Playbooks
Quick Reference
In 2 playbooks
Breakdown
Cheat Inside Zone lines up out of Shotgun Bunch with a pre-snap motion piece sweeping across the formation before the snap to help the offense identify man versus zone coverage. The offensive line executes a zone blocking scheme, stepping in unison to the play side and reading the flow of the defensive front to seal running lanes, while the HB takes the handoff and reads his blockers for a cutback or bang lane. This is a straightforward Inside Zone run play (not a play-action or RPO variant based on this diagram) and the primary read progression is frontside gap to backside cutback, letting the HB press the hole and cut based on which way the linebackers flow.
Defensive Reads
Key the middle linebacker depth pre-snap, if he is stacked tight to the line expect an aggressive run fit that can be countered with the cutback lane. Watch for defensive linemen crashing hard down the line, which signals a scrape exchange or contain defender that Cheat Inside Zone can exploit with a bounce read. If the defense shows Cover 3 or Cover 4 with safeties deep, the box should be light enough to hit this run downhill without much resistance. Beware a blitzing linebacker coming through the A or B gap unblocked, since the zone scheme can be slow to pick up quick interior pressure. Look for the defense to bring the safety down into the box on the motion, since that indicates man coverage and a potential vacated deep middle that favors play-action shots later in the series.
Usage Tips
Use the pre-snap motion to bait linebackers into showing blitz or revealing man coverage by having a defender run with your motion man across the formation.
Call this out of 11 personnel on early downs like first and ten or second and short to keep defenses honest against your Bunch pass concepts like Bunch Sail or Bunch Verts.
If the defense shows a stacked box with eight defenders, check out of Cheat Inside Zone into a quick game concept like Stick or Curls Attack to punish the light coverage.
Pair this run with Read Option or HB Sweep from the same Bunch set to keep defenses guessing on zone read keys and outside contain.
Attack a light front (six or fewer in the box) with this play and trust the zone blocking to create a natural cutback lane if the playside gets sealed.
