Outside Zone or Stretch?

It is basically a semantics thing.... Some people call the two plays the same....say that the Stretch and the Outside Zone are the same play. Others, will say the Outside Zone runs at the TE and Can cutback, while the Stretch aims a yard outside the TE and 3 yds. deep and there is no cutback, only a cut north/South on the Stretch when opposite color crosses your path. I take the latter approach, when we run the Stretch our lineman are hooking and trying to seal linebackers because we don't need movement inside the Tackle box. On the Outside Zone we basically block like the Inside Zone and give the Ballcarrier the wider than Inside Zone Landmark.
Which is better is a personal preference, 2 years ago we had a TB that could fly and he made the Stretch a huge play for us. Last year our TB was not near the speedster but he could read and cut so the Outside Zone was a better scheme. Hope this helps...
email me @ tbran1996@aol.com if you want to talk more Zone/Stretch. We love it, it is the base of our I formation(and occasional One Back) running game.
toby

What I mean is that the stretch is a definite outside play. It is about hooking DL and sealing Lbers.
The outside Zone is basically the inside Zone to us, that we desire to get movement and the back cuts off the reaction of the Lbers. Basically the same techiques that we use on the Inside Zone. We will still Zone combo with a 7 tech we will try to combo the 7 with both the T and TE to get movement and the RB will try and read the Lbers reaction, if the Lber is fast scrape then the RB will bring it back inside, if he is inside the RB the RB will stay on path. This is also the way we run the inside Zone. The difference is that the RB's path is Wider on the Outside Zone- to the TE instead of on the Inside Zone - to the outside the G.
ON the outside zone to the SE side the T will take an outside Landmark to the hip of the 5 tech, but we aren't as concerned about hooking him as just getting movement.
On the Stretch to the SE the T will deep bucket to get on the Landmark of the Outside Armpit. We want the 5 hooked.

The Stretch is our change in tech. play, it is going to go 1yd outside the TE and not cutback, it may cutup North and South but never back.

It is different than the wide zone... we are looking very seriously about adding the wide zone. I just got the alex Gibbs video and you sound like him.... do you have any other wide zone materials... I can trade for?

They are reaching to get their helmets even with the defenders helmet but they are actually taking their inside arm and either grabbing or clubbing and would prefer that the defender would fight the reach influence and then club him outside so that the RB could cut under the widening defender.
They expect the ball to stay on course outside if the DE is in a 7 tech, landmark is at the TE. If the Defender is in a 9 they expect to come under the 9.
Vs a 3 and a 7 they have a couple different ways they can block it. They would prefer not to have a hard SS/Olber or to remove him with the Wide Out/FB. If they have the FB in the Backfield(preferred) they would double the 7 with the TE/T and Double the 3 with C/G. The Outside Man would Block the Outside Half and the Inside Man would diagonal out and kick the Defender Out unless that Defender Slanted in and made the Blocker hook him. That is one of the reasons they get such tremendous movement.
Another Reason for the Great ammount of movement is that the FB will Block the 1st Lber if the force is taken care of. That means the 1st Combo Block is responsible for the 2nd Lber and the 2nd Combo is responsible for the 3rd. Lber so that means that it stays a double team alot longer than a normal zone play can.
The backside 1 will be chopped by the backside G and the Backside End will be cut off by the BacksideT.
Another way to block it is to let the TE block out on the Hard force. T block out on the End. FB again on 1st Lber and it turns into an Iso with a Stretch Concept. I am saying block Out but the single block out is like the club tech I described earlier and again the back will read the EMOL to determine if he should run inside or outside the Block.

To the SE Side they would block it the same way. FB would Block Force(SS/Lber/C fire) if not taken care of with WR, or Block 1st Lber if there is not a force. T would Block 5 tech. C/G combo 1 tech.

Against 1and 5 and 9 to the TE TE would Single the 9, Tackle would Single the 5, Center and G combo the Nose1. Back would Read the 5 because they don't read Backer Emol if he is contain player.
The Backside G slips to cut Backside Lber and the T would chop the Backside 3.
If the Nose where not a 1 but a true Nose then the G would block out on the 5 and the Center would have the single on the Nose. Remember they read the Guy at the Point of Attack, usually the C Gap Player to determine outside/inside of him and they also the next lineman inside him when they get an inside read to determine how far inside.

Thanks lots of great insight,

Do they make line calls when there is a force defender so the linemen know which linebacker they are responsible for? Or are they supposed to see this and adjust on the fly? because you'll often see teams disguise their run support and bring the 8th man in the box right before the snap.

As for the ISO play do they call it as a different play to note the difference in the blocking scheme? I'm sure they do this as an adjustment if they are getting the 8th man down to the playside to give a another look to the defense. For example with a quarters saftey that is filling hard the tackle and TE can combo the DE to the saftey while the playside linebacker is blocked by the fullback. I do this at times with the inside zone. It looks like an ISO but it is a zone play. Am I correct in this assumption?

They call it force when the Lber is outside the box. The video I have from them identifys this concept and call. They do mention a call for the Lber block. They don't run a seperate Iso play, they can make it an iso by having the TE block the Force, the T block the DE and FB Iso the Lber but it still is the same read adn the same zone play to them. YOu are right about the disquising defenses and having to mkae a call.
Their theory is no penetration and if they didn't double a playside 1 then he could make the back bubble and they hate that. Plus he says the dl is better than his people so he prefers to double the playside.

Yes, they make calls... force is the call when the FB blocks force.... He didn't say what his call was for the TE to block force and The FB to block Inside Lber, but they use both schemes to the TE. He didn't say why they choose eacch one. I would think it would do with the Quicker Block on the Force when he is near the Line. The TE can get their Quicker than the FB and that also would tend to slow the Force and Sec. Down with the TE releasing outside....my opinion only, I will try and find out as I continue to learn.
He didn't talk about the inside Zone except to say that he loved it against the edge player and that the inside zone was the other half of his running game with the Wide Zone.

The put their head to the facemask and club or grab with their inside hand. They read wether it is a hook or not. Their big thing is that they are going to force some kind of read and movement.
They have several ways of dealing with 8 in the box. one way is motion a WR to block the force, so the FB canblock the Lber and the doubles can hang for a long time since their responsiblity is backside.
They prefer to get movement on the 1. . The key factor is how long can they hang on the double.
To us an edge player is a tight force player(close to the los) who will atttack the los. Good for pressure but can give the offense an advantage on the Inside cutback as this is usually the fallback player.

The 2 reads is the place where the coaching comes in. We do some of this with the inside zone so we feel our Backs can handle it.
I don't know what they prefer but they do say double force/edge they will check to the inside zone.

He does say (Gibbs) that he prefers the offset I because it is easier for the TB to read when the FB is offset and his favorite is the Pro I with the FB set Weak.

Wide Zone Strong -If the FB is set strong he has could be blocking
Force or 1st Lber. If the FB is set weak then he will block the edge weak.

Wide Zone Weak- If the FB is set weak he will block the Force or 1st Lber. If the FB is set strong he will block the Strong edge.

The FB offset is not a true key to where the Wide Zone will go. They run it to the FB and away. They also run it out of one back and will use WR's in short splits to handle force players.

The FB would block the force if he came down late. That must be taken care of. Remember also that the wideouts job is to block Safeties not corners, let the corners make the T(they usually aren't good tacklers).
I found the video from one of the boards, it may have been this one.
Email me at:
tbran1996@aol.com and maybe we can work out a trade.