No Huddle Tempos, Procedures, Peeks and Tricks

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A couple of weeks ago in their win over the Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray threw a beautiful touchdown pass to a streaking DeAndre Hopkins down the left sideline. But upon a closer look, it’s clear that Hopkins didn’t get open simply through excellent route running, but instead by a carefully planned feint: almost all of the Cardinals were looking to the sideline as if waiting for a new playcall, and as a result many of the Seahawks defenders were either looking that way as well or at least had relaxed slightly. Ultimately it wasn’t much — Hopkins was only open by a step and the pass was put precisely where it needed to be — but in the NFL a step is a step, and you get your players open by any means necessary.

Indeed, Murray was caught smiling during the play as he saw their ruse had worked, and Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury explained after the game that he liked this play so much (other than the fact that it produced a touchdown) because “it unsettles the DBs and our guys did a great job of executing it. Obviously, it was a great throw and a great catch by Hop, but even if we don’t hit it, we kind of freak them out the remainder of the game.”

But Kingsbury didn’t claim to have invented the play, and instead noted that the Cardinals had “stole[n] it from Ohio State. They [Ohio State] ran it against Michigan. Looking to the side like you’re getting a play and try to catch them off guard. Ohio State had it wide open, and the kid dropped it.” And that is exactly what happened:

But to understand why it’s an effective changeup, it helps to have some context as to what it is a changeup to, namely the no huddle cat and mouse game of varying tempos, which is where some of the most fascinating football tactics currently play out.

Among the many advantages offenses in football have, maybe the most overlooked — though undeniably among the most potent — is that the offense knows when the ball will be snapped. And while most fans have some understanding of this, at least when they hear Aaron Rodgers draw the defense off sides with a “hard count” (sometimes by literally yelling, “hard count!”), offenses have more subtle tools as well, particularly with the rise of no huddle offenses. When most think about the no huddle, they think of super fast, warp speed uptempo offenses, which aim to rattle off a maximum number of plays and catch defenses out of position, or even just out of breathe. And that is certainly a powerful tool. But like any other tactic, as defenses have seen more of the no huddle they have gotten more used to it and have adapted; defenses now match offenses’ one word calls with their own, and they practice at the same frenetic no huddle paces as their offensive counterparts. But offenses have countered not necessarily by slowing down, or more accurately they have countered by not only slowing down: most good offenses now use a variety of no-huddle tempos, from standard speed to warp speed to slower variations and everything else inbetween. It’s the constant shifting of gears that keeps defenses off balance.

And by varying the tempos, defenses are forced to treat every no huddle situation as if it might be that warp speed, frenetic no huddle tempo, but now it’s not so clear whether that quick pace will also lead to a quick snap, which in turn means that offenses are often getting something even more valuable than a defensive linemen huffing and puffing a little between plays: the offense is also getting more information.

To understand why, let’s lay out the three most common no huddle tempos: standard tempo, warp speed and “freeze,” or check-with-me tempo. Many teams have many other variations and wrinkles — from full huddling to “sugar huddles” to intermediate tempos — but most teams operate out of these three basic flavors. Below is how the New England Patriots describe their basic or standard no huddle procedure, which I chose not because it’s unique but because it’s actually quite standard. (Click to enlarge.)

The Patriots call this “Rally,” though for many high school and college teams this is simply how they operate all the time, and it’s huddling that requires a special call. In this tempo, a few things happen:

  • The coach tells the quarterback that they will use “Rally” or standard no huddle tempo, and will usually alert the QB to the formation at the same time. In the NFL it’s typically through the helmet radio, though at other levels the coaches will signal the formation.
  • The QB will tell the offense the formation (usually at this point only the formation), either by words or by a signal. At the same time, the QB should be looking to receive the actual playcall from the sideline while he’s delivering the formation to the other players on offense.
  • Once the QB receives the playcall, he will communicate it to the offensive linemen verbally (e.g., “66!” or “Indy!”), and then will separately tell the receivers the play either by words or (more commonly) hand signal. (Aside: This is one reason that run-pass-options/packaged plays work so well for no huddle teams, is they are already used to separated playcalls.)
  • The QB then goes through his normal cadence — and can even audible as well (typically by saying “Easy! Easy!” and then stating the audible, and then restarting the cadence).

The vast majority of teams that use no huddle use a procedure like this, or something very similar, though at the college and high school levels teams that want to go a bit faster in their normal procedure will streamline the communication a bit, so instead of relaying everything to the QB who relays it to the other players on the field, either the linemen, the receivers and/or the entire offense will look at the sideline (sometimes with multiple signalers for different position groups) so they can all get the playcalls simultaneously.  (This is where those big signaling boards and similar mechanics come into play, and of course many teams use wristbands so the coaches only need to signal the number that corresponds to the relevant play on the wristband.) For my part, I prefer the above quarterback driven approach because while it loses some speed, it focuses the players on the field on the QB — they all know he is in control, and they get their information from him, and so he direct traffic and make adjustments. I also believe that signaling doesn’t have to be all that complicated: below is a clip of the always entertaining Hal Mumme signaling a play back in 1998, and there’s not much difference in what you see on Saturdays (and would see on Sundays but for the helmet radio) nowadays. (And many of the Air Raid guys  still use the same signals).

But if the offense wants to go faster, it needs to communicate faster, which is where “one word” playcalls come in. The Patriots call their version “Nascar,” which, for obvious reasons, is a fairly common term for this sort of tempo. (Click to enlarge.)

There’s not a lot of magic to this tempo: The QB yells out a code word, and everyone should know what to do (and they help communicate it to each other) and get where they need to go and do it as fast as possible. The learning methodology is essentially just pure memorization, as the offensive players will simply learn that for that season or even just that game, a particular word will represent a typical full playcall, complete with formations, pass protections, run assignments, pass routes, tags and so on. At the lower levels this might be just a handful of plays; indeed, the Oregon coaching staff in 2010, certainly among the no huddle pioneers, said they went into games with between five and ten of these “Nascar” type of playcalls en route to an appearance in the national championship game. Nowadays, NFL teams like the Patriots might have fifty, sixty or even more one word calls in any given game.

As you can see from the above page from New England, the players initially learn all the component verbiage during the normal offensive installation (e.g., “G Torch Left [Formation] 65 [Protection] Bunker Ohio [Pass Route Concept”), but then for purposes of Nascar tempo will simply memorize that “Jack Nicklaus” is the same as the corresponding longer playcall. (The Patriots have also always been quite good at these mnemonics and word associations, since the underlying concept is “Bunker Ohio,”which becomes “Bunker Hill” or “Jack Nicklaus.” On the other hand, no comment on the bottom row in the above diagram…) One additional virtue of these one word calls is that they also can become the quarterback’s audible menu. See the example below where the Patriots are in a completely different formation, and Tom Brady cuts off his cadence (by saying “Easy!”) and then calls a one word audible (“Jordan!”), which translates to their Hoss Y Juke concept (hitch by the outside receiver, seam by the slot, and the inside guy to the trips side runs a “juke” route).

So far, we’ve looking at how offenses can go faster. But sometimes it’s time to go slower, even in the no huddle, and the simplest and still maybe most effective method is the “freeze play,” or dummy cadence. The Patriots call their version “Oscar,” and it could not be simpler: the quarterback yells out “Oscar” or whatever the relevant code word is, everyone lines up as if they were operating at the Nascar tempo, the QB barks out the cadence and then… well first you see if the defense jumps (and if so quick snap it and try to take a shot of some kind), and if not, then it’s time to look to the sideline and the quarterback and get the real playcall.

Except now, the defense has most likely tipped its hand, because they had to get ready for the potential of a quick, Nascar-speed snap, even if all they got was the freeze play.  Now, while this is a tremendous tool to get cheap offsides penalties, slow down the rush if they are guessing the snap count, and also to glean information, there are teams that can rely on it too heavily. You have no doubt noticed them, those teams that seem to look to the sideline after almost every play, as the coaches seek the perfect playcall every time. And in response, good defenses have learned to “check when the offense checks”: when the offense freezes and looks back to the sideline, then most good defenses will also change their calls — and as a result change their fronts, coverage, move in and out of a blitz, etc. — to hopefully negate some of the information advantage gained by offenses. And that tit-for-tat is where things largely stand, with the good no huddle teams shifting tempos from series to series and even from play to play, while the great defenses continue to innovate not only in their schemes but also in their own communication and tactics to stay right there.

But there’s one more tool, and it’s one we’ve already seen: the “Peek” concept, which Arizona used for a touchdown and Ohio State should have also scored on. By now the reader appreciates why this is a clever trick, as not only does a defense naturally relax if the offense is looking to the sideline, but most defenses have been trained to look for their own new defensive call (sometimes even based on the offense’s signals!). So this tactic not only “freaks” out the defense as Kingsbury alluded to, but it has the potentially to catch defenses doubly unawares and therefore it actively discourages the common defensive practice of changing the defensive playcall when the offense looks to the sideline. Indeed, Michigan’s defense is known for changing playcalls when offenses use the freeze tactic, so when Ohio State coach Ryan Day called Peek he wasn’t just taking a shot, he was taking direct aim at a tactic Michigan defensive coordinator Don Brown is well known for. I first noticed the Peek concept when Penn State used it against Washington in the 2017 Fiesta Bowl under then offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead (though Moorhead had left to become a head coach before the bowl game), and interestingly Penn State used it for a run play, not a deep shot bomb. Of course, their run play was handing it off to Saquon Barkley, so in a sense it was the equivalent of a deep bomb.

It’s a bit subtle from the video, but you can see how Penn State’s players were looking to one sideline and Washington’s players were looking to their own, and smartly Penn State called the run play back away from Washington’s sideline, to ensure that the Huskies were as caught off guard as possible. Below are the specifics of how “Peek” is called, particularly when you treat it like just another tempo where you could call any play, not just a designated special bomb play like Arizona or Ohio State used it.

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In football, anything and everything within the white lines can and should be weaponized against your opponent, and how a team communicates is no different. Signals, speeds and language can produce — or stop — as many touchdowns as diagrams and Xs and Os, as we saw with maybe the best example of “Peek,” from last year’s Alabama/LSU matchup.

Appendix:

Below are some additional clips of “Peek” and other fake check with me variations, including some screens off of fake receiver motion. Special thanks to Ben Fennell for a number of these.