Route BuilderOption / Choice selected, depth: 6 to 8 yards.
TWO OPEN SIDESNO SIDELINE TO CLOSE YOU OFF
NO NUMBERSTHESE ROUTES ARE CALLED BY NAME
The numbers from 0 to 9 do not depend on where you line up: a slant is still a 2 from the slot. These routes have no number because no playbook assigns them one; they are called by name.
Cross the whole formation flat, under the linebackers. This route gets the ball into your hands at full speed; the rest happens after the catch.
Cross while accelerating. A shallow run at walking pace lets the linebacker follow you with his eyes and meet you at the ball.
Push to first-down depth and turn in the hole of the zone. Against man coverage, do not stop: break back toward the sideline.
Your route changes according to what the defender does, and that decision happens while you are climbing, not when you arrive: sit against zone, break out against man.
Start like a Slant, plant on the third step, and return toward the sideline. The defender has already turned his hips inside and cannot follow you back.
The Slant must be real. If you do not make the defender bite inside, the return opens nothing and wastes two steps.
The reverse of a Whip: start toward the sideline, push off the outside foot, and head back toward the middle. It is deadly against a defender jumping outside releases.
This is a double move, not a quick route. Sell the out long enough to make the defender open up; otherwise you run behind a defender you never moved.
Push vertically and cut toward the side the defender gives you. The route is not chosen in the huddle: it is chosen from the defender's position when you reach him.
The quarterback reads the same defender at the same moment. If you do not read the same thing, the option is not a free route, it is an interception.
Start outside as if you were running an Out, then cut on an angle toward the middle behind the linebacker who followed you. This is the Texas-concept route.
Read the middle linebacker. If he stays in the middle hole, keep your angle tight, almost vertical. The farther inside he is, the more you must push up before cutting.
Make a sharp 90-degree break and cross the middle. From the slot you arrive faster than from outside, but you also arrive before the help does.
Keep speed through the cross. On a slowed Dig in the middle, the safety decides the end of the play, not you.
Push straight up the seam between the linebackers and safeties. Against two-high safeties, bend toward the middle; against one, stay vertical.
This is not a Go. Count the safeties around ten yards: their number alone decides whether you bend the route.
Push vertically, then head at 45 degrees toward the sideline corner. From the slot, attack a defender with no outside help: it is a long path, but an open one.
Cross the safety's face before the break. Break too early and you run directly to the only defender who can catch you.
Start flat toward the sideline, then turn up the boundary. This punishes a linebacker assigned to follow you: he can stay with you for three yards, not forty.
Stay wide as you turn upfield. If you drift inside, you fall back into the safety's help and crowd the outside receiver's route.