Playbooks

Franchise Playsheet

The Florist

PlaysheetDefense

2Formations

4Sets

30Plays

Overview

The Florist is a compact 30 play situational playsheet built almost entirely around the 3-4 front. Twenty four of its thirty calls (80%) come out of 3-4 across three sets, with a single 4-3 set carrying the remaining six plays (20%). That is a deliberately narrow front structure, and it means you are playing odd front football nearly every snap: two personnel groups, Base 5-2 and Base 4-3, and a coverage menu that runs from Cover 3, Cover 3 Sky and Cover 3 Cloud through Cover 2 and Tampa 2, then into Cover 1, Cover 1 Robber, Press Man, Pinch and Cover 0.

The value here is repetition. Because 80% of the plays live in one front, your pre snap picture barely changes from call to call, which is exactly what you want when you are disguising man behind a shell. Cover 1 Hole and Cov 1 Robber Press are the anchors: the hole and robber defenders let you take away the middle of the field while your user defender reads the quarterback's shoulders, and Press Man out of the same look forces receivers to fight through contact before the route stem ever develops. Cover 3 Sky and Cover 3 Cloud give you two different flat solutions from an identical alignment, so you can rotate the strong safety down without telegraphing whether the corner or the safety owns the sideline.

Choosing The Florist over a wider book means trading formation variety for coverage depth inside one front. You get Tampa 2 to close the seam, Pinch to squeeze inside runs, and Cover 0 when you need a bail out pressure on third down, all from the same 3-4 alignments your opponent has already seen. The lone 4-3 set is your change up rather than your foundation, so it works best as a situational counter when an offense starts sitting on your odd front reads.

Scheme Fit

The Florist wants a roster built for odd front man coverage: two press capable corners with high man coverage and press ratings, an outside linebacker group with speed and block shedding to hold the edge from the 3-4, and at least one nose type interior defender who can anchor against inside runs when you call Pinch. Because Cover 1, Cover 1 Robber and Cover 0 carry so much of the load, you need a safety with zone coverage and play recognition who can play the hole honestly and a user defender you trust to manually cover the middle. Pick this book if you enjoy disguising coverage from one repeated alignment and playing man to man with a user defender, and avoid it if you prefer rotating between multiple fronts and heavy sub package football.

Playsheet bonuses

IUnlocks the playsheet
II+3Man Coverage, Zone Coverageall LB
III+3Play Recall Defenders
IV+5Agilityall Defenders

Every play in this playsheet (30 plays)

3-4 Even7 plays

3-4 Odd9 plays

3-4 Under8 plays

4-3 Even 6-16 plays

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Strengths

Eighty percent 3-4 concentration across three sets gives you an almost identical pre snap shell on every call, which is the single best disguise tool in the game: Cover 3 Sky, Cover 3 Cloud, Cover 1 Robber and Cover 0 all break from the same picture.
Base 5-2 personnel out of 3-4 lets you walk edge defenders up and down without a substitution, so you can show pressure and bail into Cover 2 or Tampa 2 using nothing but shifts and coverage audibles.
Cover 1 Hole and Cov 1 Robber Press give you two distinct middle of the field robbers, which is how you kill drag, dig and shallow cross combos while still keeping a user defender free to read the quarterback.
Press Man inside a book this small means you can build a three or four play audible package where every call presses the same way, forcing your opponent to guess coverage after the snap instead of before it.
Pinch and the Cover 3 family cover both ends of run defense from the odd front, so you can defend inside gaps and boundary runs without leaving your primary formation.

Weaknesses

Only two formations and four sets across thirty plays means a repeat opponent will map your entire front structure in a half, and there is no third formation to rotate to when they do.
The 4-3 share is a single set with six plays (20%), so if an offense attacks your odd front with heavy run personnel you have very little even front material to answer with.
Two personnel groups, Base 5-2 and Base 4-3, leave you without nickel or dime style sub packages inside the book, so empty and four wide sets will force you into manual formation subs and hot route coverage fixes.
The coverage list leans heavily on Cover 1, Cover 1 Robber, Press Man and Cover 0, which makes you vulnerable to motion and mismatch hunting if the user reads man early and drags your matchup defender out of position.
Cover 0 is your only true all out answer, so third down blitz pressure is thin and a patient offense can sit in max protect and pick the single high and zero looks apart.

Usage Tips

Build your audible package entirely inside the 3-4 sets since they carry 24 of 30 plays: pair Cover 1 Hole, Cov 1 Robber Press, Cover 3 Sky and Cover 2 so one flip through audibles changes coverage without changing your alignment.

Use Cover 3 Cloud on second and long and early first downs where you want the corner in the flat and the safety over the top, then switch to Cover 3 Sky when an offense starts attacking the boundary underneath.

Save Cov 1 Robber Press for third and medium, roughly five to eight yards, and user the robber or the free hole defender yourself so you can jump the dig or shallow cross that the offense wants in that window.

Call Tampa 2 against seam and vertical heavy formations, and reach for Pinch on short yardage and goal line downs where inside gap integrity beats coverage depth.

Treat the single 4-3 set as your situational change up rather than your base: bring it out after your opponent has seen three or four straight 3-4 looks, especially on obvious run downs, then go back to the odd front.