Football terms

In this video, Richard Sherman shows how smart and sneaky he can be and cheerfully explains how he does it. I love when he smiles and says quietly, "I am showing them an illusion of sorts." The guy has a mouth on him to rival Muhammad Ali, but also has a meticulous, analytical brain and he isn't shy about saying that he values that over his athleticism even within the game. He seems to have an almost precognitive quickness sometimes... because his brain has broken his opponents down to their gears and cogs. 

Here is the pointof this particular article, though. 

The phrase "Hiding in the tall grass" delighted me when I first saw that game because of the mental image. There was something true about it, even though I didn't know quite what at the time. This is such an evocative way to quickly nail what Sherm is explaining in this video.

Obviously the turf is the same height all over the field and a player can't actually hide, but that is not what this means. It means that someone-- in this case the predatory cornerback-- has manufactured tall grass within the opposing quarterback's brain. It isn't quite a blind spot. As Sherm went to some effort to explain, he has created an illusion. He wants the opposing quarterback to think he is to the situation. They want so badly for the play to work that if he sketches in certain movements, they'll believe it is working... right until he jumps out of the tall grass to pick the ball.

There are many other phrases like this in football and many of them are so common that announcers don’t feel the need to explain them. Hence many fans don’t know what they mean or where they came from. Here are some of them. We'll start with some easy phrases and work up to the more technical ones.

"Pick" means interception of course. "Pick-six" means an interception followed by a run to the end zone for six points.

“Move the chains.” Get a first down so the officials will move the chains attached to the big orange markers on the sidelines that tell people where the next first down is. "Stay ahead of the chains" is essentially the same thing. It means your offense doesn't meander around in the same area until the fourth down. 

“Man coverage.” It does not refer to the uniforms. It refers to a player who is assigned to deal with one other specific player and so covers that one man. Then you have “zone coverage” which is of course when a player is assigned a general area to keep track of instead of one guy.

“Run a flat.” This sounds like the guy was running and was flattened by Kam Chancellor...

...or was dealing with a ball deflated by Tom Brady… 

...but no. It just means a man isn’t running toward the end zone. Instead he runs “flat” along the yard lines, not across them, usually to fool a corner or safety.

“Running game / pass game.” Exactly what it sounds like. Hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch or Thomas Rawls so they can run it. Or, pass it to Kearse, Baldwin or Willson. The “game” part of it refers to how well it works out in general for the team. E.g. “The Vikings are built around their running game.” Or “I wish the Niners would stop putting half their defense in the backfield so Wilson can try his pass game. Oh well, if they’re not going to respect Lynch, we’ll stay with the running game.”

“Throw over the top.” Um, doesn’t the ball always go over the top? This term doesn’t refer to the heads and grabby hands of the players. It refers to whether the quarterback throws in front of the main line of the defense or past it, away up the field to where the deep receivers are running around. So if Wilson completes one of those beautiful arcing passes for a 47 yard gain, that’s “over the top.” “Underneath” means that he threw to a man relatively nearby for a 5 or 10 yard gain.

“Sluggo.” Is it the comic book character?

 Nope. To explain this, we also have to explain another term, “slant and fade.” “Running a slant” means that the player runs diagonally, like a bishop in chess. However, if they’re in the red zone and don’t have much room, this becomes a “slant and fade.” That means they “fade away” into the corner of the end zone and the quarterback throws the ball high over the defensive back. The trick there is that the receiver really doesn’t have much room and so has to work to keep their feet in bounds when they come down with the ball. “Slant and fade” is also known as “slant and go.” Mumble that repeatedly and quickly when the clock is ticking and it becomes “sluggo.” FYI, Sherman’s famous “tip”off of Crabtree was an attempted sluggo by Kaepernick.

“Sell the slant.” A fake-out. The quarterback is counting on the defense watching him carefully and so raises his arm, giving an awkward twitch that looks to a defensive player like the QB going to go ahead and pass, so they jump onto where they think the ball is headed. This, in the hope that the receiver will use that momentary hesitation by the defense to accelerate, get some space, and be relatively isolated by the time the ball does get to him ‘way back in the corner. E.g. "The Superbowl-winning Manning - Burness pass was a sluggo in which Manning sold the slant." 

"Pump-fake.” Nothing to do with illusory high heels. 

It is a more generic term than “sell the slant” for acting like you’re going to pass to one guy and then going for another, sometimes a guy who has run a flat or sometimes a guy who has run further away down the field. E.g. "Wow, we sure know how to use Tyler Lockett's speed to capitalize on the pump-fake." Or, we hear this all the time, “Wilson pump-fakes left, draws the blitz…”

"Hunh? What’s drawing the blitz?” It means you bait the defensive guys and get them to rush up close to the line in an attempt to quickly sack you, so there are fewer guys in the back of the field. Then if you want you can throw “over the top” for a long pass. 

"Trips" does not refer to when the turf grabs someone’s shoe the wrong way. It is an offensive formation with three wide receivers on one side of the field all near each other. That means you either don't have a tight end or a fullback. Remember, you can only have eleven guys on the field so if you have a triplet of wide receivers, you have to take away from somewhere.

Meanwhile, "Jumbo" is when you have three tight ends (tight end can be an offensive lineman or maybe work as a wide receiver but they’re heftier than a typical receiver) stacked up instead of a lot of wide receivers. "Jumbo" formation started with the Giants’ coach, Parcells, and was named after one of his players. Coach was basically saying, "Our guys are bigger and stronger than yours. We will broadcast that we are going to run the ball. Even though you know it, you can't stop us.” See, the Giants were known for brawn and it was practically a given that their big ol' tight ends weren’t going to accelerate down the field for a pass. Instead they'd help the Giants trundle through the defenders. The Seahawks are different in that Willson and Helfet, our tight ends, are on the lighter, faster end of people able to play that position. Oh, they're not as fast as our wide receivers, Baldwin, Kearse and Lockett, but our “jumbo” would still look more like “trips,” which is why we typically don’t do this.

“Mesh” refers to the middle of the defensive line. You know, the place with all the huge guys that looks like pots and pans banging around if you don’t know any better. E.g. “Tukuafu plows into the mesh.”

“Pinching the D-line.” This sounds like a complaint a lady would make about a bra that doesn’t fit, but it just means to gather all the defensive guys together in the middle in order to jam things up there. E.g. “It’s first and goal. The Steelers are pinching the D-line so they can try to stop Marshawn Lynch.”

"Spread" (on offense) is when you have no tight end and no fullback (or possibly no halfback) and you have four wide receivers all spread out. Quadruple wide receivers. All this switching players in and out will hopefully help to clarify why the Seahawks get so many penalties for having too many players on the field.

“Shotgun formation” (e.g. “Wilson in the shotgun…”) No, he isn’t about to be launched out of a cannon. It refers to how long a "barrel" the quarterback is looking down. Shotgun means he is six feet back from the line of scrimmage and is looking down a long barrel. “Shotgun with an empty backfield” means the running back isn’t out there. “Shotgun single back” or “Shotgun with Lynch in the backfield” means just that. Lynch the running back is there with Wilson. “Shotgun double back” or “two running backs” means that Lynch and another RB, let’s say Rawls, are both there. They can help protect Wilson while he sets up a long pass “over the top.” Or they can run a few yards for a short pass “underneath.” This is the kind of versatile formation that the Seahawks love to do. It gives us many options.

“Pistol formation.” The quarterback is only three or four yards back from the line of scrimmage. So he’s looking down a short barrel. The pistol formation will never have an empty backfield. There would be no point in doing that. A pistol with an empty backfield would put the quarterback closer to the guys who want to clobber him, without offering the advantage of being able to hand the ball to the running back. So he’d have to pass from close up, which makes no sense. It'd do less than no good for anyone, but especially not for a short quarterback who has to work to see over the linemen.

“Read option.” A short way to say “Wilson runs the ball.” If none of the receivers are open and the quarterback reads that defensive end (guy defending the end of the opposing line) is distracted by something else, the quarterback will happily run around the line.

That concludes this article on football terms, but if you have questions about other terms that have become part of the scenery and you suddenly realize you don’t know what they mean, let OsQ know.