Hail Mary Offensive Line Strategy
No offensive coordinator wants to call a Hail Mary’ on the last play of the game. Yet, every week, we practice this play on offense and defense. We know that it might just come down to executing or defending a Hail Mary to win a football game.
To say that Hail Mary’s are coached with great detail is an understatement. When we say coached, we don’t just mean the quarterback and the receivers or the defensive backs either.
Good coaches understand that every second you can buy your quarterback before the pass is launched down thew field is critical. If the pass is never thrown or if the receivers never get to the end zone, the play has zero chance of being executed properly. The pass protection is critical.
This is why when you see a well coached defensive team defend a Hail Mary, you will notice that even with a three man rush, the pass rushers attempt to flush the quarterback out to the side away from his throwing arm.
Executing A Successful Hail Mary Starts With Buying Time To Throw The Ball Down Field
The mechanics required to throw a football 50 or 60 yards down the field are executed a lot easier for a quarterback moving to the side of their throwing arm. So if the desired amount of time required to throw the ball on a Hail Mary involves strategy on both the offense and defense.
Good offensive coordinators and offensive line coaches work hard to either pass protect the quarterback in the pocket or to create a way for him to break the pocket, buying more time to throw the football. Often times this is to the throwing arm side but as you will see in this video, not always. So how do they do this?
It involves letting the contain pass rusher to that side think they have a inside rush lane to the quarterback. Once the rusher goes inside, the offensive tackle pins the rusher inside. Additionally, the Guard or Center will then loop out to provide an additional layer of protection. The quarterback spins out to that side to buy two maybe three more seconds for the Hail Mary throw.
FirstDown PlayBook went back into our archives a little bit and found a great example of this on a pass protection scheme that the Cardinals used to get Kyler Murray to the edge. This particular Hail Mary throw was against the Buffalo Bills to win the football game.
The Cardinals wanted to get Murray out to his left. This would buy him time and also allow the receivers to get to the end zone. The left tackle over sets the contain defender and attempts to get him to bite inside vs this pass protection scheme.
The Cardinals Use Their Tackle & Guard To Break The Pocket
This almost works. The left guard gives the center a little help before peeling around to the throw side. All of this is designed to get a smaller quarterback out on the edge to find a launch point.
Let’s go back and look at this play. However; instead of focusing on the incredible throw and catch, let’s watch the protection. The Bills played it pretty well but obviously not well enough. This is a protection scheme that you can use if you are in this same situation!
