Playbooks
Deep Flood is a zone beater built off the Wide Trips HB WK set in Shotgun, using a three level flood concept to the trips side while the backside receiver runs a vertical shot to hold the single high safety. The trips receivers stack the same side of the field at deep, intermediate, and short depths, overloading any single defender in the flood zone and creating natural leverage against Cover 3 and Cover 2 zone drops. The HB stays in as a check release or releases into the shallow flat, giving the quarterback a fourth option underneath. Primary read progression starts with the deep out or corner route from the flood side, works down to the intermediate sit route in the flat zone window, and finishes with the shallow flat or HB check down if the deep windows are closed.
Watch the free safety's pre snap alignment, if he is shaded toward the flood side in a two high shell he can rob the deep route and force you to work the underneath levels immediately. Key the flat zone defender at the snap, in Cover 3 the corner or outside linebacker responsible for the flat has to choose between the shallow route and the intermediate sit route, and whichever one he leaves open is your throw. User controlled lurk defenders sitting in the intermediate zone are the biggest threat to this concept, if you see a user jump the sit route route work back to the deep flood route or reset to the backside vertical. Blitz packages that bring extra pressure off the edge on the flood side can disrupt the timing needed for all three levels to develop, so check protection or hot route the HB into a chip block if you see overload pressure pre snap. Cover 4 and quarters shells with disciplined deep defenders tend to shut this down since the deep route runs into a static deep quarter defender, in that case abandon the deep read and attack the flat and shallow combo underneath.
Pre snap, identify whether the defense is showing a single high shell or two deep look, since Deep Flood is designed to punish single high zone coverages like Cover 3 where one defender has to cover three levels on the flood side.
If you see man coverage indicators like tight press alignment on the outside corners, hot route the deep flood route into a slant or in cut to turn this into a quick man beater instead of forcing the deep shot.
Use this play on second and long or third and long situations where the defense is more likely to sit in zone drops, since the flood concept needs time to let all three levels develop.
Pair Deep Flood with Curls X Post or Levels earlier in a drive to condition the defense into expecting shorter zone concepts, then hit them with the deep flood shot when they sit on underneath routes.
Combine Deep Flood with HB Angle Screen or HB Slip Screen as a change of pace, since defenses that start keying flood reads and adjusting linebacker depth to jump the intermediate route become vulnerable to a quick screen out of the backfield.