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Quick Reference
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Breakdown
Redzone Scissors lines up out of Shotgun Doubles Flex with 11 personnel, showing two receivers stacked tight to the formation on the right (the X and TE), a slot to the left, and a wide receiver isolated far left. The core concept is the scissors route from the two tight receivers: one runs a corner route breaking outside while the other crosses underneath on a slant, creating a natural crossing pattern that stresses zone defenders and forces man defenders into a rub. The backside slot runs a quick out and the far left receiver runs a deep comeback, giving the quarterback a full-field progression, with the primary read starting on the scissors combo (corner first, then the crossing slant) before working back to the comeback and out route against zone drops.
Defensive Reads
Watch the flat defender or corner over the scissors side before the snap, if he is playing outside leverage expecting the corner route he is vulnerable to the underneath crossing slant. Read the safety depth on the play side, against Cover 2 the corner route is designed to split the seam between the corner and safety before the safety can get over the top. Versus man coverage, look for the natural rub created by the crossing routes, if the defense is running man with no help underneath the slant defender will get picked and open up quickly. Check linebacker depth in the middle of the field, a lurking linebacker sitting at the sticks can jump the crossing slant if he reads quarterback eyes early, so keep pump fakes and eye discipline in mind when throwing this route. Zone blitzes with a corner or safety rotating down late can disrupt the timing of the corner route, if you see pre-snap rotation toward the scissors side be ready to check down to the backside out or comeback route.
Usage Tips
Pre-snap, identify whether the safeties are showing two-high or rotating to single-high, since this concept is built to attack Cover 2 and Cover 4 shells where the corner route can climb over the flat defender and into the seam between the safeties.
Key the corner defender over the scissors side: if he sits low expecting a flat route, throw the corner route immediately off the crossing action before the safety can rotate over.
Use the crossing slant as your answer versus man coverage since the natural rub from the corner route releasing outside creates late separation for the slant defender trailing across the field.
Call this in the red zone on 2nd or 3rd and medium when defenses shrink their zone drops, since the compressed field makes the scissors combo harder for underneath defenders to cover with less width to work with.
Pair this with Curl Flats or Z Spot in the same set to keep defenses guessing between a scissors crossing concept and traditional curl-flat reads, forcing linebackers to hesitate on their zone drops.
