Reggie Barlow did all of that for eight seasons as a wide receiver in the National Football League for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders. And according to Barlow, before you can become a game-breaker, you first have to know the basics of being a wide receiver: the routes.
"The basic routes are hitches, slants, curls, go routes, and post routes," he said. "In Tampa and Oakland we had a route called a swirl route that was a little bit different. There is combination of different routes, but those are the ones most people stick to whether they're running from the outside or from a slot."
Of all the routes, the hitch route is probably the easiest. To run a hitch route, you run up the football field five or six yards and turn up field so that your numbers face the quarterback.
When running a slant route, you use the same premise as a hitch route by going up the field five or six yards. But instead of turning around to show the quarterback your numbers, the wide receiver cuts up the field in a 45 degree angle. The objective when running the slant is to make sure that the receiver keeps his body between the football and the defender.
In addition to the slant and hitch is the quick out route. The quick out route is run just as the hitch and the slant by going five or six yards up field before making a move, but instead of turning toward the quarterback or slanting at an angle, the wide receiver makes a cut directly towards the sideline hence the name a quick out route.
The common denominator for the hitch, slant and quick out routes is that they are all short routes. These routes are normally run in blitz situations and require complete timing between the quarterback and the wide receiver.
So to productively run a slant, hitch or quick out route, the receiver must make sure that nothing interferes with his timing. And one thing that can throw off the timing of a route is being bumped at the line of scrimmage by a defensive player.
According to Barlow, there are ways to keep from being bumped at the line of scrimmage. "One of the most important things to remember when you are coming off the ball is not to pop straight out of your stance," he said. "You don't want to pop straight out. You'll want to come off with a nice body lean nice arm motion, a nice gait, and nice body control but with explosion."
The other routes that Barlow mentioned, the go route and the post route, are deeper routes. The go route is the simplest of them all because it's just a straight shot down the football field. The wide receiver is basically trying to run fast enough to get behind the defense.
During a post route, the wide receiver gives the impression of a go route before making a hard cut either in or out in a 45 degree angle.
