Defending "shot passing"

Defenses have evolved in the last decade to befuddle shot passing attempts by opposing offenses.

In my last column I tried to describe what is typically meant by the term “shot passing.”

If you missed it, shot passing means carefully scripted offensive plays where the quarterback is looking to land a deep route to a star receiver. Shot plays are similar to running plays where you are setting up the running back to find particular lanes. On a shot pass the offense is trying to hit a particular receiver on a particular route but there’s a few more options for how things might turn out than on a handoff.

Offenses these days love to script shot plays for a number of reasons.

• They’re easier for a quarterback to perfect. You think C.J. Stroud would drop so many dimes if he had to get through complicated progressions?

• You can set the quarterback up to get the ball out quickly behind stable protections.

• You choose the route and the receiver, potentially also his matchup and where he can find spacing.

• The offensive coordinator and quarterback can go over it all week in preparation and leave less to chance or circumstances while nailing the timing and execution.

However, while this approach has been popular for a while and has encroached on the NFL, there are countermoves from the college game which have muddied the waters.