Playbooks
Breakdown
HB Toss Crack is a perimeter run play out of Singleback Wing with 12 personnel that gets the ball to the flat quickly using pitch action. The diagram shows the HB taking a toss and running laterally toward the boundary while the offensive line and wing TE crack down inside to seal off pursuit, creating a running lane on the edge. This is a pure run play designed to attack the edge before defenders can flow, and the primary read is the crack blocker: key the TE or wing blocker's crack block on the edge defender first, then follow the pulling lineman for the alley before deciding whether to bounce outside or cut up inside the crack.
Defensive Reads
Watch for a hard edge defender who is not respecting outside contain, since he can blow up the crack block before the puller arrives. Key the flow of the linebackers at the snap. Fast flowing linebackers who diagnose toss action quickly will beat the crack scheme to the alley. Identify if the defense is in a run blitz or nano blitz look pre-snap, since those fits are designed to crash the backfield and can outrun the crack scheme. Look for a user-controlled safety flying downhill on run recognition. That safety is the primary threat to this play and can shut it down if he beats the crack block to the alley. Zone shells with linebackers sitting in their drops rather than flowing hard to the ball are more vulnerable to this concept because the crack block has more time to develop.
Usage Tips
Call this play when you see light boxes or defenses cheating toward inside run gaps since the crack scheme is designed to outflank slower fits.
Check safety depth before the snap. If the safety is sitting at 8 yards or shallower he can fill the crack alley fast, so consider hot routing the wing TE to chip and release instead of crack blocking in that situation.
Use this in early down and distance like first and ten or second and short so play action off it later in the series carries more weight with the defense.
Pair this with PA Boot Lt or Mtn PA Boot from the same set since the toss action and the boot both attack the perimeter, forcing linebackers to hesitate on their run fits.
Against aggressive edge defenders who crash hard on run action, user the HB to bounce outside the crack block rather than forcing it upfield into a scraping linebacker.
