What Not To Do When Running the Football Option Play

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Sean Hobson, for Expert Village. What we want to talk about now is when running the option play it can be a very effective play and can work really well and we can pick up big yardage. But this is one of the plays that can turn bad very quickly if done the wrong way. So, now we want to talk about a couple of ways of things you don't want to do in the option play. The first one is, after our quarterback makes the fake to the fullback and rides down the line he now has to pick up the defense. A couple of bad things can happen. This defensive guy could get deep penetration on our running back and the quarterback could make the wrong decision and decide to try to pitch it. Two things could happen. He could catch this defensive guy coming up and try to make the pitch and the defensive guy could actually pick it off and go the other way with it. Or, he could make the pitch as the other guy is making the tackle. This guy may not be able to secure it, get a loss or fumble the ball. The second thing to talk about is if the defensive end gets quick penetration up and reads the option play and makes a tackle on the quarterback and the quarterback hasn't made a decision yet, we don't want him to try to throw this ball while being tackled. Typically he'll try to chuck it and he'll throw it badly and it will end up as fumble. That's a bad place to fumble, behind the line of scrimmage. Both of those things could lead to turnovers. That's not something we want to do on the option play."