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The Green Bay Packers’ offense hit a couple of explosive pass plays that gained 20+ yards in Week 6 on two different four verticals concepts: one to running back Josh Jacobs for 28 yards and the other to tight end Tucker Kraft for 24 yards.
Four verticals is an air raid offense staple where the receivers all run downfield on vertical routes. There are nuances to the play where the receiver can stop his deep route at 10 yards and turn to look for a pass. Doing this is dependent on what the defense is doing. If the receiver cannot run past the safety or corner by 10 yards, his read becomes a 10-yard stop route, turn, and look for the pass.
The West Coast offense variants don’t typically give the receivers that freedom, but in one of the play calls in Week 6, one receiver was tagged to run a stop route versus press coverage, which is a common adjustment on alert routes on some of the Mike Shanahan tree play calls.
The Four Verts play was made popular by Texas Tech under head coach Mike Leach in the late 2000s in a game that featured two former 49ers, TT wide receiver Michael Crabtree and UT quarterback Colt McCoy, as well as Earl Thomas, and numerous other NFL players.
Tech was trailing by one point with eight seconds left when quarterback Graham Herrell, a future Packer, found Crabtree down the sideline running a vertical route. The back shoulder throw allowed Crabtree some space to catch and elude defenders before sprinting to the end zone for the game-winning score. Notice the seam read by the slot receiver next to Crabtree on the right.
In west coast offense nomenclature, the play is generally tagged “all go” and the best offensive minds still scheming in the 2020’s version of the west coast offense, (49ers, Packers, Rams, Seahawks, Texans, Dolphins, etc.) are all running their own spin on four verticals.
For the coaches in the Shanahan lineage, that concept is tagged “Aggie” or “Aggie Now.” Aggie or “all go” is straight four verticals from 2×2 or 3×1 with a back in protection before check releasing.
“Aggie now” is run from 3×2 empty formations in either shotgun or from under center, and it has an underneath dump off read for the quarterback as the alert or hot route against pressure, the “now” slant, a 1-step slant across the formation underneath the coverage.
The verticals, depending on where they are run from, are all tagged as “go” routes from the outside receivers or “widen go” routes if they are run from condensed or reduced splits or formations.
On the first play, Jordan Love connected with Josh Jacobs for 28 yards to set the offense up with a first and goal situation. The offense would score a touchdown after this.
The offense is in a “YY” 12 personnel empty formation (1 running back, 2 tight ends). The tight ends are running the vertical routes from the...
