Playbooks
Breakdown
Deep Fork is a play-action pass out of Shotgun Box with 10 personnel that is built to attack Cover 3 with vertical stress on the deep third defenders. Post-snap the play shows a scissors concept from the two inline receivers where one runs a post and the other runs a corner, crossing paths to create natural picks against man coverage and to split the deep zone defenders in three-deep shells. The outside receiver runs a curl into a flat combo underneath while the backside receiver works a deep comeback into a shorter comeback route, giving the QB a curl-flat window if the post/corner combo is capped over the top. Primary read starts with the post/corner scissors read (post if the safety flows with the corner runner, corner if the safety bites on the post), then progresses to the curl/flat combo underneath as the checkdown against squat zone coverage.
Defensive Reads
Key the free safety pre-snap, if he is aligned in the middle of the field in a single-high shell the scissors concept is designed to cross his face and force a coverage decision that opens one of the two deep routes. Watch the flow of the strong side linebacker after the snap, if he bites hard on the play-action fake it opens a throwing lane for the post route behind him. Zone defenses that sink their corners and safeties deep without respecting the play-action fake will take away the corner route, forcing the QB to check down to the curl or flat underneath. Man coverage teams that press at the line can get beat by the natural pick created in the scissors crossing routes, so look for a defender getting hung up or losing the rub. Cover 3 with a hard-flowing Mike linebacker to the play-action side is the ideal look for this concept since it opens the middle of the field for the post route before the deep defenders can rotate over.
Usage Tips
Look for two-high safety shells pre-snap since the scissors post/corner combo is designed to split single-high defenders in Cover 3, so if you see a Cover 1 or Cover 3 shell with the safety cheating to one side, take the opposite route in the crossing combo. Use the play-action fake to freeze linebackers on early down and distance situations, ideally on 2nd and medium or 1st down when defenses are more willing to bite on run action. If the corner on the scissors route gets picked up by a deep zone defender sitting over the top, work down to the curl sitting at the sticks for a safe intermediate gain. Pair this with Deep Curls or Slot Trail from the same Box set to keep the defense guessing between vertical shots and quick underdneath combos, since the pre-snap motion and formation look identical. Against aggressive man coverage teams, hot route the flat route into a quick option or check the protection to a max protect slide if you are seeing extra pressure looks, since the deep routes take time to develop.
