The way to accomplish both of those goals is to construct a sound concept around the deep post that can provide answers versus a variety of coverages - and strike like lightning whenever the opportunity is right. The trick to throwing the ball deep down the middle past all eleven defenders is (a) find a way to bring up the defense’s deepest defenders so you can throw the post behind them and (b) if those defenders stay deep, don’t throw the post. “Let’s see if we can pitch and catch a post”īut like everything in football there’s a science to chucking it deep, and it’s only in the rarest of circumstances that the instruction from the sideline is simply to throw the ball deep, regardless of the consequences. It is, in short, the play that makes the sport what it is. If there is one play - one image - that is totally unique to the sport, this is it: the play that would be illegal if not for the game’s early rule changes to permit the forward pass the play that would be unfathomable without the game’s early innovators the play that looks at the scrum at the line of scrimmage - the part of the game most tied to football’s past - and essentially says, screw it, we’ll just throw the ball over the top of all that. I have an admission to make: while I love a well executed power sweep or double-A gap blitz, and I’m a sucker for a well timed shallow cross or screen pass, and while I even get a little tingly when I see a run fit that stuffs a runner or when triple option quarterback fakes the pitch before cutting upfield, there is absolutely nothing - nothing - in football that I love more than a perfectly thrown deep post that hits a streaking receiver in stride for a touchdown. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherf-r in the room, accept no substitutes. Obviously, it was a great throw and a great catch by Hop, but even if we don’t hit it, we kind of freak them out the remainder of the game.”
Indeed, Murray was caught smiling during the play as he saw their ruse had worked, and Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury explained after the game that he liked this play so much (other than the fact that it produced a touchdown) because “it unsettles the DBs and our guys did a great job of executing it. Ultimately it wasn’t much - Hopkins was only open by a step and the pass was put precisely where it needed to be - but in the NFL a step is a step, and you get your players open by any means necessary.
But upon a closer look, it’s clear that Hopkins didn’t get open simply through excellent route running, but instead by a carefully planned feint: almost all of the Cardinals were looking to the sideline as if waiting for a new playcall, and as a result many of the Seahawks defenders were either looking that way as well or at least had relaxed slightly. A couple of weeks ago in their win over the Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray threw a beautiful touchdown pass to a streaking DeAndre Hopkins down the left sideline.