Almost all non-long goals are scored in the ten-yard quarter
circle centered at each cone, unless the defense poaches well
there, so end-zone offenses usually concentrate their energies
on getting into the corner. A good endzone offense should:
The offense should have some basic strategies as well as some
specific plays. When you're designing for your team, you
should determine your basic strategies. Do you have a lot of
fast guys who can beat their man to the cone? Do you have
lots of handlers who work the give and go well? Are you an
experienced team that works the timing play well? Pick a
strategy that fits your team, don't just say that NY does it
this way, we should, too.
The real key is being organized. If your endzone offense is
simply saying that John will have the first option on every
cut in the endzone, you're ahead of the game. At one
tournament last year when we were quite shorthanded, in order
to save energy we appointed a "designated goal scorer" for
each game. His only offensive responsibility was to catch
goals. He wouldn't cut until the disc got near the end zone,
but when it did, every thrower knew that the DGS would be
cutting, and he would give him 6 or 7 seconds to get open
before he would dump it and reset. It worked surprisingly
well. You can also specify by position. You could label your
deeps "primary" and "secondary", and allow the primary deep to
have first cut and secondary second, or you could say primary
gets first cut on forehand side and secondary on backhand
side. Another way to specify the goal scorer is to call him
out during play. Depending on how well the other team knows
you, you can call his name, his girlfriend's name(s), his dog,
his company, his hometown, his nickname, his phone number,
etc. (A funny aside: a couple years ago in a game while
looking for a cut, I call "Ann!". Sure enough, two guys cut
for it, Ann's boyfriend and the Romeo of the team. I threw it
out to both of them, figuring one of them would get it. Romeo
ends up laying out for it in front of the boyfriend,
screaming, "I'm sorry, I was drunk.") Anyway, the
responsibility can rotate around from point to point or even
within a point, but if the cutter knows it's his cut, that's
good. End zone failure usually results from no cuts or too
many cuts, not from great defense.
The next easiest isolation play is to have a specific cutter
come out of the stack to one side or the other. This should
be in your playbook. As I said before, though, it can be the
nth guy in the stack, the primary deep, or whoever the thrower
calls, but have some way of specifying. As defenses pick up
on this play, have alternatives ready. One way is to have the
whole stack cut at the same time, then have one guy come out
and cut the other way. Another way is to have a decoy cutter
go first, then the real cutter cut in his wake. A third
option is the "Red Sea" play someone mentioned in an earlier
post. Here, the first 2-4 guys cut hard to either sideline
from the stack, then the next player comes straight up the
middle. A warning on this one: if the thrower has a habit of
bulleting his forehands, this pass will be dropped an awful
lot, and it won't be the receiver's fault. A lot of players
will disagree with me on this, but it is the THROWER'S
RESPONSIBILITY to make an easily catchable throw.
Back to start
Basic plays
Most end zone plays can be categorized as either "isolation"
or as "two-pass" plays. Isolation
The simplest isolation play is just to call a player and give
that player 7 seconds or so to get open in the end zone, then
have a designated dump if it's not open. If the receiver is
close enough to the thrower and he's being face-guarded (the
defender's back is to the thrower) and no poachers are very
near by, the thrower can simply make eye contact with the
receiver and then throw it in any direction, and the defender
will be able to do nothing. This also works well with high
stall count dumps. Do this as a drill in practice, either as
an end zone play or as a play to avoid high stall count
throwaways. It works, even if the receiver is not being
face-guarded. The goal throw doesn't have to be this
particular throw, by the way, it's just an option. Two-pass plays
Disc is on the sideline. First player in the atack fakes up
the line, then cuts to the middle for the dump. As he catches
it, the last guy in the stack breaks for the far front cone
for the continuation. Almost all two-pass plays are some
variation on this (second guy in the stack comes out, second
pass goes back to the original sideline, a decoy cut to the
cone clears open the area ten yards inside the cone, etc.).
This is really just your basic offense. Middles and deeps
time their cuts so that the handlers can catch a pass, turn,
and throw. Again, specify the cutter, and be able to have
options on which guys cut and to which sides. For example,
you could give the first cutter the option of continuing up
the line into the end zone and the second man in the stack
would come back for the dump/swing to the continuation. The
other two-pass play is the give-and-go (A throws to B, who
throws back to A). Make sure everyone else knows it, though,
and clears out for A, because B's pass will often be a leading
pass that floats. Discussion
Most of what I've mentioned has been for stoppages of play,
but the same principles apply for during the flow. Realize
that you're near the end zone (call "ENDZONE", if that's what
it takes), take a dump pass perhaps to reset, and then go.
That's what happens a lot of times, anyway. The games I play
in seem to have a lot of picks, fouls, etc., near the goal
line, so we have more opportunities to run set plays, but our
basic strategies apply even if nothing is called.