How To Stress Out a Defense

Stress Value: Setting Up Your Formation to Maximize Defensive Stress I recently spoke at a clinic in Minneapolis. The topic I chose is an idea that I have been working on for the better part of a year now and one that I used this past season as an offensive coordinator. In the weeks following the clinic, the feedback I received from the Minnesota High School coaches was overwhelming and many asked me to put the philosophy down on paper; so after speaking with AFM, I couldn’t think of a better place to introduce the idea of “Stress Value.” For years I have heard defensive coaches say, “now that’s a tough formation to defend.” And when I would ask why, the answer was not very definitive, but rather abstract or subjective at best. In looking for a concrete way to quantify offensive formations, I began to develop this idea of “Stress Value.” “Stress Value” is no more