Cutup Friday: Lions 2x2 Drive

This breakdown is taken from The 2022 Detroit Lions Complete Offensive Manual.

Drive is an old school west coast pass concept that creates a triangle read for the quarterback. It stretches a defense horizontally while including a man-beating element with the Shallow route. It can be run from 2x2 or 3x1.

The triangle read creates a progression or the quarterback, consistent across most versions of the play:

1.      1 Man/2 Man concept (Branch/Smash)

2.      Shallow

3.      Dig

4.      RB Check Down

If the defense gets 2 over 1 / 3 over 2 on the front side, the offense should have numbers on the Drive concept. The next few images show how the concept opens up, through the progression, if the defense brackets the front side concept.

Against single high or if the front side concept is leveraged, the offense can still work the Drive progression. Timing from the Quarterback is critical in this type of progression read to keep danger defenders out of the sandbox of the intended receiver.

A few of the diagrams show four strong versions of the concept. These change the progression slightly, as now the running back is free releasing. The running back becomes incorporated higher up in the progression.

The Lions preferred the concept out of 2x2. They only called it out of 3x1 five times.

Why it Worked: In week 1, the Lions convert a 3^rd down using the 3x1 version shown in the first diagram. The short motion throws off the eagles’ man responsibilities. The defender responsible for the Shallow gets confused an gives up inside leverage.

In week 4, the Lions convert a 4^th down using a four strong version. The Vikings play man coverage with a 5-man rush. The Shallow route opens up as the running back clears space to the wide side of the field for him.

The week 8 clip shows Goff hitting the front side smash concept against cover 2 for a big gain on third down.

In General, the concept was very efficient for the Lions

Why it Didn’t Work: In week 5, the Patriots rush three and squeeze the front side smash concept. Goff forces a hard throw to the flat.

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The following video shows over 13 minutes of the Drive concept.