Work Day: Preparation Reads

Tuesdays for me are a work day. It may be that from my days in college football the concept is ingrained into me, as Tuesday is the day when most teams try to get their hardest workout in, tackling reps and live reps, in order to remember and perfect the art of physicality. Going full speed so as not to lose the sharpness needed to compete on Saturday. Tuesdays for me are a day where I sit down and attempt to fly through a thick to-do list, buckling down and working hard. Generally I do pretty well, and I walk away from Tuesdays feeling productive and effective for the rest of the week. How I form my to-do list is important in getting off to a good start.

In every passing play for a college quarterback, there is a set of reads that they must go through to make the appropriate pass and have an opportunity to be successful. A quarterback’s ability to read on the run, adjust to changes in the defense and find the open receiver, and then execute the throw and catch, determines the success of the play.

For every play, the goal of the offense is to give their players an opportunity to be successful. The reads that a quarterback makes starts from the moment they break the huddle.

The process is to first scan the entire defense and personnel, checking for changes in strategy from the previous plays. Then starting from the secondary, to work down into the linebackers and the linemen, recognizing the pre-snap coverage and box set-up. In other words, how many men are in the secondary to stop the pass and how many men or in the box to stop the run. Then to scan the opposite direction, from linemen to secondary, to acknowledge any shifts or changes. This then determines if an audible or adjustment is needed based on the play called. These first steps happen before the QB goes under center.

Once the quarterback is under center, he begins the cadence sequence and adjusts the offense including motions or shifts. He reads the defense again based on how they respond to the offensive shifts or motions, which gives an indication as to what defense they might be playing (i.e. man or zone, blitzing or soft coverage, etc.) At this point, the QB also considers the play that is called and whether it is a run or pass, how the defense might respond: Is there an apparent blitz coming, often cued by a shift in the secondary, or are the d-linemen shifted into the hole where the play is called and is there a need to flip the play to the other side? What is the depth of the cornerbacks and will the quick hitch be effective or will the receiver convert the route into a fade?

These questions must be answered before the play even starts, in the span of approximately 10-15 seconds. Whoever said football was for dumb jocks could be mistaken. Take the reads that a QB has to make a multiply them by 10 to include all the other players on the offense that have their reads to make before the play starts, not including the 11 men on defense who are making pre-snap reads of their own and its obvious that football is 80% mental and 40% physical. (ok, so we’re not all great at math, but you get the point)

Each of us has responsibilities and ‘reads’ to make before our day starts. Having a checklist or ‘to-do list’ of anticipated things to accomplish during that day (or play) help us to be prepared for the day itself. Analyzing my responsibility for the day and what I need to accomplish to help my teams is the first step in being effective each day.

Check back tomorrow for how to make your reads during the play, on the run, in the heat of the moment of life!