STREAK PASS

Streak Pass

This from the online playbook at www.jvm.com/coachfree: The streak pass is what some people call the fade route. The way we call this play is pro right 100 double streak, y-6. This pass is a spot pass. If the ball is on the hash or the middle of the field, we are throwing to a spot that is 22 yards downfield and 3 yards in from the sideline. This is where we want the receiver to catch the ball. A shorter pass will not allow the receiver to maneuver; a longer pass will give the defense too much time to adjust while the ball is in the air.



Either with the call from the sidelines or the pre-snap read, the QB determines which side of the formation he will throw to, and the QB has one read on this play. Focusing on the deep defender, the QB will deliver the ball to the outside receiver if that defender’s hips are pointing at the QB. If the QB can see both hip bones, he delivers the ball on a three step drop. This play must be practiced everyday. The QB and the receiver must have faith in each other. The QB must have faith that the receiver will be at the spot in position to catch the ball at 22 yards. The receiver must have faith that the ball will be coming down at the spot.

This pass must be a rainbow pass, up and over the defense. It must have a lot of air under it. It is the job of the receiver to keep the defender on his back. When the ball is snapped the receiver will break off the line driving at the outside shoulder of the defender who generally will be in some sort of a back peddle position. At a depth of 10 yards the receiver will widen approximately 5 yards and increase speed looking for the ball as he continues his route. It is important that the receiver only turn his head to look for the ball. His shoulders must still be square to the goal line or his speed will be diminished. At this point the receiver will be @ 5 yards in from the sideline. The ball will be coming down 2 yards to his outside shoulder. Staying 5 yards in from the sideline keeps the defender inside and on the receiver's back. The only person who can catch the ball is the receiver. In order for the defender to get to the ball, he would have to go through the receiver to get it, and that, of course, is pass interference. It is important for the receiver to catch the ball at the highest point possible. Get both hands up to catch the ball above the shoulders. Waiting for the ball to come down to you invites troubles that we do not want.

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The thing I failed to mention there is that if the defender has turned his hips to run with the wide receiver, the QB should come off him and deliver the ball to the TE running the Curl route. To do this, the QB should take another 2 steps on the drop and scan back to locate the TE on his route. Stride to the receiver and deliver the ball.

This is the same ‘read’ we use on the “Wheel” route. Say we are in a doubles or doubles wide formation and call a wheel route. The outside receiver runs a Curl route and the inside receiver runs an out and up. The QB takes a 5 step drop. This is a timing thing. We want the QB making the read, and the receivers to be in the proper position to make the read. The QB reads the defender’s hips. If the defender has both hip bones pointed to the QB, usually means he is locked on the curl route and we want to deliver the ball up, over, and to the outside on the out and up route.

The steak pass must be one of those routes that the kids practice on their own, like before practice. When we run the drill in practice, we take 4 scrimmage vests and make a 2 yard by 2 yard square 22 yards down field and three yards in from the sideline for the QB to throw to and for the receiver to run his route to. If they want to throw and catch this pass in the game, they have to practice it on their own before and after practice to get it right.

For us, the mark of a good receiver is the ability to adjust to the ball while in the air. This is becoming more of a lost art as kids are inside playing more and not out playing ball: football, basketball, baseball. All those involve tracking a ball in the air, and you do not get that ability staying inside and playing Wii. Remember, it is the job of the receiver to make the QB look good in the passing game.

We get a great deal of 2 Deep coverage which means that the deep safeties are playing inside the split receivers a great deal of the time. During the course of the game, they have a tendency to get further inside to tackle the FB who is gaining yardage and first downs. That will leave that dead zone in coverage open to throw to. If you try and throw deeper than the 22 yards, coverage will get there from that inside safety. So the timing has to be right, and the ball needs to come down on the spot.

A gifted receiver will be able to look over his outside shoulder for the ball. Of course the QB has to be able to drop the ball on that shoulder. Most receivers, however, will have to look inside and pick the ball up earlier. It took me quite a number of years to get it threw my brain that most receivers do not have the ability to look over their outside shoulder. It is a plus if you have one.

Over the years, we do not throw a ton of these passes. In fact, we do not necessarily throw that many passes during a game, usually around 12-15 is the teams are somewhat evenly matched – sometimes up to 20. The reason is that we are usually ahead, moving the ball down the field with the running game, controlling the clock. If you are ahead by 2 TDs or more running the ball, is there a need to pass?

One year we went to play a team that had made the USA Today list for offensive stats, you know, that Honorable Mention list that comes out on TU’s. Anyway, he had passed for over 500 yards and 7 TDs the week before our game. That’s a challenge. Our two key ingredients were: (1) control the ball and the clock offensively. We wanted to keep him on the bench while we were making first downs, taking time off the clock, and eventually scoring more points; (2) He was a dropback QB who was great at read the defense and hitting the hot receiver, but he did not want to scramble unless absolutely necessary. So . . . we devised a 5-Under Man scheme to take away all those short, hot receivers, and made sure we got a controlled rush on him in the pocket. We covered for 3-4 seconds which was enough time to get to him. He tried to force the ball into coverage because he was frustrated by being on the bench while our offense marched the ball down the field and we were able to make a couple picks.

Later on in the game, about three minutes into the 4th Qtr., they punted the ball to us; it went out of bounds like on our 12 yard line. Time for the offense to take over. We put together on of those 15 play, grind it out drives, took maybe 7 minutes off the clock, scored to go up by like 9 points . . . game over. I do not think we passed the ball during that drive. It was a sweet victory.