If you turn a football game on on TV,
the announcers might be saying something like, 'The quarterback is in the shotgun
position.'
Or 'They're in a double back set.'
And it can get kind of confusing as to what they're talking about
so in this video I want to take a look at the most common offensive formations
and what they look like.
The offensive team can either pass or run from any type of formation
and all of them have eleven players on the field, so I suppose none of them would
be any more 'complicated' than any other,
but you could probably call
the I-formation the most basic
offensive formation.
The Basic I-formation consists of two wide receivers, two running backs, and
one tight end.
The running backs will line up with the fullback behind the quarterback and the
halfback behind the fullback.
The tight end is on the end of the offensive line and the wide receivers are
out wide.
So you can see how the quarter back and the running backs form this "I."
There are a few variations you can make on the formation
while keeping this "I," like
pulling one of the wide receivers in to be a second tight end.
Or the fullback can slightly shift
to the left or the right side and this would be called
an Offset I.
One thing to note here is that the quarterback is what we call 'under center,'
which means he's directly behind the center, so whenever the center snaps
the ball he's essentially handing the ball to the quarterback.
We'll come back to the alternative for being under center in a minute.
But right now, let's look at another formation that is pretty similar to the
I formation, and this is called the
Pro Set Formation.
Which is similar to the I formation, except that the running backs are
positioned to either side of the quarterback in the backfield and again
we can have a variation on this where the wide receivers are shifted or even lineup
one-way
and then go in motion
before the play.
The next formation is called the Single back set.
Which just means that there's one running back
so again there can be a lot of variations that are used
maybe a team has two tight ends or two wide receivers,
or more commonly, one tight end, and three wide receivers
And if there are three wide receivers, then this guy here,
who isn't at the end of the line and he isn't out wide
he is called the slot receiver or he said to be 'in the slot.'
The last formation that will look at what the quarterback under center
is called the Trips formation which also uses three or sometimes four
wide receivers.
In the trips formation three wide receivers will line up on the same side
of the field.
And possibly there will be a tight end over here to so we can get pretty
crowded too confusing for the defense as to how they're going to cover all these
receivers.
Of course the offense also runs the risk that these guys
could run into each other and could confuse themselves just the same.
You'll also notice here that there is nobody lined up behind the quarterback
so we would say that this formation
has an 'empty backfield.'
And one common variation that we'll see
with the trips formation
is that the quarterback will not be under center and if he's not under
center then he will be
in the 'shotgun formation.'
So when you hear
that a quarterback is 'in shotgun'
it means that he is a few feet behind the center,
rather than right up behind him.
So rather than handling the ball to the quarter back, the center will actually snap the ball
back a few feet through the air to him.
Here's a great picture with the Aaron Rodgers of the Packers receiving the snap
from the center in the shotgun position, rather than being right up
behind him.
And what this does is give the quarterback a little more reaction time.
If the quarterback is under center, he will get the ball from the center of a few
steps backward really quickly
which we would call 'dropping back.'
So he could take a three-step, or a five-step drop, depending on how quickly he
wants to throw the ball.
What moving into the shotgun essentially does, is removes this need to drop back
because the quarterback is in essence dropped back before the ball is even
snapped.
So lining up in the shotgun formation makes it easier to pass, and is often used by
teams on passing plays,
but it doesn't have to be
so there can be a running back, as he saw in that photo, or two
while he is in shotgun
so that after the quarterback gets the snap, he can just turn and hand the ball off
to his running back.
Now this isn't all of the formations that can be used, there are plenty
more because remember the offense wants to throw the defense off anyway
they can.
Teams will have their favorite formations that they use most often
But they're going to be constantly moving guys around, and mixing things up
one way or another.
So hopefully that'll be enough of an intro to formations to know
why the offense is always lining up differently before every play
so now the next time you watch a game, you can try to identify, "Is the quarterback
in shotgun or is he under center?", "Are they using I formation rather than
a single back set?" Thanks.