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Breakdown
Levels Out KO is a Cover 2 beater built off the Levels concept, stacking two in-cuts on one side with an out route breaking outside the numbers to stretch the deep half safety horizontally. The KO tag adds a kickout element to the underneath route to widen the flat defender and open a throwing lane for the intermediate crosser. This is a pure dropback pass play with no play-action or RPO elements, and the blocking scheme is a standard five man protection with the back checking release into a shallow outlet. The primary read progression starts with the deep in route against the safety, works down to the middle level crosser sitting in the void, and finishes with the flat out as the checkdown against blitz or man leverage.
Defensive Reads
Check the safety alignment pre-snap, two high shells with soft corners signal Cover 2 or Cover 4 which this levels concept is designed to exploit Watch the flat defender post-snap since the KO route is designed to pull him wide, if he stays home and sinks it clogs your first read Identify if a linebacker walls the shallow crosser in man coverage, this tells you the defense is playing man match and you should climb the ladder to the deeper level Blitzing linebackers or a nano blitz off the edge will collapse the pocket quickly, so know your protection sooner and be ready to hit the out route as a quick answer Cover 3 with a hard flat defender and deep third corner can undercut the out route, so recognize this shell pre-snap and prioritize the levels crossers over the boundary throw
Usage Tips
Use pre-snap motion or a hot route check to identify if the cornerback follows across the formation, confirming man coverage before the snap
Against Cover 2 shells, target the deep level route sitting behind the linebackers and in front of the safety since the KO out route occupies the flat defender
On third and medium situations this play excels because the levels stack gives you a built in answer against both zone drops and man matchups
Pair this call with Levels Y Corner earlier in a series so the defense has to respect the corner shot before you come back with the flatter breaking out route
If the user jumps the underneath crosser with a linebacker spy or lurk, reset to the out route as your first read instead of forcing it into traffic
Combine with RPO Alert Out or Stick from the same set to keep the defense guessing between quick game and the deeper levels shot
