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Quick Reference
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Breakdown
Corner Strike is a man beater out of Shotgun Split Close Pro that attacks the boundary with a corner route as the featured concept, paired with underneath crossers and a check down out of the backfield to hold linebackers. The blocking scheme uses a 6 man protection look with the 2 RB personnel, sliding protection to one side while keeping an extra blocker in to handle overload blitzes. The primary read progression starts with the corner route working against outside leverage, then works to the intermediate crosser if the corner is capped, and finishes with the check down against pressure.
Defensive Reads
Check the safety alignment pre-snap, a single high safety means the corner route has a soft window in the deep quarter before help arrives. Watch the cornerback's press or off alignment, off coverage with outside leverage is a green light for the corner route to break open against man coverage. Identify Cover 2 shells by reading both safeties deep, this coverage forces you to work the underneath crosser instead of forcing the corner route into the flat defender. Post-snap, track the flat defender and user controlled corner, if they sink hard into the corner route's landing zone bail to your check down or shallow crosser. Watch for a lurking linebacker or nickel defender sitting in the throwing lane on the crosser, that key tells you the defense is playing pattern match and you should trust the corner route one on one instead.
Usage Tips
Attack single high safety shells since the corner route wins one on one against Cover 3 and Cover 1 when the corner sits with outside leverage.
Use pre-snap motion to identify man versus zone before the snap, if the defender follows across the formation you have a green light to work the corner route with confidence.
Hot route the underneath crosser into a shallow drag against zone heavy defenses to give yourself a quick answer versus Cover 2 and Cover 4 shells that flood the deep boundary.
Pair Corner Strike with Y Curl and RPO Zone Peek in the same drive to keep defenders honest, forcing linebackers to respect the quick game before you hit them with the deep shot.
Use this play on second and medium or third and long situations where defenses are more likely to play zone drops, since the corner route stretches the sideline before the safety can rotate over.
