[TheTebowEffect]

Hey coaches,

I'm new to coaching (4th & 5th grade) but not new to flag football (played 4 years in college). We had our scrimmage last week and won 26-19. In todays game we tied one of the best teams in the league 26-26.Since I'm the intern for the league, I have to check all 3 sites and check on the refs aka scout the teams that I'm playing the next two weeks. With that being said, in today's game the other team had two star players that are probably in the top 5 in the league. I knew that one of the two will be the qb and the other will play WR or RB. I designed a Man-Zone defensive of scheme where it was a 1(on the LOS playing man on one of the star WR - 3(linebackers)-1(safety) aka 1-3-1 Man Zone. It worked 80% of the time and really frustrated the WR's to the point where the kids yelled at their coach to make them stop (had a chuckle when that happen). I was just wondering what other defensive of schemes do coaches use to shut down a top 5 player in the league.

Rules = Standard NFL flag rules with some modifications

rusher must start 7 yards behind LOS
QB can't rush
No pitches
Passes must be beyond LOS

P-S: Coach Rob, before I found this forum I've seen your videos on Youtube and stole a couple of your plays haha.... pretty cool I found you on this forum!

[Orange]

I think you hit it on the head, man up on the star receiver. The only other thing I can think of doing would be to cheat some zone players over towards him, maybe have them give him special attention/ shade towards him when he's in their area. Also, the quicker you can get to the QB and force him to throw the less time he'll have to get the ball to the star. But really just man up on the star receiver like you did.

[Johnp2]

There is another alternative here, I believe. The whole idea is to keep the WR in front of the defenders, while still covering the field (not the players). We ran into this in our championship game (8-9 year olds). We faced a team that threw 99% of the time. Their tactics were pretty simple: they threw to their top receiver in the seam on every play---if he was covered they checked down to their RB (who was typically in the flats). We ran a 3-2-1 zone.

For the first 1.5 quarters, it caught us off-guard. When I figured out what was happening here is what I did:

1. I had my LBs drop back about five yards deeper than they normally would be to make it harder for the WR to find the seam. I did not have either of them play man on the WR, but did ask them to keep one eye on him. The whole idea was to keep the WR IN FRONT of them so they can move up to get his flag once he caught it, deflect the pass, or better yet intercept it. Typically, by the time the QB threw the ball to him, the LBs only had to run 3 or so yards forward to go for the ball. Worst case scenario, he caught it and they got his flag immediately.

2. I then had my NG spy the RB.

We ended up shutting them down the rest of the game (and intercepted two balls going to his top WR). After the game, the coach emailed me and told me it was the most frustrating defense hed faced. He called it a "bend don't break---or better yet 'let them beat themselves' defense." ;-) By that, they did move the ball some, but the odds were against them as unless they were throwing at an 80% completion rate (which they weren't) they would either have to eventually punt or turn the ball over.

One note about just putting one player to play man against the a team's best WR while the rest of the team plays zone--it can be risky. Two seasons ago I had an incredible WR. Teams would start having someone play man on him, and I countered it by splitting the WR wide, sending him on a drag route and then have my slot (on the other side) run a slant in the opposite direction. This just left a hole in their zone and 99% of the time the slot was wide open.

[CoachDan]

We had a similar situation in our championship game. The coach's son on the opposing team lead the league in rushing TDs and receiving TDs mostly due to his getting the ball about 1/3 of the time. We put our best player on him in man to man coverage for the entire game while we kept one fast player back to blitz every play so that they had to run their plays quickly. The other three defenders were placed in 1) a shadow to follow the plays and prevent and big gainers, 2) a noseguard to make running in the middle of the field very difficult and 3) a strong side contain player. It worked really well. Their top player had 4 touches for 3 yards, 3 incomplete passses and we also intercepted one pass because they were too intent on getting him the ball. We won 12-6 with a solid defense and a very balanced offense that kept them guessing.