Playbooks
23
7 Sets6 Formations
Overview
23 personnel puts 2 running backs, 3 tight ends, and 0 wide receivers on the field, the heaviest grouping most playbooks carry outside of true goal line packages. It screams run and forces the defense into base or goal line personnel, pulling nickel corners off the field and replacing them with run-stopping linebackers and extra defensive linemen. The tradeoff for the defense is coverage quality: once they sub heavy, any tight end running a seam or flat route is matched against a linebacker or box safety, which is exactly the leverage you want on play action.
Strengths
- Maximum gap integrity at the point of attack, with two backs and three tight ends you can create double teams and kick out blocks on both edges, making inside zone, power, and toss concepts extremely difficult to stop without a loaded box.
- Forces goal line or base personnel onto the field, which means slow linebackers and box safeties are stuck in coverage if you hit them with play action out of Shotgun Double Wing or Pistol Ace Double Wing.
- Play action rollouts and boot concepts are devastating because the defense is downhill on the run fake and your TEs leak into vacated flats and intermediate zones with no nickel defender to pass off.
- Elite short yardage and goal line efficiency, the extra blockers let you run QB sneaks, dive concepts, and fullback dives with a numbers advantage inside the tackle box.
- Blocking versatility lets you motion a TE or wing across the formation pre snap to flip strength, forcing the defense to check their alignment and often revealing man coverage when a defender travels.
Weaknesses
- Almost no vertical route tree, tight ends and backs lack the speed to threaten deep thirds, so single high defenses can squat their safeties and take away every intermediate concept.
- Extremely predictable tendency, opponents who see 23 personnel will run heavy blitzes and overload fronts knowing you cannot punish them with four verticals or a quick slot fade.
- Hot routes are limited in value because even a corner or wheel route from a TE gets carried by a user controlled defender or a fast outside linebacker with better acceleration.
- Poor in obvious passing situations, if you fall behind on down and distance you either burn a timeout to substitute or snap the ball with your worst possible pass catchers on the field.
- Vulnerable to press man with a spy, defenders can jam TEs at the line to disrupt timing while the user takes away the checkdown, leaving your quarterback with no separation anywhere on the field.
