What to name plays in football games

[LuckyTaxi]

Some thoughts on how to achieve plays during a football game.

Ok so my friends and I are playing different teams each weekend and we've come to the conclusion
that we need some plays. Without going overboard with too many plays, I need an easy way to tell
my receivers what routes to run. Usually it's 9 on 9 with 3 lineman. So that means the set is usually
5 receivers or we split the five into 3 and 2 RBs. So, to make it easier for the guys and to not actually have
to take long to huddle (cuz we all hate huddling) I was going to call plays on the fly. But to actually tell
ppl who's who in the formation is tough. So I was thinking of using numbers. Starting from the left the first
receiver would be 1 and so on (not counting the lineman). Then call some bogus signal and say soemthing like
"4 zip square left" meaning the fourth receiver from the left would do a five step cut left type route.

Also, if we came up with about 6 plays or so, I was thinking of taping it to my arm. Then during our "10 second" huddle, everyone would look at the formation on my arm and then remember which position (number) they are and run the route accordingly. But if i continue to get sack that paper will eventually fall off my arm.

 

[murphy55d]

Just tell them to get open. No playcalling, straight improvisation.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

we tried that the pass few weeks and it doesn't work.

what happens is the receivers come to me and tell me what they wanna run and obviously the defense knows
the play is going to that particular player. What we ended up doing was talking in our own language, but that only
goes so far cuz we know english better than our own language!

 

[Dudd]

Passing tree. Name a bunch of different routes with a certain number (1 short out, 2 post, 3 flag, etc), then call plays simply by number, going from left to right. So, a 462 pass would have the farthest left receiver run a 4 route, the middle receiver run a 6 route, and the right most receiver run a 2 route. Do this for however many receivers you have. If this is just a pickup game though, then I sa go for the improv, cause anything else is just overthinking.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Originally posted by: Dudd
Passing tree. Name a bunch of different routes with a certain number (1 short out, 2 post, 3 flag, etc), then call plays simply by number, going from left to right. So, a 462 pass would have the farthest left receiver run a 4 route, the middle receiver run a 6 route, and the right most receiver run a 2 route. Do this for however many receivers you have. If this is just a pickup game though, then I sa go for the improv, cause anything else is just overthinking.

I have the same ppl playing with me at all time, we jsut play different group of guys every weekend.
having these guys learn port and flags and stuff is overkill for them (they just wanna run deep and have me chuck the ball).

the easiest thing to do in my opinion is huddle up for like 10 seconds and show them two plays we intend to run.
they pick amongst themselves as to who stands where and they need to remember their number. if i have to i would call the number like you say '462 corner blast' < --- ball goes to the fourth receiver in the specific play we call in huddle.

 

[Anubis]

how about
1
2
3
4
....

 

[Demon-Xanth]

"Peanut Butter Jelly Time"
"Goatse"
"Your mother's a whore!"
...


The other team will just think you're spouting off cliche phrases.

 

[Argo]

It usually takes a couple of weeks for players to memorize plays so I would advise against it. When we play, our quarterback usually just singles out receivers and says "you go on a fly route, you do a deep in, you do a medium slant". Seems to work the best.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Originally posted by: Argo
It usually takes a couple of weeks for players to memorize plays so I would advise against it. When we play, our quarterback usually just singles out receivers and says "you go on a fly route, you do a deep in, you do a medium slant". Seems to work the best.

yea ... i think just showing them what i have taped to my arm will work. as for audibles. i'll just call out numbers
"462 blue 2" number four receiver would slant in NOT out

 

[Confused]

"You <points> over there"
"You <points> run that way"
"You <points> throw to him <points>"


??


Confused

 

[ATLien247]

All this for pick-up games?

Maybe if you're playing in a tourney or something, but I don't see the merit in play-calling in a pick-up game...