Playbooks
Breakdown
Saw Blitz 3 is a five-man pressure package out of the Tite Leo 4-3 Base 5-2 personnel that drops into a Cover 3 zone shell behind the rush. Two deep outside defenders sink into the flats off the numbers while the middle deep defender bails straight downfield, and the underneath zone defender in the middle of the field slides to cover the shallow hook area as the five rushers attack downhill off the snap. This is a zone-blitz zone beater design: the primary read for the offense facing it is to attack the vacated middle hook/curl area before the shallow zone defender can fully reroute, then work outside to the flat defenders if the underneath window closes.
Defensive Reads
Pre-snap, check the offensive formation for trips or bunch sets that can overload one flat zone defender, since the five-man rush leaves only three deep defenders and two underneath. Key the running back's alignment: if he stays in to block, expect the rush to win quickly and you can squeeze the pocket with the user-controlled defender. Post-snap, watch the middle hook zone defender's drop, if he sits too shallow, crossing routes and deep in-cuts behind him will gash this coverage. This beats quick game and man beater concepts that rely on rubbing off man defenders, since there is no man leverage to exploit. It struggles against RPOs and play-action rollouts to the flat that attack the space vacated by the blitzing linebacker before the zone fully rotates, so be ready to sink your flat defender immediately at the snap.
Usage Tips
Call this on early downs or short yardage third downs when you want to disguise pressure while still keeping three deep defenders in place. Pre-snap, identify if the offense is in a spread trips or bunch look, since the five-man rush can get exposed to quick screens if your underneath defender bites on run action. Use the flat defenders' zone drop to bait the quarterback into throwing to the boundary, then close with the user-controlled linebacker if you jump the short in-cut route. Pair this with Saw Blitz 2 and Saw Blitz 1 in the same set to keep the same pre-snap look while varying the rush lane, forcing the quarterback to guess which gap is getting the extra rusher. Sequence Saw Blitz 3 after a Cover 3 Match rep so quarterbacks who identified zone coverage on tape get surprised by the added pressure and shorter throwing window.
