This is a guest post by Benyamin Elias and Giovanni Danforth. -ed

The DC Current’s new “flood stack” offense attacks space somewhat differently from the more common horizontal, vertical, and side stack offenses. This new offense carried DC to their recent MLU Championship Title. We’ll be working through the offensive points of the first half of DC’s Week 2 game against the Boston Whitecaps to determine what exactly makes the flood stack so different.

Boston 3 - 2 DC at 23:31

This offensive point gives us the first good shots of DC’s offense. They set up in stack that runs vertically down the field with one player isolated in the force side lane.

As the disc swings towards the stack, the stack readjusts, moving to the space behind the mark. It is also worth noting that a player makes a force side under and doesn’t immediately clear into the stack; rather, he hugs the sideline. This allows him to occupy dead space (space the thrower can not easily or typically throw to) rather than disrupting live space with his clear.

Boston 3 - 2 DC at 24:33

Now we can get a better sense of how the offense functions. It again sets up on the break side, in the dead space behind the mark, with a single player isolated in the force side lane. After that player clears, a new cutter is isolated in the same space.

It’s worth noting is how shallow the stack is; the front of the stack is only about five yards from the handler. This allows quick handler movement to move the disc until cutters get open for big gainers.

As the disc moves towards the break side the stack adjusts to keep players in dead space directly behind the mark.

Boston 4 - 3 DC at 28:21

We don’t get to see most of the stack, but we can tell that players are setting up far in the break side (because that’s where cuts are coming from) and that DC has no fear of working the disc up the force side line. In fact, their offense has yet to use the break side of the field at all. Because the stack creates so much force side space, even same third hucks are fairly high percentage throws.

Boston 5 - 5 DC at 35:53

The camera makes it difficult to see the stack, but it’s pretty clearly set up on the break side. DC again shows that they are willing to march the disc up the force sideline. We see handler movement aggressively attacking the upfield force side space, as the point begins with consecutive strike cuts. Kolick even runs through all the way into the cutter set.

This possession also give us a better look at the angles used by cutters. For most of the point the disc is trapped up against the sideline, but handlers have little trouble throwing shallow breaks because of the width of the force side space. This allows them to hit cutters on the force side with relatively easy break throws that give defenders absolutely no play at the disc.

Boston 5 - 5 DC at 36:17

It’s interesting to see the change in offense as DC approaches the end zone. The stack again sets up on the break side, but cutters have more difficulty gaining separation without a deep option. This necessitates movement over to the break side, starting with the swing from Kolick. Even then though, the break side movement stops there. Although there is a small I/O break, it’s really just a single break rather than break side movement. DC eventually scores when Kolick gets the disc and quickly throws a lefty O/I flick to the break side, which is slightly more conventional break side movement. This is the first time we’ve seen DC go after the break side, and their cutters don’t look incredibly confident attacking that space.

Boston 6 - 6 DC at 42:23

This is a very interesting point because of how Boston comes down on defense. DC starts to set up on the near sideline (backhand side) with the disc in the center of the field. Boston comes down in what looks like force backhand and DC stays where they are. Their stack is now set up on the force side. However, it is also set up significantly deeper than it has been, with the front of the stack a full 15 yards away from the disc.

But then it turns out that Boston isn’t really forcing backhand; they’re forcing middle. As the disc swings to the backhand sideline the stack moves over into the center of the field, even though this is the new the force side. DC tries to keep the stack near the center of the field regardless of the force. However, they do this differently depending on the force, setting up shallow and behind the mark if the break side is available and deep on the force side it is not.

Boston 6 - 6 DC at 43:47

After DC gets the disc back on a nice D from Prial, they again set up their stack on the force side. This time they start with one cutter a little further out in the lane.

Unfortunately the camera angles make it difficult to know what is happening upfield for most of this point. The only other potentially notable thing that can be determined is that they again set up on the break side at 45:55 and the front of the stack comes across the force side for the score. Also, the dump on this play is set up directly behind the thrower.

Boston 7 - 7 DC at 48:31

This point is quite interesting because DC looks like they are coming out in a ho stack. However, this turns out to be just a pull play. Immediately two DC cutters clear break side and Prial goes force side.

DC then has their cutters starting from the break side, but they are less organized in a stack and seem more to be just a collection of players standing on the break side. At 48:44 we see the offense clearly has cutters in a stack on the break side, but the switch in camera angles before the turn makes it impossible to tell what’s going on. DC gets the disc back with a short field and basically scores in transition.

Boston 8 - 9 DC at 56:53

A similar pull play out of a false ho stack into the flood stack. Again camera angles obscure what’s going on, but DC hasn’t really run anything but their flood stack. If it is a flood stack it’s again set up on the break side, as we can see the front of the stack. Whatever stack it is sets up quite deep, which is odd for DC, considering that it is on the break side. DC moves the disc around in the handler set before Shofner puts up a questionable huck. It’s possible that the depth of the stack worked against the offense here; the deeper stack cuts off some deep space, making deep shots more difficult.

Boston 9 - 9 DC at 1:01:01

DC sets up in the stack with one in the lane, as they have done previously. As the backhand force becomes clear the stack gradually shifts over to the break side, although it is off screen. Prial also shifts it in slightly, allowing him to get a short reset.

Boston 9 - 9 DC at 1:01:54

The disc moves up the sideline with cutters clearly positioned towards the center of the field. It looks like this is the break side, but Boston is marking extremely loosely, perhaps as an adjustment to stop the to-this-point effective march up the force side.

Keegan swings the disc across the field in response, something that has not yet happened in their offense. The stack has some difficulty adjusting to the movement of the disc, and doesn’t really move from the center of the field to attack the new space. The disc eventually swings back to the near sideline and a time out is called. DC runs a play out of the time out, with players flooding towards the flick side and Kolick coming under. This offense is a bit rushed with only 12 seconds on the clock, but Kolick attempts a hammer into the wind and DC eventually turns the disc.

Conclusions

It looks like the goal of this stack is to position the stack in dead space so that cutters can be isolated one after another on the force side. The offense chooses to use the space in the center of the field as dead space, accomplishing this by setting up either shallow and directly behind the mark or deeper and on the force side. However, players do not necessarily immediately return to the stack, instead finding other dead space to wait in until the active cutters have finished their cuts.

DC moves the disc up the force sideline using either big unders or quick and aggressive handler movement. The disc rarely moved the width of the field, which is unusual for most offenses. The only notable time swings did go off was when Boston marks adjusted to be looser and straight up, which made attacking up the force sideline slightly more difficult.

This offense is effective because it makes both elements of a pass easy. Typically there are two combinations: a cutter can make an easy cut to the break side and is thrown a hard throw that must break the mark OR a handler can make an easy throw to the force side and the cutter has to make a hard cut to beat the defender. Obviously there are gradations here (e.g. shallow breaks, some resets), but the general idea holds. The width of the field and the isolated cuts to the force side make getting open on the force side significantly easier, allowing DC to make easy cuts and easy throws. The width of available force side space also enables relatively easy shallow breaks to the force side. These throws are useful because they are to the force side of the field but the break side of the cutter’s defender, making it much more difficult for defenders to make a play for the disc.

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