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In this article, we're going to take a look at what it means to be able to attack all three levels (or depths) of a defense

and create spacing for your receivers. It's important to have the ability to attack different spots on the field because it

forces your opponent to remain accountable for every area. Otherwise, if your opponent knows that you only like to

attack deep downfield, that's the only thing thing he will need to worry about throughout the course of a game.

In the accompanying screenshot, you can see that we've highlighted parts of the field to indicate the three different

levels of the defense. The shallow area (yellow) is typically attacked with screen passes or swing passes to your running

backs out of the backfield. The medium area (red) is usually where you'll use slants, post patterns, or corner routes

utilized the most. The deep area (blue) can be exploited by streaks, deep posts, or deep corner routes.

Creating an offense that poses a threat to all three levels on every play is ideal. Take a look at the following example to

see exactly what we mean. The Green Bay Packers have come out in the I-Form Normal WR Option play. The WR Option

does a great job of attacking the 1st and 2nd levels of the defense. Unfortunately, there are no assigned receivers on

this play that allow us to become a threat at the 3rd level. Any successful offensive play must have the proper route

spacing.

Feature plays that attack all depths of a defense.

Utilizing proper spacing on the field may be the single most important aspect to worry about when on offense. You could

have all of the game's most dangerous routes in one play and it would be worthless if they all went to the same spot on

the field. Instead, a solid offensive play involves routes that attack numerous parts of the field. The goal on offense

should be to force the defense to have to react to what you're doing, not the other way around.

Additionally, proper use of depth and spacing can help to limit an opponent's ability to blitz and control the run. As each

defender is now accountable for a larger area of the field, your opponent may be forced to drop additional defenders into

coverage, players that would otherwise be available for blitzing or run support.

Here we've taken the initial play that we called (I-Form Normal - WR Option) and hot-routed both outside receivers to

give us a couple threats at the 3rd level of the defense. If this change isn't made it would allow the two deep safeties to

creep down closer to the line of scrimmage to help guard against the underneath routes. Instead, now that we've made

these changes we're forcing our opponent to guard two more spots on the field, opening up our running back's route

underneath.

Shortly after the snap is taken, Green Bay Packers' quarterback Brett Favre makes the throw to the running back to

attack the 1st level of the defense. Next, we look to hit our tight end at the 2nd level running the post route about 12 to

15 yards down the middle of the field. Now that all the focus is underneath, we attack the 3rd level of the defense by

lobbing the ball over the head of the secondary for a quick six.

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