Air Raid Passing Concept: Variations of The Y Cross Concept

 The Y cross is a good pass concept in the NFL and in college football. It is great vs zone and man. Vs Zone it gives you a high low read on the curl flat defender. Usually, the offense will run the tight end or slot across the field at 10-12 yards and tries to get on an angle of 18-20 yards and read the outside curl/flat defender.

It is also effective vs man to man coverage, thus the reason it is an excellent universal route. It is an excellent route and can be schemed with other variations and tags to open up the y cross to the field.

Here’s the basic variation how it looks out of a 2x2 set:

Lets start with vs zone. 

The read vs zone is clear.

Vs 2, 3 and 4 the read concept is very similar: 

    1. The first option is to throw the deep over to flat off the curl flat defender. You need to see how the curl/flat defender plays it.

    2. If the deep over is covered then you work the dig route to the checkdown to the RB. 

    3. If cover 4 the qb does have the option to sneak a look to the post first before the dover if the safety is  aggressive and jumps the  dig(sometimes this is an alert call) Often times this route will be open vs cover 4.

Here is a you tube video link that goes with our article.

Here are some film clips on the routes with the coverages its being run against:

Written examples vs each coverage

Vs. Cover 4