Zone Blitz Explained: Stopping The Passing Game

The zone blitz, which is also called the 'fire zone' or 'storm blitz' is a fairly simple concept; seven or eight defenders attack the line of scrimmage at the snap of the ball, giving the illusion that the defense is sending the house. With the offense reading all-out blitz, and the QB going quickly to his hot receiver, the defense drops players into zone coverage underneath and over the top to cover the passing lanes and either tackle the hot receiver after a short completion, break up the pass, intercept a hurried pass to the receiver, or sack the quarterback. The illusion of the all-out blitz can cause mass confusion on the offense, as some offensive linemen and backs are left blocking air as the defensive lineman, linebacker, or defensive back they thought was blitzing is now dropping back into coverage. The zone blitz is effective in part because the illusion forces offenses to keep backs and TEs in to block, which limits the number of receivers in pass patterns, which means fewer players for the defense to cover.

How does the defense cause all of this chaos, and how does it make sense? Let's start from the basics, and move forward from there. There are eight zones in the passing game:

Eight Passing Zones

There are a variety of routes you can use to attack all of these passing zones:

Attacking Zones With Various Pass Routes

The only effective way to cover all the passing zones is to drop eight players into coverage, but that would leave only three men rushing the quarterback, which gives the offense the easy choice of running the ball, because five offensive linemen blocking three defenders is a win for the offense every time. How do you effectively cover the passing zones, but also have enough defenders left to pressure the quarterback and possibly defend against the run? Enter Dick LeBeau, the creator of the zone blitz.

LeBeau reasoned that since there are only five possible eligible receivers on a play, you don't need to cover all eight passing zones; you can divide the field into six passing zones, three short and three deep, and you will have enough defenders to cover all of the possible receivers. Using six defenders in coverage, you have the receivers outnumbered, and can use two players to blanket the offense's most dangerous receiver, taking away the offense's most potent weapon in the passing game. With six defenders filling the zones to cover the five possible receivers, however, we are still left with the issue of five defenders facing five offensive linemen, so there is still the issue of getting pressure on the QB and taking away the option of running the ball. Enter the illusion of the zone blitz. By showing seven or eight defenders in the box coming on a possible all-out blitz, the defense forces the offense to switch its protection scheme to max protect, so the backs and TE need to stay in and block. Against a team using 10 personnel, like your typical spread offense, this forces the lone TB to stay in and block, which means the defense now has six people to cover four possible receivers. 

How does LeBeau create this illusion of mass chaos right before the snap, and then have it flow into a well-executed zone coverage with maximum pressure being brought on the QB from all different angles? Let's break down LeBeau's zone blitz into its core components, starting with the six passing zones. In the zone blitz, LeBeau used a cover-3, 3-under concept to cover the six zones, so you have three defensive backs covering the deep thirds of the field, and three defenders covering the three underneath zones. The three deep zones are the boundary deep third, middle deep third, and field deep third. The three underneath zones are the wall-to-flat boundary, hook-to-free, and wall-to-flat field. In the image below, I've labeled the zones behind a 3-4 defensive alignment, since this is LeBeau's preferred scheme, and this is the scheme we'll be seeing A&M aligned in this Fall. You can run zone blitz from any defensive formation, but for discussion purposes here, we're running it from a 3-4 alignment.

Six Passing Zones

LeBeau believes in teaching the secondary coverages first, because once the secondary has their coverages down, you can call all of the stunts, twists, and blitzes in front of them you want, but it must be clear who is covering the six zones. You start with the coverage, then work your way forward. Let's take a look at one coverage LeBeau uses, which he calls Magic.

Remember, we're playing three-deep, three-under here, so the first part of Magic is that both CBs will be covering deep thirds, one dropping to the boundary third and the other dropping to the field third.

Cornerbacks Drop To Deep Thirds

The Free Safety, who is aligned opposite the TB side of the formation, will drop into the middle deep third, so we have our three-deep coverage.

Free Safety Drops To Middle Third

The Strong Safety, who is aligned on the TE side, becomes the hook-to-free player in the middle flat.

SS Shows Blitz Then Drops To Hook-To-Free

The strongside DE becomes the wall-to-flat player on the boundary side, while the Weakside ILB becomes the wall-to-flat player on the field side.

Wall To Flat Coverage

Now, the Mike Inside Linebacker, Strongside Outside Linebacker, Weakside Outside Linebacker, Nose Guard, and Weakside Defensive End are all coming on the blitz, bringing pressure with only one goal in mind: Kill the quarterback.

Bringing The Defensive Pressure

We're showing eight coming on the blitz, but bringing pressure with five, as we drop three into into the hook-to-free and wall-to-flat zones, and play three over the top; that is Magic.

With a talented strong safety in Trent Hunter and a coach who patterns his 3-4 scheme after Dick LeBeau in Tim DeRuyter, I wouldn't be surprised to see us use Magic coverage some this season, and use it effectively.

If I have time tomorrow, we'll discuss using the zone blitz to effectively stop the running game.