Playbooks
Quick Reference
Breakdown
Slants Y Stick lines up out of Shotgun Wing Slot Offset with 12 personnel and shows a four man route concept built to attack zone leverage underneath. The two receivers to the boundary run slants that cross the middle of the field on quick angles, the tight end from the wing runs a vertical stick that breaks outside to the flat area, and the outside receiver to the field side stems upfield before turning it into a deep corner breaking route. The primary read starts with the slant from the widest receiver, works inside to the Y stick flat route as the checkdown, then climbs to the deep corner if the safety bites on the underneath routes, making this a zone beater designed to exploit soft spots in cover 2 and cover 3 shells.
Defensive Reads
As the defense, key the slot and outside receivers at the snap since both slant routes attack the same shallow crossing lanes and can be jumped by a linebacker sitting in a hook zone. Watch for the tight end releasing to the flat, a user controlled defender should be ready to sink under the stick route rather than biting on the slant fake. Read the deep corner route from the field side receiver, a single high safety rotating late is the biggest tell that the quarterback is progressing to that shot play, so keep outside contain and force him to check down. Cover 3 with a hard flat defender and disciplined underneath linebackers takes away both the slants and the stick route, forcing a difficult window throw to the corner. Blitzing off the edge before the tight end releases can disrupt the timing of the stick route, since this concept relies on a clean quick rhythm throw in the first two seconds after the snap.
Usage Tips
Call this on early downs or third and short when you expect zone coverage since the slant and stick combo is designed to sit in the soft spots between linebacker levels.
Presnap, identify if the corner over the deep route is playing off man or bailing into a deep third, if he sinks immediately the underneath slants will be wide open all game.
Use the Y stick route as your rhythm throw against cover 2 since it settles in the void between the flat defender and the underneath linebacker before the corner route ever needs to be read.
Motion or shift the wing tight end presnap to confirm man versus zone, if a linebacker or safety follows across the formation you are getting man coverage and should progress straight to the slant against a trailing defender.
Pair this play with Double Stick or Stick Nod Vertical in your play calling sequence so the defense cannot sit on the same stick concept read twice in a row.
