Breaking down the basics of the 'Dagger' route

[MightyGiants]

Nice Xs and Os article

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Breaking-down-the-basics-of-the-Dagger-route.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

• Tweet

[Painter]

Great stuff, Rich.  That looks like Curt Warner and Mike Martz back in Greatest Show on Turf days. It might even be their terminology. It also could be the Eagles who run stuff like that a lot. It is not the Giants terminolgy although they run a bunch of Hi-Lo routes. Not often with a Back and TE, however. They run them with Cruz crossing underneath and a TE running a 12-15 yard square-in, and vice versa with the TE running a shallow cross; Cruz running a Hi dig-route.

In the PO game against the Niners, they began anticipating Cruz running a shallow cross, so he began pivoting and running back outside, a so called jerk-route because it makes the defender look like a jerk. That made them switch from Man to zone underneath. I don't know if it's read or not but it fits Gilbride's style.

And while on that subject, it's more likely that Gilbride would "run and shoot" a deep dig route out of Trips with Nicks isolated on the single side. Often the route is a quick ad hoc decison between Eli and Nicks to run either a streak or a bend with the underneath receiver sitting in open area of the zone. He runs the same kind of thing with an inside receiver. Not Run and Shoot but an echo.

A great QB and a really savvy OC have made stars of Nicks and Cruz; especially the latter, and has made rather ordinary TEs quite productive.

Cheers!
 

[CAGiantFan]

Nice Xs and Os article

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Breaking-down-the-basics-of-the-Dagger-route.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

This might be a dumb question, but I see the routes of the X and the W crossing.  Which of them goes through that crossover point first?

[Painter]

Nothing dumb about it, CAGiantFAN. The X breaks inside while W stays vertical which suggests who passes the crossing point first. And you would want it that way. The Z and W are running clear out routes. X clearly is the "read", so we might expect the W to lead, force the Safety back and so clear the deep middle for the X.

Cheers!

[JimboWHO]

Nothing dumb about it, CAGiantFAN. The X breaks inside while W stays vertical which suggests who passes the crossing point first. And you would want it that way. The Z and W are running clear out routes. X clearly is the "read", so we might expect the W to lead, force the Safety back and so clear the deep middle for the X.

Cheers!

This is correct - X comes underneath after W passes.  It's a "lift the coverage" concept to create a void.


JJM

[CAGiantFan]

Nothing dumb about it, CAGiantFAN. The X breaks inside while W stays vertical which suggests who passes the crossing point first. And you would want it that way. The Z and W are running clear out routes. X clearly is the "read", so we might expect the W to lead, force the Safety back and so clear the deep middle for the X.

Cheers!

Thanks.