We’re nearly 10 days away from the Cleveland Browns’ loss, and all of us, players especially, are looking to put that game behind us. It’s hard to blame them. But I couldn’t get past that game without mentioning one of my favorite play-calls from it. It ended in an otherwise forgettable incompletion and didn’t even result in a blitz, but it is worth breaking down.
Verbiage varies, but I know it as a “Rain” call. What it boils down to is a blitz call where two off-ball linebackers mug/line up in the A-gaps on each side of the center. The blitzer is determined by which way the center goes—or, more precisely, where he doesn’t. Whichever side the center turns to, that linebacker drops out. The linebacker away from the slide blitzes.
Heads, I win. Tails, you lose. That’s the game. Make the center wrong no matter what he does.
Here’s the call in action against Cleveland. Payton Wilson and Patrick Queen show a blitz look in the A-gap. The Browns’ center slides to his right (the defense’s left) off the snap. So Wilson drops into coverage as Queen blitzes through. Unfortunately, the running back also stays in and gets enough of Queen to prevent him from busting through to hit QB Jameis Winston. Still, Winston’s throw is batted down by DL Cam Heyward at the line of scrimmage and falls incomplete.
This works best against empty sets where there is no running back. Otherwise, the protection has a much easier and cleaner job of picking things up. The Center slides one way, the back takes the other gap, and the offense isn’t put in an impossible position. That’s one reason why the MIKE linebacker gets identified, so the rest of the protection knows which way the center is turning.
I admit I can’t be 100 percent sure this is a “Rain” blitz. Maybe Wilson was going to drop into coverage no matter what. Queen has been blitzed far more often this season (granted, he plays 100 percent of the snaps). But based on Wilson’s actions here, rushing forward until the center slides to him, it sure looks like it.
Others have detailed the history of the call better than I know and can explain it here. But it comes from the Nick Saban/Bill Belichick defensive tree – because, of course, it does – and has been one of his go-to calls. Here’s a great GIF of Belichick signaling in the call during a game with the New England Patriots, mimicking raindrops with his fingers.
The Steelers haven’t blitzed much this year, although they’ve ramped up against mobile quarterbacks. But this was a cool wrinkle, even if not run against the right protection, that otherwise would’ve given Queen an easy path to the quarterback.
