Flag Football Tips?

August 27, 2010 12:21 PM

What's the most effective, easy way to be a decent Flag Football team without minimal practice time? Flag Football season coming up.

League Details:
Co-rec, recreational.
Non contact, 7 v 7 with 20 yard zones.
League has "Open" plays (i.e. anyone can touch the ball) and "closed" plays (a female much handle the ball during the play). Closed plays only follow open plays that include positive yardage. Female touchdowns worth more.

We have 2-3 very good female athletes (top of the league), a good quarterback and everyone else is pretty average.

Not looking to win a championship, but we want to be organized and not get embarrased.

posted by sandmanwv to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total)

This won't be much help, but it's all I have.

In my brief (one season) experience in flag football, we found the hook-and-lateral play to be spectacularly effective. (You will want to ensure that this type of play is allowed in your league). Put your fastest player in the backfield, next to the quarterback. Put someone with good hands at what would be the tight end position, with no other receivers on that side of the line (e.g. overload the line to the other side, so that all the defenders will be to that side also). On the snap, the end runs an out pattern--forward a few yards, then cuts toward the sideline for a few yards--and stops, facing the quarterback. Meanwhile, the fast back starts running to that side of the field. The quarterback makes an easy throw to the end, and if you time it right the back should be sprinting by a few yards behind the end the moment the ball is caught. The end immediately laterals the ball to the sprinting back, who takes off downfield and is usually in the end zone before the other team realizes what has happened.

You can set up the play by running a legitimate short pass to the end a few times, to make the defense think that's one of your standard plays. As a bonus, if the end or back is a woman it could count as one of your "closed" plays, if you're required to run one at that moment.

Told you, it's not much, but it's easy to learn and demonically effective.
posted by arco at 1:05 PM on August 27, 2010

Yeah, all types of laterals worked for us in flag football when I played an intramural team. Basically, we couldn't really block without drawing a foul, so we would just hand off to the fastest motherfucker on our team and send someone 2-3 yards behind him at a diagonal. If the runner got into trouble, he'd lateral back to the person behind him, and then he'd fall back.

It's ugly, and it's a stupid tactic for regular football, but it works great when you're the only team with cleats.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 1:23 PM on August 27, 2010

Best answer: Find out who is the fastest runner on your team, and give him/her the ball.
(former Flag coach)
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 2:38 PM on August 27, 2010

I was a Flag Football official in college. In co-ed leagues, the teams with the best female athletes have an advantage, no matter the athletic level of the males. Better yet would be if one of the female athletes played QB. That means that every play is OPEN. Not having to worry about OPEN vs CLOSED plays gives that team an advantage.
posted by unceman at 11:36 AM on August 31, 2010