Playbooks
Quick Reference
Breakdown
Deep Flood stacks three levels of routes to the same side, a classic flood concept designed to overload one half of the field against zone coverage. The outside receiver runs a deep corner route, the slot receiver breaks off a quick out to the flat, and the TE/Y works a crossing route underneath that stems into the vacated middle. Backside, the far receiver runs a deep dig, giving the quarterback a two-way go if the defense rotates hard to the flood side. This is a Cover 3 beater at its core, with the primary read progression going flat to deep corner to backside dig depending on the safety and corner drop depth.
Defensive Reads
Watch the single high safety before the snap, if he cheats to the flood side you have a clean backside dig throw waiting. Post snap read the corner over the top receiver, if he sinks with the corner route and never widens for the flat, the underneath crosser will be wide open. Identify the flat defender's drop, a slow or hesitant flat defender means the corner route wins over the top, but a jumpy flat defender who sprints out means the crosser sits in the void behind him. Man coverage with no help over the top is a losing rep for the defense here, especially against Cover 1 or Cover 0 where the corner route creates instant separation on a vertical stem. Cover 4 and two high safety shells with a hard flat rotation can shut this down by taking away both the flat and corner routes, forcing you to rely on the backside dig as the only outlet.
Usage Tips
Presnap identify if the defense is showing a single high safety, since Cover 3 and Cover 1 are the shells this concept punishes hardest.
Key the flat defender first: if he sits and covers the underactive receiver on the crossing route, throw the corner route immediately behind him before the deep third defender can rotate over.
Use the backside dig as your answer versus Cover 4 or split safety looks where the flood side gets bracketed, since that route sits down in the void created by the rotation.
Hot route the flat runner into a quick flat if you are getting fast pressure off the edge, this gets the ball out fast and still stresses the underneath defender.
Pair this with Mtn Mills or PA Dagger from the same set so the defense cannot key on flood side rollout tendencies, and mix in Mesh Dagger to attack the middle if defenses start jumping the flood.
