In this article, we're going to take a look at what it means to be able to attack all three levels (or depths) of a defense and create spacing for your receivers. It's important to have the ability to attack different spots on the field because it forces your opponent to remain accountable for every area. Otherwise, if your opponent knows that you only like to attack deep downfield, that's the only thing thing he will need to worry about throughout the course of a game. In the image below, you can see that we've highlighted parts of the field to indicate the three different levels of the defense.
 |
Shallow (yellow) - This part of the field is typically attacked with screen passes and/or swing passes to your running backs out of the backfield. Medium (red) - This area of the field is usually where you'll see slants, post patterns, and corner routes utilized the most. |
Creating an offense that poses a threat to all three levels on every play is ideal. Take a look at the following example to see exactly what we mean.
The Green Bay Packers have come out in the I-Form Normal WR Option play. The WR Option does a great job of attacking the 1st and 2nd levels of the defense. Unfortunately, there are no assigned receivers on this play that allow us to become a threat at the 3rd level. Any successful offensive play must have the proper route spacing.
Utilizing proper spacing on the field may be the single most important aspect to worry about when on offense. You could have all of the game's most dangerous routes in one play and it would be worthless if they all went to the same spot on the field. Instead, a solid offensive play involves routes that attack numerous parts of the field. The goal on offense should be to force the defense to have to react to what you're doing, not the other way around.
Additionally, proper use of depth and spacing can help to limit an opponent's ability to blitz and control the run. As each defender is now accountable for a larger area of the field, your opponent may be forced to drop additional defenders into coverage, players that would otherwise be available for blitzing or run support.
Here we've taken the initial play that we called (I-Form Normal - WR Option) and hot-routed both outside receivers to give us a couple threats at the 3rd level of the defense. If this change isn't made it would allow the two deep safeties to creep down closer to the line of scrimmage to help guard against the underneath routes. Instead, now that we've made these changes we're forcing our opponent to guard two more spots on the field, opening up our running back's route underneath.
Shortly after the snap is taken, Green Bay Packers' quarterback Brett Favre makes the throw to the running back to attack the 1st level of the defense. Next, we look to hit our tight end at the 2nd level running the post route about 12-15 yards down the middle of the field. Now that all the focus is underneath, we attack the 3rd level of the defense by lobbing the ball over the head of the secondary for a quick six.
