I just want to know. Wouldn’t certain plays require knowing what the other team is going to do in their next play? How on earth does a team choose plays, and what can be their reasoning behind choosing it?
Also, don’t teams have entire playbooks, with dozens of complicated plays in them? Do the players all have to study these constantly to remember them all?
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The defence has two major options at defending the pass, man mark or zonal other then there are options about blitzing the quarterback, sending more people to tackle the quarterback than the line can handle, the problem there is if the line can hold off long enough for a completed throw there is normally a wide open receiver. Almost every designed play on the defence is a combination of if this happens do this if that happens do the other, which is why learning the playbook is so important in American football.
>Wouldn’t certain plays require knowing what the other team is going to do in their next play?
That is part of it. Generally it’s the defense hoping to predict this.
>How on earth does a team choose plays, and what can be their reasoning behind choosing it?
From a play sheet. Looking at the down and distance.
>Also, don’t teams have entire playbooks, with dozens of complicated plays in them?
Yes
>Do the players all have to study these constantly to remember them all?
Yes.
They don’t know what play the other team is going to run, but they can makes guesses based on the tendencies they’ve shown as well as the current game situation.
If the offense makes substitutions than the defense is allowed to match and those personnel groupings affect what plays the offense can or is likely to run (more wide receivers vs big guys for run blocking).
For the offense, yes there can be a number of plays, but a lot of it is just various combinations of a smaller set of concepts. Like, a play to that has a receiver running a post on one side and a receiver running a hook on the other is technically a different play than a post and cross, but as long your receivers know how to run those different routes, you can make lots of combinations.
When the QB calls out the play in the huddle each word is a code word to convey information to one or more players about their role(s) in the play.
> Also, don’t teams have entire playbooks, with dozens of complicated plays in them? Do the players all have to study these constantly to remember them all?
Most NFL playbooks have hundreds of plays. But for most positions, it is much simpler. For the OL, there’s a limited number of blocking assignments each has to remember for each blocking scheme. For a RB, there’s only 8 different “holes” the play can be designed for, and a few different routes or blocking assignments they can have, for a receiver, there’s only a dozen different route concepts, so they just need to know where to lineup and which route to run.
The trickier part comes in high presnap movement offenses where there could be shifts and players in motion. That’s why sometimes you will see someone who is newer or who is in a new position being instructed on the field reminding them of how they should shift/move presnap.
The QB has a harder time as he has to know exactly where everyone will be on every play, and all of the movement that should be taking place presnap. That’s part of why rookie QBs and QBs new to some system usually run a drastically trimmed down playbook.
One thing some teams do is call two plays in the huddle. Then as the QB sees how the defense is lined up, uses an audible to say which of the two is the one to execute. This gives the quarterback some flexibility if he sees that one of the receivers is going to have a easier time getting clear.
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