Expand the Field with Compressed Formations

With today’s defensive players becoming faster and more athletic, the playing field seems to almost shrink a bit each season. Yards, feet, first downs and points are harder to produce. With offenses trending toward spreading people out, another equally effective way to create space is to condense formations with minus splits. Condensed formations expand the field horizontally by manipulating defenders and maximizing the field space from the numbers to the sideline.      Although one of the more common condensed formations is the three-receiver bunch set, the tight 2 x 2 set can be an effective way to out-leverage the defensive secondary. Diagrams 1A and 1B illustrates the difference between the normal 2 x 2 set and a compressed 2 x 2 formation. The first concept shown in diagram 2 is the vertical/out combination. The outside receivers (X and Z) are on the ball and