The Screen and Go

For those that are lovers of the screen game (as I am), here's one for those of you that like the quickscreen.  To start, a few years back we had some decent athletes at wide receiver (WR) and would often throw quickscreens to them when teams showed us favorable match ups.  Two of our favorite looks were the wide bunch, and the diamond formations shown below. 

The 2 screens we ran off of this look were out of the bunch we would throw a quickscreen to the Z if you put 3 or less players to that side.  The play was quite simple, the Y would block 1st most dangerous outside in, and the A would do the same.  Basically I felt our Z could beat your deep guy one on one, so that was our reasoning there. 

The same idea was behind the Diamond formation, except this is where we through it to our B back with a convoy of blockers in front of him.  Now, being a flexbone guy, you know the B back is one of the best athletes on the field, so this presented a lot of problems for the defense.  As time went on, these two plays became some of our bread and butter pass plays and teams began to adjust to them, by overloading.  As with any good scheme, when they counter, you better have an answer.

The first answer was to throw backside.  Most of the time the defense had rolled coverage over to the multiple receiver side, and were playing single coverage backside.  This was fine if our X receiver could beat the opponent's corner, but unfortunately for me, this was rare.  So I needed a better answer...enter the screen and go concept. 

In the bunch example, the screener would actually run the "go" concept as well.  The A and Y would lazily attempt to block their defender and would then settle to an underneath zone as a hot read for the quarterback (QB).  The Z would take his normal 1 step up and back, but then would plant and run a "go" route down the field.  The first time we ran this was at a football camp, and did it out of just "what if".  Well, we hit it for about a 40 yard touchdown!  So a concept was born.  Well, after utilizing this for a few games, we decided to add even another dimension to the play and run it out of the Diamond formation.

When run out of the Diamond formation, the B back would still screen and the A and the Y would act as though they were blocking and then settle to shallow zones, while the Z acted as though he was blocking and would then run the go route.  We ran this Diamond formation a lot on the goal line, as it was usually easy pickings to just toss the ball out to your best athlete with three blockers in front of him.  Well, when we added the screen and go concept off this look, the fade to the back corner of the end zone was just pure nasty! 

As you can see, a very simple concept that I have run for years now, both from under center and in the shotgun.  If you utilize the quickscreen as a large part of your offense, I recommend putting in the screen and go!

Ok, so I strayed off my 46 Nickel posts, I PROMISE the linebacker (LB) manual is on it's way!!!!

Duece