Eagles Hi-Lo Concept with RB Wheel

The Eagles got there first win of the season on Sunday with some help from the Hi-Lo concept. The Hi-Lo concept is a man coverage beater which involves an underneath “mesh” (crossers), with a curl route over the mesh. Chip Kelly adds a wheel route from the Running Back for two reasons: to clear out Linebackers from the middle of the field, and to potentially hit a big play if the Linebacker can’t cover the RB up the sideline. Below, the Jets are in a Cover 1 scheme with Man-to-Man across the board except for a “Centerfield” Safety in the middle of the field:

The Jets do a fairly good job of covering the crossing routes by jamming Tight End Zack Ertz as well as passing off the Wide Receiver crosser from the top of the formation. However, the Linebacker takes a poor angle covering Ryan Matthews, who is wide open for a Touchdown:

As seen below, the Eagles had run the exact same play just 5 minutes earlier in the game; the play was also wide open, but the Eagles couldn’t capitalize due to a poorly thrown ball. Look for the Eagles to continue to run Hi-Lo with an RB wheel against heavy man coverage teams. The Jets will almost certainly see this type of play against their defense in the coming weeks.

Bengals Ace Personnel Four Verticals

In a back and forth game between the Bengals and Ravens, Cincinnati hit on an 80-yard Touchdown to A.J. Green on Four Verticals. A deeper look shows what happens when a great play call meets perfect execution. The Bengals are in Ace personnel, which means there are 2 Tight Ends, 2 Wide Receivers and 1 Running Back. The Bengals shift to a Closed Tight End Trips formation, and the Ravens are in Cover 1 (Man-to-Man coverage with Safety Will Hill in the middle of the field):

Note the spacing of the vertical routes on the top of the formation by the Bengals Receivers; the outside WR (Marvin Jones) is almost at the sideline while the slot WR (A.J. Green) is outside of the numbers. This would be poor spacing against zone coverage. Outside Wide Receivers are generally taught to “stack” defenders instead of fading toward the sideline to give QB’s a bigger throwing window. However, against the Ravens Cover 1 it is the perfect call.  Marvin Jones is almost at the sideline; this is ideal because the defender man turns toward him and is prevented from breaking on A.J. Green’s vertical route. Meanwhile, you can see below how hard A.J. Green works to get outside of his defender and outside of the numbers to stay away from the Safety Will Hill and give QB Andy Dalton a throwing window. Hill is shading towards Green pre-snap, but cannot get over fast enough because of the spacing Jones and Green created. The ball is delivered accurately, and A.J. Green does the rest.

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Depending on the coverage, the slot receiver must take the top off the defense and clear out as much of the middle of the field as possible. Often times the vertical bends in a bit to occupy defenders. Against Cover 1, the vertical should be able to occupy the man defender as well as the centerfield Free Safety (should occupy the FS against Cover 3 as well). Against traditional Cover 2 or Cover 4, the vertical should clear out the play side 2-high Safety. Finally, Against Tampa 2 the Vertical should occupy both the Mike Linebacker as well as hold the play side Safety.

From there, Dagger becomes a Hi-Lo read between the drag and the dig. The drag should stretch the field horizontally as much as possible and attract linebackers to open up the dig behind him. Here, the drag successfully stretches the defense horizontally and opens up a window for the dig:

Dagger can also be run from a Trips look, where the most inside eligible receiver (often a Tight End or H-back) serves as the horizontal stretch to open up the dig. Note that here, just like the Vikings Dagger picture above, the backside receiver can run many different routes, including a curl, fade, slant, comeback, corner, or deep out. The key is still to keep the Deep 1/2 or Deep middle safety from diving to the middle of the field:

Here, the slot does his job by holding the deep Safety and Cornerback on his vertical route. However, the play is really opened up by a great play from the H-back along with the Quarterback’s eyes. The H-back picks up a blitz, and then gets to his flat route, attracting the Strong Safety. The Quarterback (Alex Smith) looks toward the horizontal stretch, moving the inside linebacker just enough to clear a great window for the dig:

While these are the most common ways to run the Dagger concept, like all pass game concepts, Dagger can be executed in a variety of ways from a variety of formations. With Norv Turner as the OC for the Vikings in 2014 and the Browns in 2013, below is a compilation of several ways to run the Dagger concept with the ball going to multiple options:

Finally, another version of the Dagger concept, “Sucker” involves a 3 x 1 set with a hitch/curl route in between the Dagger.

Overall, Dagger is a common pass concept with Hi-Lo elements along with a vertical and horizontal stretch. The dig (or square-in) is the primary target. Look for the Dagger concept to be used on 2nd & long as well as 3rd and 8+ because it is a great way to get an intermediate throw to the middle of the field. While protection must hold for the dig route to come open, there are built in check downs with the drag along with many route options for the backside Wide Receiver and Running Backs.

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