Last year Jim Caldwell and his staff took the Lions back to the postseason, and nearly giving them their first playoff win in almost three decades. Central to Detroit’s offensive philosophy is finding new and creative ways to use one of pro football’s most exciting players, receiver Calvin Johnson.

In this example, we’re going to look at a play from week one of last season against the Giants, and how teams can create lots of space for their players to operate by moving skill players in tight to the tackle box.

The Play

The reason an offense will get into a condensed formation like this is that they want to see how the defense will line up to it, and from there how to exploit it.

When you look at a formation like this, it’s important to remember that the defense needs to stay sound against the run as well as being able to defend against the pass. As a result, New York’s defense needs to maintain solid leverage against the potential run out on the perimeter, which leads to the corners playing soft and outside the way they are in the diagram below.

Then within the tackle box itself, you’ve got eight men in the box, and the Sam linebacker and Strong Safety playing as the overhang defender to either side. It forces the defense to play very balanced, keeping the middle of the safety from playing too far to either side, and as a result creating more opportunities for one-on-one matchups with Calvin Johnson.

The Lions start out in a compressed formation to force the defense to squeeze in tight and open up space to the outside.

The hope is that the defense will get packed in tight, and in the process create all kinds of room on the perimeter for the receivers to get open, or to get more offensive players on the edge in a hurry so they can turn the corner and get vertical.

In this situation, the corner to Johnson’s side is packed in tight to the formation, but still keep outside leverage and a small cushion as well, in order to guard against any vertical out-breaking routes- exactly the kind of route Johnson is running on this play.

Calvin Johnson’s route is a little cut down from the minimal depth of a deep out route that a lot of receivers would run. The break to the sideline to make the catch is based on his “feel” for the corner he’s playing against.

Once he starts to get even with the corner, he feels that he can make his break to the outside and put the corner in an uncomfortable position of having to pull off what is often referred to as a “centerfield” turn, which allows the corner to keep as much of his momentum as possible. The movement gets its name from the same technique that centerfielders use on the baseball diamond when chasing a fly ball flying in their direction.

The ball is snapped, and we see the corner at the top of the screen working against Calvin Johnson with outside leverage and a nice cushion.

The technique requires the corner, who had been backpedaling and facing the QB and Johnson, to pivot off of his inside, or left, foot and turn counter-clockwise toward the sideline once he sees Johnson break out to the sideline on the deep out route.

Now we see Johnson break out to the sideline with the corner turning counter-clockwise like we talked about to keep as much of his momentum as possible.

The reason defensive backs are coached up to do this is because while it may seen counter-intuitive to turn your back on the receiver in coverage, the benefit comes when you come out of that pivot and can plant off of your right foot, you an pick up whatever speed you lost while turning. It’s a very smooth movement, and doesn’t require a full stop by the defensive back, which is key, because the moment you come to a complete stop, you’re beat, it doesn’t matter who you’re covering.

For the corner in this scenario, it’s also a matter of attacking him where he’s at, because of the leverage he’s playing with, as well as the depth.

This is why Johnson had to get “even” with the corner before breaking to the outside.

If instead of breaking out at around 13–14 yards (it’s a rounded cut), Johnson tried to break out at about 10 yards, the corner would be in perfect position to plant and accelerate to get underneath the cut and get between the ball and Johnson.

It’s not so much that the corner would get in the way of the path of the out route, since (1) Johnson is twice the size of most of the corners he faces and (2) in most situations these days, in the case of a pile up, the official is going to give the offensive player the benefit of the doubt.

Johnson gets open for the catch because he times up his cut to the sideline at just the right time to force the corner to re-route.

Rather, as we said before, it’s because the corner wants to give himself enough room to get underneath the receiver no matter which way breaks, in or out. The deeper Johnson gets on his route, the more likely it is that he’s going to make his break in any direction, so that’s why the corner starts to throttle down in his backpedal.

Johnson grabs the catch for a Detroit first down.

It’s this kind of thinking that allows Detroit to manufacture situations where they can get their best player in space, and at the same time put the defense in uncomfortable scenarios, as well as using formations where the defense has to “declare” their intentions.

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