LBer Keys and Reads

Yes...this is an age-old debated question, and I'm not sure there is a "right" answer. The best answer is what you can coach.

I came from the 'old-school' comprehensive style of teaching guard read / reactions that would seem like the kid would either "get" or "not get" and there was no middle ground and a lot of time the kids were guessing, anyway.

I came across a super drill from the author of the "40 Nickel" book that has worked wonders for all our inexperienced (and experienced) backers. It's called the "IN-AT-OUT"...we spray paint our area with this drill and the kids rep it down


--ILB--------------------------OLB--------------



----------IN---------AT---------OUT-------------




--RB

You simply line up your backers how they normally line up - with an ace back at 5 yards depth. You rep the shuffle and fill by the back to get them attacking where they should be going / their response to flow. This REALLY helped us with shutting down plays like ISO and POWER. Also, it was helpful in shutting down cutback lanes - when play goes AWAY, backside personnel are shuffling to their backside gaps (NOT overlapping the primary force players).

As the season progresses, you can throw in lead backs / wing backs / oline to help reads. Their thinking should be....read flow and look for "hot/flashing color" (anything that is contrary to flow - pulling lineman, wing motion, etc) - if contrary read occurs, backer puts the breaks on and attacks.

any questions email - mjbrophy@netexpress.net

** we want the backers moving from the jump...reading flow helps us with that...they HAVE to move / respond. Before, we would stress lineman keys, but in their attempt to 'read', they hesitated = got ate up.... we have our backers with their heels at 5 yards from the LOS. So they HAVE to attack downhill...

We start the implementation versus a pro offense (easy reads), then progress to Wing T lineman keys and how to read the 'triangle'. We felt that establishing the confidence in the backers helps them be aggressive and limit their frustrations in reading guards / EMOL / etc. The biggest thing is to get them to see the big picture by focussing on the small things - make them SHORT AREA players. One thing that helped us versus Wing T teams was...playing "video games" - after practices we would divide the backers up into teams and watch frame-by-frame slo-mos of Wing T teams and play "competitive Defensive Jeopardy". The video would freeze-frame on the second step of the Olinemen. They had to declare INSIDE - AT - OUTSIDE as to where the play was going, based on the lineman read....the kids love that (and performed well versus those teams).

We teach reading the EMOLOS for our OLBs starting this past year. Prior to that we read backfield flow exclusively. One reason we switched is for consistency in man coverage. If you read backfield and are covering the TE you have to switch your key to the TE or try to find him once you have read pass. Reading backfield flow THROUGH EMOLOS is probably better yet. There is a lot more to this but that is a quick reason why we teach line reads to our OLBs.

On the other hand we teach both backfield keys and guard keys to our MLBs. Most of the teams we play are not Wing-T type with a lot of trapping or pulling so we key backfield. We also spend some time each week going over what we call Wing-T time and focus on Guard reads. I guess the main reason we go with back reads over guard keys with the MLBs is that we tend to get confused with Base blocks sometimes. By that I mean we are a little slower. Again I'll mention that we see a limited amount of pulling and a lot of base blocking so we like the backfield reads better.

With Brophy's recommendation I bought the 40 Nickel D book and found their reading system to be very good. The "Flashing colors" is an excellent point that we will incorporate next year. We have used IN, OFF, and OUT much like Brophy uses IN, AT, AND OUT. The way they teach their outside backers is very good also.

I think the main key to teaching backers is to have consistency and to cover all areas. For example, if your MLBs read backfield flow more than likely the backside linebacker will be late getting to counter action and the playside MLB will have taken one false step before recovering. Reading Guards should get your MLBs to counter action quicker, especially if the play is being trapped but pulling teams usually have an influence play or two that is a key breaker. My point is that by knowing the strengths and limitations of your keying system you have adjustments to deal with what the Offense is trying to do to you.

What you as a coach already know will influence the system that you use. I'm currently moving more towards reading linemen through to the backfield but I want to make sure I have the system down before I completely implement it. I don't want to make a lot of mistakes through trial-by-error. You have to ask yourself, "Does my system have a base rule for each situation that you see"? "Are the rules consistent or do they contradict one another"? "Are they easily adaptable for specific game plans"?

I hope this makes sense as it is a bit random and off the top of my head. Bring up Man vs. Zone coverage and you'll really get some definite opinions!

Govertical,

I don't see you system as unsound at all. As I mentioned in my last post, we spend some time each week working on Guard reads even though we are a backfield flow team first. Two years ago we went over guard reads the day before our annual scrimmage (I should have been working on it earlier) and the kids picked it well enough to shut down what ended up being the second place team in the state that year. This past season we shut down the #1 seed in our region in the first round of playoffs who is a Wing-T team by working on Guard reading a little each week.

As far as making adjustments to backfield keys I believe many coaches do this. The 40 Nickel Defense book that Brophy referred to has a key progression that takes care of many of the fronts you will see. For the Strong ILB (Sam), his progression is as follows: FULLBACK, NEARBACK, CROSSKEY. If against an I backfield he would key the FB. If no FB is located on his side of the ball, he would key the nearback; with no FB or near back, Sam would cross key. Will's progression is NEARBACK, CROSSKEY, FULLBACK.

We change the progression depending on the team we see. We face a Wishbone team each year where the FB goes away from the ball at least 50% of the time and only carries it maybe one to two times a game so we don't key him at all. Instead we crosskey because of all of their backfield mis-direction.

So I feel that most of us adjust to what we face.

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Originally posted by: govertical
Coach -

This may be considered "unsound" by some coaches, but our LB reads change based on the teams we are playing.

We see a lot of Wing-T teams during the year. When we play Wing-T teams, we will play a base 50 (covering C, T, and TE). Our Mike LB reads fullback to the guard on the side that the fullback is running. If the guard does not pull, the Mike will collision the fullback. If the guard pulls, the Mike will redirect and scrape off of the guard's pull to the opposite side. Sam and Willy are reading near back to far back. That pretty much takes care of the wingback/halfback counter.

Against Bone teams that do not pull guards much, Mike reads fullback and Sam and Willy are reading near back to far back.

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We don't play any wing teams unless we are scrimaging ourselfs. We don't see any wing in our division so we have not spent any time on reading lineman. We play a lot of pro style offensives, 2 back some times, 1 back spread others, 2 te. Teams we play formation us to death. Many teams I scout run upwards of 28+ formations and run a base of 4 run plays and a comination of passing.