Playbooks
Quick Reference
Breakdown
HB Misdirection out of Power I Strong lines up with a fullback and tight end stacked in front of the HB, showing classic downhill run action to sell the defense on a lead run before the ball carrier counters back across the formation. The line fires out with down blocks and the fullback leads through the hole, but the HB action shown in red cuts back against the initial flow, punishing over-aggressive linebacker flow to the play side. This is a pure run play built to attack teams that key on the fullback and pull hard to the strength, with the primary read being the backside cutback lane once the linebackers commit.
Defensive Reads
Watch linebacker depth at the snap, if both backers step hard toward the strong side flow they are vulnerable to the cutback design of this play. Keep an eye on the weak side defensive end and backside linebacker, if they stay home instead of chasing flow this play has nowhere to go. Man coverage on the perimeter does not matter much here since this is a run concept, focus your read on the second level fits instead of cornerback alignment. A defense running gap sound assignment football or a scrape exchange call will erase the cutback lane before it opens. If the defense brings extra run support with a safety crashed down as a de facto ninth defender, this misdirection can still hit if the linebackers overflow to the fullback fake.
Usage Tips
Call this play after you have run HB Toss or Power O a few times from the same Power I Strong look so linebackers start flowing hard to the strong side before you counter them with this misdirection.
Use it on early downs, first or second and short to medium, when defenses are willing to sell out against the run and load the box.
Watch for linebackers crashing down pre-snap on run fits, that aggressive depth is exactly what this play punishes on the cutback.
If the defense shows a walked up safety or extra man in the box, stick with the fake action longer with your user controlled blocker to buy the cutback lane time to develop.
Mix this in with FB Dive and HB Blast from the same set so the defense cannot key on backfield spacing and continues to flow hard to initial action.
