Ted’s Film Room: Seven variations of four verticals, the best play in football

If you could call only one pass play for an entire game, that play had better be four verticals. It’s as aggressive as a play-caller can get without calling something more akin to a trick play. The objective of four verticals is to overload two or three deep zones with at least one more receiver than the defense can cover. With some adjustments, it could be run effectively against any defense.

“(Texas Tech) would literally have days of practice where we would only call this play. Our guys get frustrated. The defense knows it’s coming. And you’re just expected to execute,” said Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley in an interview with Fox’s Joel Klatt. “At the time, I got to be honest, I thought it was a little crazy. But what it created was a sense of any situation, especially, the big situations, we were going to find a way to execute it.”

You could also make an argument that four verts should be the foundation of every passing offense. Even short passing offenses have to threaten defenses vertically at some point to get them to back off. If defenses are unmenaced by an offense’s ability to beat them deep, they’ll compact the field. Four verts threatens a defense on the outside as well as in the seams, and it’s especially troublesome for defenses that try to keep eight in the box. In today’s game, if you can’t defend four verticals you’re in trouble.

The fundamentals of four verticals

To understand the play better, I spoke with coach Carter Sheridan, who worked with wide receivers under Sean Payton with the Saints, a team that majors in four verts. Sheridan is an offensive analyst for LSU, which won a national championship in 2020 with one of the best passing offenses of all time.

“Four verticals is a landmark play regardless of what formation you are in,” Sheridan said.

An NFL field isn’t divided the same way as a college field, so the landmarks are different. We’ll talk about NFL and college landmarks as we go through each example. Though there are creative ways to run it from multiple formations, four verticals is typically run out of 2×2 (two receivers on each side of the formation) and 3×1 (three receivers to one side and a single receiver to the other). Putting four eligible receivers on the line of scrimmage makes them immediate vertical threats.

Image from Saints install

Out of 2×2, the two outside receivers run fade routes with mandatory outside releases. They can’t get jammed inside or the spacing of the play will be compromised. They have to take their corners outside to the sideline. The inside receivers run seam routes.

Out of 3×1, the No. 3 receiver (farthest inside receiver) runs a deep over route to the opposite seam.

Image from Saints install

A seam read is when the player running the seam has the option to adjust or convert his route based on the coverage. Some teams will have both their inside receivers run seam reads, while others will have only one of the inside receivers run the seam read. For example, the Saints usually only have their Y (tight end) in the boundary (short side of the field) run the seam read. Against two-deep coverages, the receiver running the seam read would try to split the safeties rather than get to the inside of the numbers. Different offenses will have different route conversions on their seam reads. We’ll go through different types throughout this story.

1. Saints All Go Special

Maybe it was the boredom of quarantine or the pure love of verticals, but Payton responded to a tweet asking coaches about their favorite all-purpose concepts. Unsurprisingly, Payton responded with his version of four verts.

The Saints like to switch release their deep over and seam route of 3×1. In the diagram, they’re in empty with their receivers in tight splits to the left, so the inside receiver runs a corner route to take the place of a fade, while the outside receiver runs a drag to give the quarterback an outlet against man coverage.

Against the 49ers in last season, they ran a variation of this concept out of 13 personnel (one back, three tight ends, one receiver). The heavy personnel forced the defense to field their base personnel. Payton wanted to get less speed on the field and he exposed the defense’s lack of it with four verticals.

Week 14, 2019, first quarter, 5:18, first-and-10

Michael Thomas was the only receiver in the game. He lined up in the slot to the offensive left and he ran the deep over. His landmark is 22 yards downfield, four yards outside of the opposite hash. Against two-deep, he has to convert his route and split the safeties but the 49ers only had one safety deep, so Thomas knew he had to cross the safety’s face.

Tight end Jared Cook started on the right but shifted into a stack alignment inside of Thomas to the left. At the snap of the ball, they switch released and Cook widened out to the seam. His landmark is 22 yards downfield, inside edge of the numbers. Taysom Hill, who usually lines up at tight end, was split out wide to the three-receiver side. His job was simply to run the corner off and outside.

The 49ers played Cover-3 buzz, which meant their strong safety would help on deep crossing routes. Both the free safety and strong safety covered Thomas running the over, which left no one to cover the seam. Cook widened out and ran past the flat defender without getting rerouted and was wide open.

Drew Brees had plenty of space in which to throw the ball. The pressure forced him to throw it a bit high, but Cook made an excellent adjustment and came down with the ball in the end zone. This example was a perfect call against an ideal coverage, but there are some coverages against which four verticals requires adjustments.

“If we were in 3×1 and we don’t have the right look to run it, we would also have hand signals for the single side X receivers,” explained Sheridan. “Y’all run your four verts to the trips side and we’ll play the one-on-one game on this side.”

One adjustment they use a lot is putting their single receiver from a 3×1 formation on a shallow underneath against man coverage. Against quarters or Cover-4, which is more commonly used in college, more adjustments have to be made for the play to work optimally.

2. LSU’s four verts

The way the Tigers run their four verts has an uncommon but effective answer for Cover-4.

“At LSU, now this is something I have never seen and it works,” Sheridan said. “I couldn’t believe it; it was amazing. I thought I saw every way of running four verts.”

The No. 2 receiver takes a wide release and runs his seam 4 yards outside of the hash.

“He’ll arc his release and if those safeties are showing shell (two-deep), we would try to get outside of the nickel but if we can’t we’ll slip him inside,” Sheridan said. “If it’s Cover-2 or any type of shell look, we’ll still push our depth to 10-12 and we’ll speed cut to 14-15.”

The No. 3 receiver has the deep over but he’s making the same read and route conversion as the No. 2 receiver.

“If he’s reading shell (two-deep), he’s not going to split the safeties like the Saints do or the rest of America does, he’s going to flatten it off at the top instead of taking a high angle. It’s almost like he’s going to push it to 12 yards and run to the sideline flat to get across the safety’s face,” said Sheridan. “So a lot of times, it won’t even look like four verts. It’ll look like a totally different play but it’s just an adjustment that we do and the team has had tremendous success with it.”

Against verticals, Cover-4 essentially becomes Cover-0 (man-to-man with no deep help). The corners take the outside receivers in man, while the safeties take the inside verticals. By converting the two inside routes to digs, LSU gave its receivers a better chance to separate against off coverage. Quarterback Joe Burrow, who was the first pick in this year’s draft, feasted on this concept with slot receiver Justin Jefferson, who was also selected in the first round, usually dominating his inside matchups.

3. Air Raid four verts

A tenet of the Air Raid is to run a limited amount of concepts but run them extremely well. Four verticals is an Air Raid staple. When Riley told the story of Texas Tech running four verts for days, the head coach he worked for was Mike Leach, who is in his first season at Mississippi State after a successful stint at Washington State.

Leach also has both his inside receivers running seam reads but instead of converting to digs like LSU, they can convert their routes into curls vs. zone. The outside receivers could also convert their routes vs. zones but they’ll convert to “drop out curls” (comeback turning inside).

The inside receivers make their decision at 10 yards. If they can beat the defender over the top, they will keep on running down the seam. If it’s pure zone and they have no chance to win over the top, they will sit and then work in or out based on the position of the underneath coverage.

In the clip above, the No. 2 receiver running a seam read saw the defense drop into a Cover-2 zone to his side, so he sat and worked his way to open space. Four verts wasn’t designed to beat two-deep looks but with the adjustments that LSU and Washington State have built into their four verts concept, coaches could call it with no qualms about what coverage the defense is in.

4. Todd Monken’s Bunch four verts

Air Raid coach Todd Monken put up some numbers with Ryan Fitzpatrick in Tampa Bay as the Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator in 2018. Unfortunately for the Bucs, one of those numbers was their turnover total as they finished last in that category. If you try really hard to ignore that deficiency, the offense was enjoyable to watch — the Bucs had the No. 1 passing offense in the league that season.

Week 2, 2018, second quarter, 0:46, second-and-3

They even ran four verts deep in the red zone where space is compressed. Rather than spread out, they ran their verticals from a bunch formation. The tight end arc released to the seam. There isn’t enough space to run a traditional crosser in the red zone. Instead, slot receiver Chris Godwin ran a “jerk off” route (keep your minds out of the gutter please) from the point (receiver on the line of scrimmage in a bunch formation). Although it’s tougher to space out from a bunch, the defense will usually only bump the point receiver to avoid getting rubbed, so the other two would get free releases.

On this play, the Eagles didn’t bump any receiver and dropped into a Cover-3. The free safety favored the bunch side and shuffled toward the tight end running the seam.

With the free safety out of the picture, Godwin only had the inside linebacker to beat. He ran right at the linebacker to make it look like he was going to run an underneath route before pushing vertical when he got close enough to the inside linebacker.

The inside linebacker froze and Godwin got wide open right behind him. With the safety covering the seam, no one was near Godwin. Fitzpatrick did a good job of maneuvering the pocket and hit Godwin for a touchdown.

5. Bill Musgrave’s five verts

Four verticals on one play are cool, but what if you put five on it? I say the more verticals, the merrier. California offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave has gotten a lot of mileage out of the five verticals concept during his time as a play-caller in his stops throughout college and the NFL.

“That play was invented by George Seifert in 1999. We were running a lot of good stuff on offense with the Carolina Panthers. We were seeing a lot of quarters coverage from our division, specifically Atlanta. The Falcons defense played a lot of quarters and the middle linebacker was Jessie Tuggle, and George (Seifert) watching all the film that he does, even though he was a defensive coordinator, he was really involved in the offense. He said, ‘In quarters, the safety has to take No. 2 when they go vertical. The Mike is not running down the middle because it’s not Cover 2-Tampa, so if you could run just five verticals and occupy both corners and safeties, the Mike doesn’t think he needs to carry anybody. There should be no one in between the hash marks down the middle of the field.’”

Seifert was right and five verticals was born.

Week 3, 2016, second quarter, 9:13, first-and-10

Musgrave took the play with him in all his stops in the NFL, including stints with the Vikings, Raiders and Broncos. While he was with the Raiders, the play worked in several clutch moments, including a late-game touchdown against the Steelers in 2015.

Week 9, 2015, fourth quarter, 1:10, first-and-10

Although the play was designed to beat quarters, it’s not quite sound against Tampa-2 zone, which is what the Steelers played. There are no route conversions or check-downs, so if the defense drops deep into their zones, the quarterback could be stuck without options.

However, both Steeler safeties parted to cover the seams, which left Pro Bowl receiver Michael Crabtree matched up on the Mike linebacker without any deep help.

“We’d be happy as all get out just to have a tight end run it on a Mike linebacker, let alone a wide receiver,” said Musgrave. “The middle linebacker in most defenses is their worst pass defender. It’s fun to be able to get a receiver to run it on them. You’re really cooking with gas.”

“(The Steelers) brought pressure and the protection didn’t identify the pressure between the QB and the center,” Musgrave said. “So Derek (Carr) had a free runner. He had to let it go earlier than he would of (liked), so he added some excess air so (Crabtree) could find it falling out of the clouds.”

The defense had a nickel blitz coming from the right side, which forced Carr to throw the ball before Crabtree could get his head around. Carr put some extra air on the ball so Crabtree had some more time to find the ball.

This particular variation of verticals isn’t as versatile as the other versions but it still could work against multiple coverages unless the defense drops deeper than usual. Musgrave said he would call verticals with a second play that the quarterback could check to if he didn’t like the defensive look.

6. Andy Reid’s RB seam

Dan Casey is a high school coach who has a collection of great concepts on Twitter and his website. He showed me the last two variations of four verticals.

Like Casey, Chiefs coach Andy Reid hasn’t been bashful about borrowing concepts from the college game. Other than the Ravens, the Chiefs offense most resembles the spread offenses that you’ll see in college, but with more sophistication and the best quarterback in the world, Patrick Mahomes, running the show.

One of the Chiefs most explosive concepts is four verticals with the running back running the seam or “H-Sting” from the backfield.

AFC divisional playoffs, 2019, second quarter, 10:28, first-and-10

Here, the Chiefs started in empty with running back Damien Williams lined up outside to the right with receiver Tyreek Hill. This alignment served as a coverage indicator for Mahomes. He saw inside linebacker Zach Cunningham follow Williams outside, which confirmed for him that the Texans defense was in man coverage.

As Williams shifted into the backfield, the defense bumped responsibilities. Cunningham went back into the box and the outside linebacker on the line of scrimmage to that side picked up Williams in man coverage.

Tight end Travis Kelce ran the deep over from the No. 3 position and the slot ran a shallow. Mahomes also had Hill running a fade as the single receiver to the right in case he liked that matchup.

Instead of trying to get a free release and getting to his landmark, Kelce “rubbed” the outside linebacker that was on Williams. Mahomes knew they wanted to go to Williams against this look. He got his eyes on Williams immediately after the snap.

The outside linebacker was in a trail position and was sprinting to try to cut off Williams. As a result, he couldn’t get his head around to find the ball.

Mahomes knew that the defender trying to guard Williams had too much space to cover and that he didn’t have a chance of making a play on the ball. So he thew the ball a little early, while the outside linebacker was still in recovery mode.

With all the speed that the Chiefs have on offense, they are the most dangerous vertical threat in the NFL. Covering Kelce and Hill is hard enough and Reid makes life that much harder for defenses when he has running backs who can beat linebackers down the seam.

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7. Paul Johnson’s sprint out four verts

Even old-school teams could take advantage of the magic of running four verticals. One of my favorite offenses to watch is the flex bone triple option. To me, it’s satisfying to see a triple-option team frustrate a defense into submission. Their base formation with two running backs lined up in tight slots gives them four immediate vertical threats, but I always felt like flex bone teams don’t utilize four verticals enough.

Defenses play some funky fronts and coverages to counter the triple option, and former Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson has seen it all. He is the flex bone guru. In 2018, he called this nifty four verticals variation against USF.

In the clip, the Bulls defense was in Cover-0 (man-to-man with no deep safeties). The safeties had the slots in man coverage. As the slot motioned left, the safeties rotated and switched assignments. The safety to the left bumped over to take the motion man, while the safety to the right bumped over to take the slot.

The motion man wheeled outside and ran a fade, the slot ran the deep over, and the No. 1 receiver on the three-receiver side ran a post to take the place of where the seam route would be on a standard four verticals concept.

Instead of dropping straight back, the quarterback sprinted out like he was running a speed option. His movement gave the concept a play-action element. The safety covering the slot ran toward the line of scrimmage like he was defending the run, and the slot got behind him for an easy touchdown.

The service academies that run this style aren’t usually getting hot recruits, but I would love to see a big-name college run the flex bone along with a legit vertical game one day. It likely won’t happen because it’s tougher to recruit top prospects with NFL aspirations to play in a system that doesn’t resemble a pro offense, but one could dream.

(Photo of Michael Thomas: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)