94 Or Dagger Concept Cuts The D Either Way

Who is going to carry the seam? Defensive coaches fret over it on a daily basis because they have a problem. don’t they? If they play 2 deep safeties, they are in pretty good shape. That is until they get verticals from number 2 or 3. This presents a problem. A problem that only the Mike LB can solve. This is where the dagger concept comes in handy.

The Dagger concept or the 94 concept looks the same to the Mike linebacker who the defense is asking to carry the seam route. We have showed this to you from 2 backs before. Here it is from a 3×1 set. This is where the four route or the In route comes in to play. Before we go there though, understand that the quarterback is going to give that seam route a good look.

The seam route runner must see open vs closed middle of the field. If it is closed he wants to put pressure on that Free Safety. When he sees the safety sink then he should look to throw the In route. If the Safety does not get depth throw it over his head. If the middle of the field is open, the seam runner must bend the route inside of the near safety. This will put the burden on the Mike linebacker to carry the seam.

We Read This Dagger Concept Seam-In-Shallow

Of course the defensive coaches are good too. They are going to coach the Will linebacker to push to the hook zone to fill the void created by the Mike linebacker. This is why the read goes Seam-In-Shallow on this Dagger concept. If the Will linebacker pushes to get under the In or the Dig route, the quarterback needs to bring his eyes down to the X.

Explosive Double Post From 2 Back Slot

Keep in mind that there is a stronger than normal chance you get the middle of the field closed here. This 3×1 Wing formation is a potent run formation too. This is why you need to have answers vs pressure. You will notice that this is 7 man protection. It takes the Will and Free safety to make us hot. The X is a perfect hot answer vs this. There are also other ways to run the dagger concept from a 3×1 Wing set

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