There might not be a more important route in the Jay Gruden playbook than the corner route.
The route itself, run usually by a slot receiver or tight end, asks the receiver to run down the field before breaking to the sideline at a 45-degree angle. It’s one of the toughest routes to defend, but it’s also one of the hardest for quarterbacks to throw to accurately. Gruden and the Redskins have various route combinations involving the corner route, which was used multiple times in every game last season.
The most common route combination used was the corner-flat. It’s a well known Cover-two/Tampa-two coverage beater. The corner route finds the gap between the deep safety and the outside zone corner, while the flat route is designed to grab the attention of that outside zone corner. The quarterback then has to judge if the corner is leveraged more towards the corner route in order to make his throw.
This is exactly how an offensive coach would draw up the play. Both outside zone corners are caught in limbo between the two routes while the safeties are playing far too deep. The quarterback has every receiver open to throw to.
This was by far the most common way Washington used the corner route throughout the season, but Gruden had multiple variations. Most of the variations involved changes to the flat route. Sometimes, he replaced the flat route with a curl route (also known as the smash-seven concept).
While the route combination changes, the concept remains similar. The corner route takes zone defenders deep, opening up the curl route underneath.
As Andre Roberts cuts back to the quarterback on his curl route, the zone defenders are drawn deeper by Pierre Garcon’s corner route. That buys Roberts some space underneath. The read is just the same for the quarterback. He can go high to the corner, or low to the curl depending on the reaction of the zone defenders, just like on the corner-flat concept.
Another variation was the corner-in route combination.
This time, the outside receiver runs a quick in-breaking route, while the slot receiver still runs the corner route.
Again, this concept works on the same premise as the other two. The quarterback reads the zone defender and throws based on his reaction. On this occasion, the defender drops back off the in route to try and cover the corner route. That tells the quarterback to hit the in route underneath.
Occasionally, Gruden liked to go back to the corner-flat concept, but add something extra for the defense to think about.
On this play, Washington has Santana Moss and Roy Helu Jr. running the corner-flat combination. But in addition to this, DeSean Jackson runs a ‘spot’ route, working underneath and inside, spotting up in between zone defenders.
Like before, the corner route takes the zone defenders deep, while the flat route forces them to the outside. That leaves plenty of space for Jackson to spot up and become and easy target underneath for the quarterback.
All of these variations work on the same basic concept but change the underneath route. But a few times over the course of the season, Gruden would set teams up with the corner-flat combination, only to change the corner route to a corner-post route.
We saw earlier how vulnerable the Buccaneers were to the corner-flat concept with their Tampa-two defense. So early on in the game, Gruden ran the concept with a slight change. Jackson runs a corner-post route, instead of a corner route.
With the deep safety alert to the corner route, he works wider with Jackson. That opens up the middle of the field for Jackson to cut back into.
Jackson cuts back inside towards the goal post, hence the ‘post’ part of corner-post. The safety gets caught out of position, giving Jackson a chance to burst past him. Jackson gets open deep, but the ball is unfortunately overthrown by a yard or two by Robert Griffin III.
Advertisement
The corner route, and its many variations, were used heavily by the Redskins last season. It was the most common route used by Gruden throughout the season. It can be effective at picking up big chunks of yards, but Washington saw more success with it opening up things underneath. Given how frequently it was used last season, it’s safe to assume we’ll see it plenty in the coming season.
Mark Bullock is The Insider’s Outsider, sharing his Redskins impressions without the benefit of access to the team. For more, click here.
More from The Post:
Steinberg: In DeflateGate case, entire NFL is deflated
Mailbag: On RGIII criticism, Riley’s job security and more
Camp preview, defense: Is Joe Barry the man for the job? Plus more
Camp preview, offense: Can Gruden, Griffin improve? Plus more
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9JonainpJeurbiMoqWsoZSav3DDz2hpaWllZH14e5FyZqudlKi4qrrSZpqopZ2ku26vzqeanqikqHq2v8Rmpp9lpJ2ybq%2FOq6Weql2nvLbAxGg%3D