On Netflix’s Quarterback series, we got a unique look into Kirk Cousins‘ life and processes. The intro to the episode hits the viewer with an avalanche of play calls that leave your head spinning. If you don’t have access to watch the series, a compilation of Jon Gruden play calls like the below can have a similar effect:
For quarterbacks, understanding every component of the play call is crucial so they know what to expect on a given play. Kevin O’Connell‘s offense is a descendant of Gruden’s offense, by way of Sean McVay, who worked for him in Tampa Bay. Cousins played under McVay in Washington, and the Vikings offense under the Kubiaks was a cousin to Gruden’s. But he still needed to work hard to acclimate himself to the offense. Cousins went as far as to record his own voice making the calls and listen back to the recording while driving to help memorize them.
One article won’t teach you an entire offensive system. But I hope to teach the constituent parts of a call and how they all add up to create a play in a QB’s head. If you want more on the Shanahan/McVay school of offense, check out Shawn Syed’s excellent primer.
What does an NFL play Call look like?
Let’s take a look at a pass play and dissect it.
Note: the above play is from Kyle Shanahan’s playbook. Since Shanahan and McVay have similar roots, Kevin O’Connell has a similar menu. Naming conventions are going to be somewhat different between the two playbooks.
The above call has seven unique components. They are:
- [12/11] – The personnel
- NORTH RT – The formation
- CLAMP – The formation adjustment
- F CTR – The motion
- 200 JET – The protection
- X STICK – The first route concept
- SPACING – The second route concept
Personnel
Personnel is typically not part of the play call, but it helps dictate how the defense responds. NFL personnel is typically described as two digits, like 11, 12, 21, and 22. That number is determined by the number of players from each position that are in the game.
The first digit in the number is for the number of running backs, while the second is for the number of tight ends. To get the number of receivers, you subtract the sum of the two digits from five, as there are only five eligible receivers on a play. So in 11 personnel, you have one RB, one TE, and three WRs. You know how many WRs are on the field because 5 – (1 + 1) = 3. Likewise, in 12 personnel, you have one RB, two TEs, and two WRs. In 21 personnel, you have two RBs, one TE, and two WRs, and so on.
In the play diagram above, the play is listed as [12/11] because it can be run out of 12 or 11 personnel. The team would not run this exact formation out of 21 or any other personnel.
We now understand who is on the field, but where should everyone line up based on this diagram? The position labels help us figure that out:
- X – Primary WR, typically lines up on Line of Scrimmage. Also called a Split End (Justin Jefferson on the 2022 Vikings)
- Z – Secondary WR, typically lines up off of LOS. Also called a Flanker (Adam Thielen on the 2022 Vikings).
- Y – TE, typically lines up in line with the OL on the LOS (T.J. Hockenson on the 2022 Vikings).
- H – RB (Dalvin Cook on the 2022 Vikings).
- F – Formation Adjuster. This could be a slot WR, second TE, or FB depending on the personnel call. K.J. Osborn was the primary F on the 2022 Vikings, but C.J. Ham and a variety of TEs also played this role.
Formation
Now that we have the personnel down, everyone needs to know how to line up. Most formations in this offense are based off of a starting principle:
- The X is on the line of scrimmage wide to one side.
- The Y is in line to the other side.
- The Z is off the line of scrimmage wide to the same side as the Y.
- And the H is in the backfield.
- With that as a basis, the formation call mostly tells the F where to line up.
In the play above, the offense is in a NORTH RT formation:
Note: the RT (right) denotes the strength of the formation, and hence which side all of the X, Y, and Z line up. In this case, the Y lines up to the right, which means the Z is with him and the X is on the left. In an LT (left) formation, the Y lines up to the left.
Mnemonics are also often used with formations for in this case, the NORTH tells the F to line up inside the X, who has a condensed split, 5 yards from the LT. The SOUTH formation has the F line up outside the X, who is in the same spot:
formation adjustments
Because there are five players that are impacted by a formation call, it would end up cumbersome if you had to name every single possible variation. Therefore, the play calling structure allows for further adjustments to be added with another code word. In this case, the word is “CLAMP,” which tells the Z to condense his split and play next to the TE. Check out the example below:
CLAMP tells the Z to condense his split in the formation, and this applies to WIDE, NORTH, SOUTH, etc.
MOTION
After the formation, a motion call can be made. The call will reference the player to go in motion and then tell that player what motion he is to make. In the example above, the motion is “F COUNTER,” which tells a player to start crossing the formation and then come back to his original spot.
This motion can be useful to get an opposing defense to tip whether it is in man or zone defense, because a man defender will follow the player across the formation. It may also help get the defense to check into a different coverage if you snap the ball before they can adjust back.
Other types of motion end up changing the formation. In this case, the motion will start with one play call and then transfer to another. Take the below example:
In this case, the “F FLY” motion leads takes the slot receiver from the left side of the formation into the bunch on the right side. The initial formation call would have been DOUBLE RT CLAMP, so the full call would end up as “DOUBLE RT CLAMP F FLY TO BOX.” You can see how the components of a call start to build on each other.
PROTECTION
So far, we’ve really only told the players where to line up and how to move before the snap that can apply to a pass play or a run play. Now we need to get into what the team will do after the snap. It starts up front, with the offensive linemen. Protections are a very complicated topic, so I’ll be brief. In the call above, the protection is 200 Jet, which when drawn out looks like this:
Jet is the type of protection, which is what’s known as a “half slide” protection. This means that the G and T to one side (usually away from the nose tackle) are in man-to-man, while the other three linemen are responsible for the other two defenders. The HB is responsible for any blitzers away from the side the C turns to.
200 or 300 is the side the RB goes to. On a 200 call, the RB goes to the right, like in the diagram above. On a 300 call, he goes to the left.
ROUTE CONCEPTS
There are different ways to call routes, but O’Connell’s system uses route concepts to each side of the formation. In the play above, there are two distinct concepts, STICK and SPACING. “X STICK” means that the stick concept will be run to the X’s side of the formation. If it were “Z STICK,” the stick would be run to the Z’s side. Because that is called out, the Y and the Z know that they are running spacing to their side automatically in the above call. Stick/Spacing is a very popular call that most offenses use.
Stick is a two man route concept. On the stick side of the concept, the WR runs a quick out at 6 yards, with a flat route underneath it, as diagrammed below:
Note: Madden has a play called “Stick” where two inside receivers run out routes and another WR runs vertical. That is known as “Double Stick” in NFL offenses
Here is the wording of how a receiver should run a stick route:
Spacing is a three-man route concept. The route has two curl routes and a flat. As you can see, one curl is supposed to be over the ball, one is where noted in the screenshot depending on where the ball is, and the third is a route to the flat:
The goal of spacing is to widen out and overload the defenders in a short zone defense. This route pair has five short routes, maximizing the width of the routes to create an open receiver.
Play call in action
Below is an example of the Vikings running a very similar play call to the one shown above. This has a few differences, see if you can find them:
The changes from the above play call are:
- The QB is in shotgun.
- The Vikings start in a SOUTH RT formation instead of NORTH RT.
- The motion by the F, KJ Osborn, is FLY motion instead of COUNTER.
- The protection call is 300 Jet, where the C opens to the right and the RB check-releases to the flat, instead of 200 Jet.
- The route distribution is slightly different, as the F is running the flat to the spacing side while the RB is running the flat to the stick side.
Given these modifications, I would call this play [11] SOUTH RT, F FLY TO FAR RT, (3)00 JET, X STICK, SPACING. There may be additional verbiage for the QB being in shotgun and the RB being offset to the weakside. I added the commas to emphasize each individual part of the play call.
Shortening play calls
What about one-word play calls? What about those funny boards that college teams hold up on the sideline?
One word play calls are certainly useful, because they have less verbiage for a player to spit out. In the series, they focus on a play where Cousins forgets the route the Y (Johnny Mundt) is supposed to run. He ends up saying “Y Whatever,” but the play goes off without a hitch (Mundt scores the TD) because everyone knew what the play was from the context. Similarly, the episode shows Patrick Mahomes creating a play with a unique screen called “Snowglobe” out of an “Arctic Circle of Death” formation where the team spins around in the huddle. Mahomes says to the camera that the team is going to know the plays as soon as he says “Arctic” in the huddle.
That’s because one word play calls are mnemonics. The plays still have full play calls attached to them, but they are used often enough, or in scenarios where the offense needs to play fast, that the players have the play memorized based off of just one word. See the below example from Lane Kiffin’s playbook, adapted from the former Baylor offense, which was well known for its ability to go at an incredibly fast pace:
Quarterback provides an entertaining peek behind the curtain of the daily lives of Kirk Cousins, Patrick Mahomes, and Marcus Mariota. Hopefully this article provided you a peak behind the curtain of how a play is constructed, and gave some meaning to the gibberish-sounding phrases that are playcalls.
