What is a draw in football and when is the ideal time for a team to execute one? A draw is a running play that offenses use to neutralize a good defense's pass rush. As the sport of football continues to...
As the sport of football continues to grow, so do the players that take to the field. Nowadays football players are bigger, stronger, faster and smarter. Defensively, those are some of the characteristics that an offensive unit would hate to see in one particular guy.
But as times have changed, so has the way offenses approach defense. So now, instead of concentrating on trying to block the bigger, stronger and faster defensive player head on, offenses have now instituted plays to help contain the defense. One of the best plays for an offense to run against a rowdy and aggressive defense is the draw play.
Stanley Conner is the offensive coordinator and running backs coach for Alabama A&M. Before joining the Bulldog staff, Conner was a four-year letterman at Jackson St. University where he helped the Tigers earn four Southwestern Athletic Conference titles. Following graduation, Conner played with the New Orleans Breakers of the United States Football League and the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League before settling down into his coaching role. As the running backs coach for A&M, Conner knows exactly when and why a draw play should be run.
"The draw is a way of slowing down the defense," he said. "It's a way of attacking a defense when the defense is doing a good job blitzing you or getting pressure on you."
"It's supposed to look like a pass, and then all of a sudden, you hand the ball off to the running back," he added. "And then he should burst through the line of scrimmage."
The draw play is most effective against defenses that are very aggressive in their run and pass defense. So in order for the offense to slow down their aggressiveness, they will run draw plays.
"The draw is designed to hopefully fool the entire defense," Conner said. "See, defensive lineman have a way of staying in their rush lanes because they don't want to give a quarterback a running lane."
So what makes the draw play so effective when run properly?
Conner said that running a draw plays helps to neutralize the linebackers allowing for an offense to have more time and space in the passing game as well.
"If a defensive player is responsible for the A gap when they rush the quarterback, they're responsible for that gap when the ball is being run also," he said. "The linebackers also have their responsibilities. And one of their rules is that you don't drop back until the quarterback passes the deepest running back in the backfield. That eliminates the linebacker from dropping back too quick. So, you try to run the draw or fake the draw to slow down the linebackers' drop as to give the receivers a wider lane to receive the ball."
"And this is because linebackers are what we call 'mirror' guys," he added. "And we call them mirror guys because they tend to sit right there in the middle of the defense and the throwing lanes. So you run the draw or fake the draw to slow that down."
