INSIDE VEER RULES: PART 3 A-BACK/WR RULES

This is our final blog on Inside Veer rules and it will focus on A-back and WR play. One critical aspect to running the Flexbone correctly is blocking the perimeter. Your A-back's and WR's MUST block the perimeter in order to have success. As we discussed prior in our Count System blog, the playside A-back (PSA) and playside WR (PSWR) will be responsible for blocking #3 and the NDD (Near Deep Defender). The backside WR (BSWR) is responsible for backside cutoff of the backside Safety (BSS) and backside Corner (BSCB). Another overlooked aspect of Inside Veer is the importance of the motion, pitch path and pitch relationship of the backside A-back (BSA).

Against a 7 man front (50 or 4-3) with 2 high safeties we will generally use two possible blocking schemes for the perimeter, Arc or Switch. Both of these schemes are dependent upon the secondary look we're getting, and also what is happening at the snap. The A-back's have to find all 4 defenders in our Count System and communicate with the WR to ensure we're in the right blocking scheme. The WR's are usually unable to determine who #1 and #2 are in the Count. They are primarily looking at the secondary to determine their part of the Count, #3 and NDD. We teach our WR's like this, "If you ran Vertical, who would cover you?" Whoever that is, he's the NDD. That's how they determine who is #3 and NDD.

ARC Scheme:

Generally, we try to stay in an Arc scheme against a Cover 4 look (4 across). In this scheme, we are declaring the playside Safety (PSS) as #3 and the playside CB (PSCB) as NDD. The PSWR is responsible for blocking the playside # of the NDD, the PSCB. The PSA will block the PSS as #3.

SWITCH Scheme:

Against a Cover 2 look, or against a situation where our PSA is getting outleveraged by the PSS, or into the boundary, we will use a Switch scheme. This scheme will make the PSCB the #3 and the PSS as NDD.

Backside Rules:

The BSA will obviously be the pitch man. His job is to taking the proper aiming point and pitch path to establish a 1 yard deep X 4 yards wide pitch relationship to the QB. The pitch man must be ready to turn upfield when the QB does. We want to pitch the ball flat, going upfield. If you're lucky, sometimes you'll pitch the ball forward and get some passing yards off of it.

The BSWR will attempt to cutoff the BSS and BSCB. We tell the BSWR to aim for the PSS (pre-snap position) and attempt to get into the void that will be created when the PSS reacts to the play. The BSWR usually can't get to BSS, but we expect him to cutoff the BSCB. This will give us an idea if our Search route is open when we run Veer PAP. If the BSWR loafs, then he's coming off the field. The backside blocks are the ones that are the difference between 20-yard gains and TD's.

Please see the chart below that summarizes rules, aiming points and techniques discussed above.