It would be safe to think that just about every youth football team has some form of a “Flood” pattern in their basic passing offense. I know that I have always had one, and it has been just about the same for years and years.

Upon further reviewing this part of my offense, it came to light that we have been successful but with only one portion (pass to the flat/QB run) of this play over the years. More startling, we have almost never been able to complete the pass to the “deep” receiver. We have justified running it the same way by telling ourselves that the play is successful “even if we don’t complete the deep ball because just throwing the deep ball once in a while will get the defensive secondary to at least play deeper respecting our “deep” threat”.

When we looked at the tapes, we found that when we sent the widest guy on a fly that he was: 1) not easy to throw to because he was almost too deep for most of our QBs to reach him and, 2) only one defender had to play deeper (and, after a certain depth was attained even that one defender likely leveled off enough to be able to come back up to support the flat in some way).

So, you ask “what did you do to make your new flood pattern better?” We made our sprint out flood pattern look and act more like a play action play at least for the corner back (deep third defender). We realized how interested these guys usually are to come up and help stop the run and used this aggressiveness against them.

Instead of having our outside receiver in trips or after motioning to trips just sprint straight down the field, we now have him “stalk block” (a technique borrowed directly from the wishbone and veer triple option days) the corner back. He (#1 in our terminology) sprints at the CB and pushes the CB as deep as he can, sits down and almost pass protection blocks the CB when the CB refuses to go any deeper and then bursts by the CB if that defender steps up trying to get involved with either the #3 receiver or the QB in the flat.

We have found that the #1 receiver gets a better chance to break away from the CB with this technique (as the CB has made a move towards the line of scrimmage), does not attract the middle safety to the deep pass area, also is open with better timing at the end of the QB’s sprint out, and is also not as deep which allows the QB to “throw him open” rather than have to try to throw the ball 40-50 yards into a crowd of defenders while running for his life.

Our sprint out flood pattern has become much more productive as it can now attack more areas in the defense, and we have been able to get the “long ball” far more often. We still have the “pass to #3 in the flat/ QB run” part of the play that had been the only part of the play that was successful with in the past, but we also have a turn in/turn out throw to the #2 receiver (early in the sprint out), as well as the longer throw to the #1 receiver if the CB bites for anything in front of him.

An added benefit to our new approach and design is that we now are able to get #3 to hit the DE which greatly helps the FB in blocking the DE and also allows for better timing on #3s release to the flat as he now comes out moving toward the flat with almost the same timing as the FB does in the traditional Wing-T bootleg play. The “double teaming” of the DE allows our QB almost never pull up earlier than he wants.

Here are our assignments on our new Flood pattern.

#1 (widest receiver)–Stalk blocks the CB as long as possible. Releases deep to the outside if the CB attempts to get involved with anything in the flat.

#2–Runs a ‘turn out/turn in’ option route at about 8-12 yards. (Coaching point: This has to time up with the QB when he is still at the TE’s original alignment width as he cannot get open either too late or too early).

#3–Steps to hit the outside shoulder of the DE, holds the block for about a 2 count and then releases into the flat at about 10 yards. He should be running to the flat parallel to the LOS just a little wider than the QB.

QB—Takes snap and begins to sprint out (usually wide side of the field) to the Trips formation, he first looks to #2 running his turn out/turn in option route, then continues wider to read the flat coverage for his decision to either throw to #3 at ten yards in the flat or keep the ball himself. He must also learn to “peek” at the CB who was being stalk blocked to see if the deep ball is a possibility before crossing the LOS with the ball. (CP: This is not as difficult for the QB as you might think because they all want to be able to throw the long TD pass).

Backside WR—Runs directly at the middle safety and tries to get the attention of that safety. (CP: We have a called throw back to this guy if we find that the middle safety if vacating his area too early).

Offensive line—Steps to the side of the sprint out and blocks the gap away from the sprint out.

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