To start with, what is an Unbalanced formation? Well, let’s look at one…
So the offense has put both of its wide receivers, the Xs, over to the right. This is still a legal formation because the offense still has minimum required seven players on the line of scrimmage. The rule is also that only the end players on the line of scrimmage can go out for a pass. That means only the two ‘outside’ players can go downfield for a pass. So in this formation the offense has lost one eligible receiver, since the X to the left is ‘covered’ up. Now note that he could still catch a pass, but it would have to be a backwards (lateral) pass.
Losing an eligible receiver definitely brings a potential disadvantage, but there are still plenty of passing options off of this formation as I will show later.
The offense could also line up like this and still maintain all of their wide receivers. Not that he Tackle (T) and the Wide Receiver (X) have flipped.
I would still call this an unbalanced set because there are 4.5 offensive players to the left and 6.5 offensive players to the right. Don’t laugh at the above formation. Out of a huddle where the offense sprints to the line and snaps the ball on first sound this is very deceptive. I have seen the left X catch this for big yardage on more than one occasion.
The whole question is whether you want to invest this much effort in a gadget play.
In the end what matters is how the defense lines up to a certain formation. Let’s go back to the base, balanced flexbone formation and see how a 3×4 team might align to it and then progress back to our unbalanced set.
The offense has 5.5 players on the left and 5.5 players on the right and so does the defense. We count players who are completely on one side of the ball as 1 and players who are on the football (C, QB, FB) as 1/2.
So if we run Inside Veer to the right in this balanced look we might draw up the blocking responsibility like this.
That is a very typical way to block Inside Veer against this 5×2 defense. On the edge the wide receiver and the A back will block the safety and the corner.
But what happens if you are playing a team that has some very athletic corners who are very hard to block in space? Is this play doomed to fail then if you are getting to the edge and pitching the ball?
Let’s think here…. What if like in Chess, we could ‘Remove the Defender’, and not have to block that athletic corner? I wrote up that article a while back, but that article was more focused on the unbalanced formation with a TE. Could we use the unbalanced formation with the two Xs on the same side to help us? I believe Yes!
For this 3×4 defense, there are two main ways to defend the wide receiver when he goes over to the other side. The defense can ‘roll’ the safeties to it, or the defense can go ‘corner over’ and simply leave the other nine players with the same responsibilities. Here is what that ‘corner over’ would look like.
So now if we write up the same inside veer to the right, the offense does not even have to block either of the corners!
But couldn’t the defense just cheat and not bring the corner over since that receiver is not eligible to catch a pass? You could do that but the offense would have the defense outnumbered to the unbalanced side and the inside veer play to the two receiver side would be almost unstoppable if executed properly.
In this example the defense is balanced with 5.5 on each side while the offense has 6.5 on the left and 4.5 on the right. This allows the offense to double the playside LB or anybody else they might want to double team.
Can you throw the ball out of this formation if they bring the corner over but simply play way inside? Sure!
Here we are faking Inside Veer to the left. The defensive corner has come over to respect the numbers but has left the inside X because he is ineligible. Well, he cannot catch a pass (unless) it is a backwards one, but he can block! Just throw a quick screen out to the X on one step and now you have a 2 on 1. He can go downfield if the X caches the ball behind the line of scrimmage.
If the corner does respect both of the Xs out there I have seen many times where the A back running the seam can get the ball early if he can keep his width and stay away from the ILB and the safety.
For a different defense, which was a 4×4 Cover 3, I saw them bring their Free Safety over to cover the extra X. Well, we simply ran the play above and the A back ran straight down the middle of the field and caught a long pass for a touchdown.
Finally, do not forget about hitting the pitch back who is running the simple swing route. If nothing is open just have the QB dump it to him. That is his safety valve at all times. You would be surprised how open he can be in the flat at times.
In conclusion, there are a bunch of unbalanced formations that can be added to your playbook that do not take a lot to add. In the Flexbone you can still run your base plays of Inside Veer, Midline, Rocket Toss, Zone Dive and your favorite counter with almost no adjustments. You also just have to tweak your favorite play-action plays just slightly. But the confusion you can cause on a defense or the numbers advantage you can create can really give your offense a greater chance to execute and succeed.
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