When Open Isn't Open Part 2: PA Boot COP
or, everything is different, but the same
Let’s kick this off with an image I totally made up. Cool? You see this screenshot of a game - during the game, on social media, etc. - and the question comes up. “Hey. Why didn’t the QB throw to this man right here? See how open he is? Just throw to him. The QB is dumb and bad because he did not throw to this man.”
He’s wide open up the right sideline! There isn’t a deep safety to that side. Why didn’t the QB throw it?!
Let’s get into it.
In my last post, I outlined the core concept of this series, but let’s revisit it quickly.
In this series, we’re diving into a concepts and running through a couple scenarios along the way. The overall idea is to explore the concept of what it means for a receiver to be open. We may see a receiver that was wide open on the replay, but that doesn’t mean it was a “missed read,” or even that the QB should have thrown to that receiver.
To help strip away our own ideas around specific plays, we’re exploring this idea by using plays on a chalkboard. Maybe we’ll get into some film eventually, but that’s a down-the-road thing.
We kicked things off by looking at a core concept: Play Action Bootleg Sail.
If you really want to get into that concept, I spent a lot of time going through it, so give it a read! I’m…happy with it? Is that right? Am I happy with it. (Yes. I think I am.)
Today, we’re going to take a look at one of the big counters to that concept that cropped up this past year. As you can see from the above image, the core PA Boot concept revolves around a playfake to the RB on a wide zone look, then the QB boots the other way to find a flood concept waiting for him.
It’s a potent concept, but defenses have started finding ways to take it away. So let’s talk about the backside defender on wide zone real quick. Traditionally, his responsibility was to crash down from the backside and either run down a RB that was slow to pick a hole or prevent against cutbacks.
For a run play that works, but you can see how that doesn’t help with contain once a QB boots the other direction.
Just like that, you’ve removed a defender from the play without even having to block him. He’s chasing down the backside of a run that never happened, meanwhile the QB is booting out the other side with no one to hurry his decision.
Defenses eventually decided that enough was enough. It came down to a question of resource allocation. If they kept the defender flowing with the play, they would keep backside run contain with that defender, but give up a free boot to a QB 3-5 times a game. If they kept that defender on the edge, they would give up some integrity in the run game, but would serve to make this play more difficult for offenses.
In case it wasn’t clear, they went with the latter.
The popular way to do this was to have the end slow play the release a little, then break down on the boot action. When the QB turned out of the playfake, he’d have a defender bearing down on him, cutting off his path to the edge. With that immediate pressure, the answer for the QB was to either quickly get the ball to the flat (not always an easy throw in this situation) or throw it away.
Basically, it took away the two deeper options and made the QB make a contested throw to the shallow option or just burn the play altogether. It took a simple, powerful play and threw a massive wrench into it.
There’s one other way defenses have attempted to take this away, and that has been bringing the LB through the B gap.
That method allows the QB to get outside, but doesn’t allow him to get comfortable. There’s no time to survey the field, because you’ve got a man screaming at your heels. It’s not the killer that the end staying home is, but it’s still a way to attack this concept.
Those are the defensive counters. So, where is the offense at?
Let’s talk about the COP tag.
COP is short for COrner Post. Basically, take that deep corner/sail route, fake to the corner then come back to the post. It’s not a new route and it’s not even a new counter to this concept. One of my favorite recent instances of this is a touchdown to Tonyan against the Bears in 2020.
The thing to notice here is that this is dialed up to take advantage of how the Bears were playing this. That’s a called half-boot shot.
So that’s PA Boot with the COP tag. Let’s get back to the task at hand. Why was that man in the initial image so open?
Typically, the Sail route isn’t on the table for PA Boot. Defenses have adjusted and have taken that away. So even if everything goes perfectly on this concept, the ball normally goes to the crossing route.
The other thing to keep in mind is that, while defenses are crashing the edge on this concept, they’re not crashing all the time. So offenses can’t just come out and say, “we’ll just call half-boot stuff to take advantage of that.” Because even if you do that, you may run into the LB through the B gap, which kills half-boot concepts. What to do, what to do?
Well, if we’re not hitting the Sail route anyway, let’s just not run it every time. The Packers have started building those half-boot concepts into their full-boot concepts. So now, PA Boot may look something like this:
The core PA boot is still there. The initial action is the same and the boot finds the QB running parallels to receivers on different planes, but there are only two. The Sail route has been replaced with a COP route. And our friend who was open in the initial image of this post runs a vertical route off motion.
So let’s talk reads.
If this goes off as planned - meaning, no defender in his face - the QB will continue on the bootleg and the read will be deep to shallow. Just like the original concept.
The COP route would be an Alert: that is to say, if the conditions look ideal pre-snap and are then confirmed to be perfect post-snap, the QB has the option to throw this (depending on if the QB in question can make the throw, of course).
So, unless things are perfect, that route gets nothing more than a glance. From there, we’ve got the Crosser as the #1 read and the Flat as the #2 read.
That’s it. If there’s a Slam route behind the flat that becomes #3, but I don’t have that built into this one.
In other words, in a perfect scenario, you’ve got 5 routes but only 2 that are actually on the table (3 if you count the alert). The vertical route and flat to the right? Not even an option. The reason for that is simple: if the QB is running a bootleg to the left, the options on the extreme right are not realistic options.
Now let’s play out scenarios. In this first one, we’ll have the LB blitzing through the B gap.
The threat is more immediate than when he gets a free release, but the QB is still able to get to the outside on the boot, but he has a man breathing down his neck. That removes the Alert, but still allows him to have two potential reads on the play (even if the processing time needs to be sped up).
Here’s where it gets interesting. In this scenario, the DL on the boot side is crashing. Let’s say it’s an extreme crash. No meat left on the bone. He slow plays the edge as he watches the handoff mesh point, but he doesn’t widen. When he sees the boot, he crashes down and is right in the QB’s face as he turns.
In that case, there is really only one option. If the end is crashing that hard, a lot of times that means the flat is free. So the QB does what he needs to do to flip the ball to the flat. One read. That’s it.
Lastly, let’s say the DL takes a wider path. He either widens from his spot on the line, or starts from a wider alignment. Under this scenario, it forces a half-boot situation for the QB. He can’t continue on his path, so he has to stop dead in his tracks. A year or so ago, this becomes either a scramble drill or a throwaway. But now there are built-in routes.
Depending on the QB, the first read could still be the flat route to the boot side, but we’re really looking at the half-boot side now. The COP route is #1, the vertical route is #2 and the flat route is #3.
So under this scenario, our guy on the vertical route finally gets his shine. The COP route is listed as #1, but that’s a quick look and one that defenses are covering up more at this point. So that’s a quick look, then the QB goes to the vertical route.
Under this very specific scenario - QB forced into a half-boot, but with enough time to stop and get to read #2 on the backside - our guy finally gets his moment in the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
This is all a very long-winded way to say that, yes, that man was open in the initial image, but he was not a viable option. In fact, he is only a viable option on this concept under a very specific set of circumstances. Open, but never truly an option.
This was much longer than anticipated, so if you’ve made it this far, thanks! Hoping to do at least one more in this series before turning my attention elsewhere. As always, if you have questions/comments/requests for plays to look at, hit me up.