The Stretch Coast

by Weedseed1 | 7 years ago | 0 Comments

The Stretch Coast

The stretch run has been one of the best runs in Madden for the last few cycles, but I would also argue, the outside zone run is also one of the best runs in football. The specifics of why this run is one of the top runs I will get into later, but I would like to address the elephant in the room, the Stretch Coast. Silk coined my offense from my time with the Redskins as the Stretch Coast, very clever. The knock was I ran the stretch too much, and on top of that, got very good at spinning into the cutback. I completely understand, but to my defense, we didn’t win a whole lot also, it was a scheme I chose to run. I didn’t just find something in Madden that worked and abuse it. I had predetermined when choosing the Redskins, I was going to run an offense just like the one that was ran RG3’s rookie year with Mike Shanahan. I plan to run this offense again, but with a bit more depth. So if you continue in this article, you will see how I plan to use the stretch, build the stretch, and expand the stretch.

Anatomy of the Stretch

 

First and foremost, THE STRETCH ISN'T JUST AN OUTSIDE RUN. Just like most zone running plays, the stretch gives you options. Depending on the alignment of the defense, you can usually tell where leverage will be the strongest and anticipate the running lane. “He who defends everything defends nothing.” Frederick the Great. The same goes for football, and it is demonstrated beautifully with the Stretch. Say you have been running the stretch a lot, now the defense puts a defender outside the tight end play side, you will most likely be cutting it back inside(how far inside depends on other variables). If the defense chooses to defend the outside running lanes aggressively, this will in turn leave a weakness inside, or back side. This is where it gets fun and moves us onto our second topic when running the stretch.

 

 

The Play Action Boot

    You can not have a consistently effective play in football without a complement. The play action boot is the perfect complement to the stretch run. Like pictured above, the Redskins fake the stretch right, get the defense flowing, then boot around for the easy gain. You hit the defense with this stretch a few times. First few you are able to bounce it outside for nice yardage. The defense wises up, protecting the edge, so cut back inside. Same thing happens, the defense wises up, both containing and loading the box. Then comes the boot. You fake the same run you’ve been tearing them apart with, get them flowing, then dump it off short where the defense is at its weakest. Similar to the stretch, the play action boot will take advantage of the defense trying to defend everything. Obviously if the defense bites hard on the fake, then most of the backside routes will be open, but say the defense doesn’t bite as hard as you like, or they run a cover 2 and are protecting the flats against the easy check down to the flat route? This is where having a mobile quarterback comes in. The stretch/boot combo is at its best when your quarterback can run. If the stretch is defended well, and the defense has a flat defender, your mobile quarterback can now take advantage by running. One of these elements will be open as like I stated before, the defense can not defend everything.

Building an Offense

   

    In football, you can’t be good at everything, so specializing, and building off of that, in my opinion, is the only proper way to play, coach, win in football. Specializing helps in so many ways. One way it helps, is you know what your team is good at. If you have a ton of zone corners, you know you are better off running a zone defense. Specializing also helps when building a roster. You want to run a cover 1 defense? You know you are going to need good free safety. So if you don't have one, then the cover 1 is probably not a good defense for you to run. Specializing also makes sure you are good at something. There were times with the Bengals were on offense, we didn’t have an identity and because of that, play calling became random and sporadic. Specializing keeps me in my lane, knowing what I am good at, and game planning from there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That is all I have this week for my stretch running scheme and I hope that I cleared some things up in terms of cheese, my mindset, and team building. I have never set out to cheese, as Madden is my football outlet that I have never gotten a chance unleash in real life. I believe the stretch is one of the prettiest plays in football, stretching a defense and then hitting the soft spots. Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. If anyone has any ideas or schemes they would like to share, please do. If you would like my input, @ me or just hit me in the dm’s. I’d be happy to give input on building playbooks, schemes, and team building in general for anyone who is interested. I’ll be back next week with possibly my final installment. Stay tuned.