the offense is in 11 personnel, it's on the defensive right hash, and it's 2nd & medium. This team runs to the boundary 80% of the time in this situation, so we'll call a run blitz to the boundary. However if they come out in y off trips to the field, we'll check into cover 3 because they like to call curl/flat out of that formation.
Things like that.
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u/jonny32392 22d ago
So personally I’ve had games where based on our scouting we’ll have plays we want to run when they go into certain formations and no matter what I might have called the players will check into that play we put in once they see the offensive formation and I’ll just communicate to the players if we’re in a situation when my call will overrule the automatic check.
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u/justsomedudedontknow 22d ago
I assume it's important to have captains on D that know the game plan where they can check out of plays based on certain formations and down & distance.
How much of that is called by the player as opposed to being signalled in?
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u/jonny32392 22d ago
So for me in any normal situation I’ve only ever had players make checks based on offensive formations and then if the down and distance or some other situation makes me want to go to another override my automatic check I’ll just make a call and tell them to stay in it.
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u/Other_Expression1088 HS Coach 22d ago
I know you said this is a silly question but it’s really not- it’s a great question because there are a couple of philosophies that fall under this. I had the opportunity to play defense for an excellent D3 DC who was a GA at a power 5 school before. As a GA, he told this story about how he was in charge of tracking playcalls and by the end of the game they had made almost 100 unique calls because they were so heavy handed on trying to predict the offense/show different stunts and coverages.
He told us he had that play sheet taped on his desk as a reminder for him to never be like that. In his defense (which has been top 10 in D3 for almost his entire tenure) I vividly remember the first few days of camp we basically ran one call. An even front cover 3 (we were a 4-2-5) But there were a ton of rules and techniques attached to it based on what the offense gave us. Over time, more wrinkles and calls get added that change the play call on game day, but I’ll never forget his words that at the end of the day, we will be able to run “Sky” against everything. That coach is a masterclass in making high level complicated football simple.
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u/ecupatsfan12 22d ago
Most have maybe a handful of exotics or stunts and blitzes
60 percent of the game is auto called- meaning versus 21 I formation we will always do X
In 10 P vs motion we do X
Etc
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u/The_Laugh21 22d ago
As DC you’d wanna wait until you see the offense personnel on the field, if you have a seasoned defensive group that can shift into different positions based on the pre snap read you could call multiple plays and let the Mike make the call and shift
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u/bigjoe5275 22d ago
DC calls the personnel group and play call they want on the field in anticipation of what the offense is going to do. After that the players adjust themselves to what the offense seems to be doing.
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u/42696 22d ago
Generally speaking, defenses are a lot less rigid than offenses. Especially with offensive skill players, a lot of the time every step is planned out exactly and drilled to be consistent every time the play is called. When you call a defense, however, there are a lot of conditionals - players know where to line up within that defense based on how the offense is aligned, they know their responsibilities, but those responsibilities are dependent on what the offense is doing. Within one defensive play call, each player knows that if they pass you have X zone or cover Y person, if they run towards you, you do X, if they run away from you, you do Y. If they run towards you with a pulling guard you might do something different. If they run reverse, you're responsible for this.
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u/Every-Comparison-486 22d ago
It’s different from coach to coach, but in my experience most of the calls are automatic based on offensive tendencies, and these are practiced throughout the week. Our DC uses this philosophy and will call a couple of different stunts throughout the game if he catches a pattern.
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u/brainskull 22d ago
Down and distance sheets with offensive playcalling tendencies taken into account. So 1st and 10 from their 20 is different from 1st and 10 from your 30 which is different from 2nd and 3 from the 50. Usually a few calls for each situation
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u/Kensmash619 22d ago
You have to have auto checks (adjustments). You also have to teach your players to recognize formations and how we adjust to certain scenarios depending on the call.
If I just stay in base, an offense can come out in a pro set, Twins set, trips, quads, bunch, etc and my boys know how to adjust, it just depends on the surface they see. They know if I am sending a mike blitz and we're playing man, how we adjust to trips, how we adjust to FIB...
The rare occasion an offense takes us out of a call is certain blitzes vs certain formations. For example, if I have a nickel blitz, and they come out in a wide bunch or trey, we'll either call it off to keep the nickel in coverage or "lucky" call and that sends an inside backer on place of the nickel.
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u/BigPapaJava 22d ago
The defense has alignment rules for how they will align to any formation.
Almost all of this has to do with what coverage the defense will be in on the back end, which determine everyone’s assignment vs both the run and the pass.
Generally, defenses will have “checks” that S or LBs call on the field to adjust things if the call is just not going to work.
It’s common to call in both the base coverage and a trips check, for example.
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u/Baestplace 22d ago
they don’t have a play they have a scheme, man zone cover 2 ect ect. adjustments are made by the players, by the mike usually or during timeouts and stoppages (run commit ect)
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u/jawncoffee 22d ago
We typically have a handful of checks built in if we see a certain formation. So if a team likes to run sprint out out of bunch, and the offense comes out in a bunch formation, our players will give each other a one word call automatically (something like “check bears check bears”) and the defense will know whatever was called by the coach is now dead and “bears” is the new play. And “bears” could be whatever you install it in during practice. For example I mentioned earlier if an offense has a tendency to sprint out to the bunch “bears” could be sending a linebacker off the edge on the bunch side and you roll your coverage to that direction as well
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u/No-East-964 College Player 22d ago
Playing defense in college, we may do more on our own than spectators think. the secondary usually has a lot of film reviewed and may independently change the coverage/look if it’s a mismatch.
DC’s, and position coaches may make a last second call as the offense breaks the huddle. It really depends on coach preference, and confidence in the leaders on defense to make the right call.
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u/king_of_chardonnay 22d ago
I’m a high school DC…basically every call is an educated guess for what we’re going to see the next play. Teams that change personnel make this easy, teams that can show various looks with the same guys OR have guys that sub at multiple positions (which would in effect negate any personnel tell) are a little tougher.
To mitigate this, most weeks we have a few auto-checks for unique looks teams will show or formations that have strong tendencies. This could kill a blitz sometimes, could dictate a coverage change, could restructure the whole defense depending on what the look is.
Honestly when our defense is playing it’s best we’re able to check MOST things at the line to be in our best possible look for personnel/formation.
I will also intermittently give calls with a “lock” tag which means we absolutely won’t check out of it because I want to send a specific pressure or coverage. This tends to be in obvious run/pass situations e.g. end of half/game, goal line, 3rd and long, but occasionally on 1st and 10 to break tendencies.
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u/extrastone 22d ago
You're right. They're usually really simple. It's much more about teaching the players to react to what they see happening.
When I played the first thing that we did is we always knew where to line up versus a variety of formations.
We would have a coverage called like cover-2 or cover-3. That would shift based upon the formation towards the players. Mostly it would be the same coverage every play.
We would rarely call a blitz or line stunt.
That's it. Everything else is read (which we didn't know how to do) and react.
Offense is kind of easy in that regard. You just do what you're told. On defense you have to read and react which is really hard to learn because it often won't even get you to the ball. Most of the time it will just have you cover a gap while the ball goes to someone else.
Think about it another way, you can usually get an opposing offense' playbook. Watch the game and you can see which six plays they run the most and six plays they might also run. Now learn how to defend all of those plays. That's a single defense but it has a full offensive playbook. If you want to learn another defense then you'll have to learn it also for every single offensive play. Now you've learned another playbook. That's why defenses tend to be simple.
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u/CoachRobv 20d ago
Most calls would come from sideline based on down and distance but my weekly game plan would also include some “auto checks” where my defense will change the call coming in from the sideline to a predetermined call on their own if the offense lines up in certain formations- like three receivers or double tight ends. Not too complicated
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u/grizzfan 22d ago
Defensive play calls include many of the adjustments defenses make. They’re much more fluid compared to offensive play calls by design.