Complementary Runs Off of the Zone Read

We base our offense out of the Shotgun, while playing with one running back, one tight end and three WRs a majority of the time. Our ‘bread and butter’ run play that we hang our hat on is the inside zone read. We base our entire run game around finding ways to run that specific play while having complementary runs that allow us to be successful when defenses make it difficult to run the zone read. The first complementary run we employ is the one-back power (See Diagrams 1-3). We feel that this run allows us to create double teams and angles at the point of attack, while providing us a ‘downhill’ run from the Shotgun. We will always run the one back power to a tight end and we will only run it to some form of six defenders in the box. We call this run when we are getting stagnant linebackers (i.e., trying to play both the frontside and backside of zone read) or when we are