Running America’s Fire Zone Blitz

In this video, we will detail how to run the most popular zone blitz there is, America’s Fire Zone.

America’s Fire Zone is a weak side overload blitz that you will see run on any given Saturday or Sunday afternoon quite frequently. This is a great way to put pressure on the Quarterback, or to attack a Zone Read team.

We use the 3 Under, 3 Deep Fire Zone coverage behind the blitz. To learn more about utilizing the Zone Blitz, be sure to get Dominating Football Defense with the Zone Blitz eBook, available for instant download.

Transcript of America’s Fire Zone Blitz

Hi! This is Joe Daniel from FootballDefense.com. Today we’re are taking a look at “America’s Fire Zone” the most popular zone blitz in terms of the game today. One you see all the time on Saturday’s and Sunday’s in college and NFL and one that you been seen more on Friday nights in high school. And as the zone blitz continues to become more popular even at the lower levels. So, here we’re looking at a 4-3 defense that we’re going to run this out of allow for 4-3 defense for running fire zone blitzes I think you could get a great look out for 3-4.

Your 7 man front is going to be great for this but you can also work out your fire zone with the 3-5, with 4-2-5 or 4-4 defense. You can work your fire zone blitzes just a little bit different angles. You can even work this in your 46 Bear front if you wanted to use that too. Here we got our 4-3 defense in an America’s Fire Zone is going to be a weak side overload. An overload stunts means we’re going to bring more guys to one side of formation than the offense can block. We’re going to overload just one side there we’re going to overload the weak side.

This is usually going to be a blitz that we would want to bring a front in a boundary. We’ve going to get a short edge here. I’m going to show you a number of ways that expend on this blitz as well. First thing we’ve got, we want our 3 technique to really pass through the outside hip of this tackle. So, on the snap of the ball he’s stepping out and busting this outside hip because he is going to be the contain player to the strong side of the pass. He wants to have an offensive or an athletic defense of tackle here.

He could get outside and continue this play called the Slam technique where he’s slamming through the hip of this tackle getting as one as he can right now. Our nose guard can be line up in a 1 technique shade over the center. He’s going to cross-phase and ripped to the A gap. He’s going rip to the A gap if his pass or slant is going to be on the inside eye or playside eye of that quarterback, tackles looking at the shoulder of that quarterbacks. Over here our defense of End has a long cut technique.

The long cut technique is going to step in, he’s going to step cross-phase, he’s going to crossover to his back foot in front of his front foot crossover that his going to attack to the hip of this guard right here. So, his looking to the hip of that guard if that guard comes to it he’s immediately going to cross-phase where he’s going to cross this phase then make a layer off the field. If the guard is going down then he will work tight on the hip, squeeze that space down. He doesn’t have to cross two gaps here. He’s only going to cross two gaps if this guy comes to it. If he gets the pass set he’s going to work his way to the inside for a partial play. He is responsible for the eye with the nose of that quarterback he was to be to the middle of the pass rush.

From backers, for Mike backers this come tight of the hip of the defense of End. So, if this defense of End comes down he’s going to the right of his hip and throws the B gap. So, this End crosses his phase of this guard, if the guard attacks him then the Mike should be coming free. If the guard misses him then you may pick up the End but he may be confuses to pick up anything. Mike is rushing here; again you’re looking at that eye in the quarterback in his side. The Will backer will on the snap his rushing contain pass rush he is looking at the back shoulder of this quarterback. We’re going to come back shouldered quarterback making sure that there is no way this quarterback is going to break contain a line and get outside.

We’re going to flush this thing there’s so much pressure coming here we probably in the flushing of this quarterback out to this side like zone 14 if the tackle get with the numb. Along with this is a zone blitz if it is a run; if we got a run read then our linebacker or Sam linebacker is not going in our defense venues is not going or whether continue to attack the play is normal. So, the Sam linebacker read steps if he sees a run read and run block off of this guy in the tight End and the tackle he’s going to still feel it up like normal. We got all our gaps taking care of, it’s a great blitz.

Our defense of Ends is going to step if he gets a run read he’s going to continue to go. He will be there to help and continue the play. However, if he gets the pass set or pass release over the tight End so see the tight End goes release on pass. We got a pass set out of the tackle. This guy should know how to read the pass over drop the ball depending who you want to go where and it’s up to you. You got three underneath zone to take care of in the fire zone in a way that we’re going to use the fire zone three underneath zones to take care and three deep zones to take care. How you wanted to take care, it’s up to you it doesn’t matter only when somebody gets in that air. This corner is going to have a deep 3^rd, corners going to have a deep 3^rd.

On the blitz side the safe to the blitz side is going to get the backers on his side giving some sort of call saying that they’re going change their blitzing, I’m going, I’m going, and I’m going, letting the safety nose. Now, the safety nose is coming is made me crash call that he’s going to be coming down to work the flats. So, the free safety in this case is coming down to cover the flats. He made not need even a drop down to made stuff that he can’t handle it. He’s going to be there in that position to handle this flat zone. We can add and bring the End over the Sam linebacker to drop in the middle of the field.

We see very few pass as over in the middle of the field so most of the times we want to weaker pass coverage guy. Usually our defense of End to be in the middle so we’re going to have defense of End come to then he reads a pass out of pass here in the tight End. He’s going to get to the middle of the field. He does have to get here fast because really in this situation the only threat into the middle of the field is the tight End or back release and late. Run read by the safety the back Sam linebackers he read the pass by the tackle and he’s getting out to the flat. With everything cover underneath the deep 3^rd cover we’re getting our strong safety covering the deep 3^rd in the middle. We got 3 under 3 deep; we got a toll pressure under this quarterback; we got more guys that they can’t block if they tried to release more than three guys to the pass. So, if we have formation up here we’ve going to get only one guy in there. We’ve got five coming; they’re overload from the left side.

This guy really going to get rid of the ball to a hurry his going to hit me a lot of confusion because he’s not going to tell me who is handling on what zone. Great privilege to get some pressure on that quarterback especially by the passers, do they aware that if this guy is a runner if he breaks your contain out of here on your tackle you can have some problems. You can definitely run some problems there. One way to fix that is that you cannot turn this into a 6 man blitz. Bring your defense of End on contain rush; now you just wanted to run a cover 1. Man coverage was with one safety behind it that would be where you like the corner roll the safety down lock him on, you could lock this on and you could bring a back rub to a to lock down to avail the look up. So you got some options here so you can lock on the tight End.

You can do that if you really concern about this overload blitz flushing the quarterback and I have anybody out there to contain so, give these new options. America’s Fire Zone’s fantastic blitz the most popular blitz there is out of the fire zone blitzes great flex out with the 4-3 you see almost on every 4-3 football teams going to run this. And almost every college and anybody in the NFL choose to run some variation of this blitz.

Hope this help that you can look up for your defense of package down the road if you sound a read in there really going to give you a way to get a good pressure in the quarterback and even a good run stopping blitz. Great blitz surrounding your zone read especially when you get a quarterback here. If you got a zone read concept quarterback coming out. If you’re concern about that quarterback this is going to give him a faulty reading where he’s going to want to keep the football because of that defense of End crashes and he’s going to have a lot of pressure in his face when he keeps so it’s another one that you can use not only against the pass but against the run.

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