Breaking down the west coast offense play call structure

Taking a closer look at how a play is called in the west coast offense.

One of the main storylines of the Washington Commanders offseason has been Eric Bieniemy taking over as offensive coordinator. With a new play-caller comes a new system and Bieniemy comes from the Andy Reid coaching tree based in the west coast offense system. While plenty of the concepts will carry over from Scott Turner’s offense, the terminology will be quite different. 

A few people have asked me just how difficult it is to pick up the west coast offense terminology, as many players, including Commanders quarterback Sam Howell, have described it as quite wordy. So I thought it might be a good idea to give an example of a wordy play call and break down all the different components. 

Now the first thing to say is that not all calls in the west coast offense are hugely wordy. There are some very simple calls for situations like two-minute drills and no-huddle situations where the team can’t afford to waste time on the quarterback spitting out a 20-word play call. But all west coast offense calls typically follow the same structure and order:

1. Shift

2. Formation and strength

3. Formation variation

4. Motion

5. Run direction/pass protection

6. Run or pass concept

7. Snap count 

8. “Ready break!”

With this structure in place, a call can then be as wordy or as simple as it needs to be, but it will always follow that order. Any shifts will come first in the call, then the formation and strength of the formation, followed by any motions after the formation is set. Then the pass protection or the run lane is called by a number followed by the pass or run concept. The quarterback then calls the snap count and breaks the huddle.

A very basic example of a play call would be “Double Right 200 Jet Dragon”.

Double Right is the formation, signaling a two by two formation with the tight end aligning to the right side.

200 Jet is the protection, which is a six-man slide protection involving the running back reading for potential extra rushers before releasing into a route.

Dragon is the passing concept, which in this case is just a simple slant-flat concept on both sides of the field. 

Now obviously that’s a very basic call without any shifts, formation variants, motions or any built-in audibles. That would be something the team could shorten down to just one word in a no-huddle situation to get everyone lined up and ready to go quickly. But not all calls are that simple. Many calls actually have two plays built into the call, giving the quarterback the option to “can” or trash the first call and shift to the second call if the defense shows a certain look they don’t like. This is where plays can get very wordy. Let’s get an example play to take a closer look at.

This is a play-action fake where the Chiefs fake an outside zone run to the left, away from the tight end, before quarterback Patrick Mahomes rolls out to his right on a naked bootleg. The slot receiver sifts back across the formation and into the flat as the primary option, with the other receivers working further down the field to vacate space for him. 

This play would be called something along the lines of “South Right Clamp Fake 67 Slant Naked Right Zebra Slide Can 67 Slant”. 

It might appear at first to be overwhelming, but when you break it down by component it’s not too difficult to grasp. 

South Right is the formation and strength. It indicates a two by two formation with the tight end aligned to the right and the two receivers to the left stacked together tight to the formation. 

Clamp is the formation variation. This brings the Z receiver in tighter to the right side of the formation and has him line up on the line of scrimmage while the tight end can take a step off it. 

Fake 67 Slant tells the offense to fake their 67 Slant run play. 67 is a one-back outside zone scheme to the left. If it ends in an odd number, it's a call to the left. 66 would be a call to the right. Slant tells the team it’s a weak side run, meaning it’s being run away from the tight end. 

Naked Right lets the quarterback know to keep the ball after the fake and roll out to his right, but that he is somewhat unprotected as he rolls out. The Naked call means the team doesn’t have a man designated to block the back side defensive end, so there’s a chance that defender could come at him completely unblocked. The hope is that the run fake will be enough to distract the defender and allow the quarterback to roll out freely. 

Zebra Slide tells the zebra receiver, which is the west coast term for the slot receiver in 11 personnel, to sift back across the formation behind the offensive line and leak out into the flat as the primary option for the quarterback. 

You’ll perhaps have noticed that the outside receivers aren’t tagged with their specific routes. In some cases, they could tag the Z receiver with “Z Corner”, but for the most part their routes are just built into the call. Any time they run a fake of this run play. They will know their routes are the same unless specifically tagged. 

That part of the call is what is run in the clip above, but it doesn’t necessarily cover the entire call. Most teams will call a second play as part of a play-action call so that the quarterback can change the play at the line of scrimmage if he doesn’t like the look. Let’s say, for example, the Jaguars’ defense recognizes this look once the Chiefs get lined up and know a play-action pass is coming. They might then shift a linebacker or safety outside the tight end to give him a free rush at the quarterback or to cut off the slot receiver’s route. In that situation, the quarterback could see that shift and realize that the play-action they have called isn’t going to work against that look. So that brings us to the second part of the play call. 

Can tells the team that a second play is about to be called and the quarterback can switch to that play at the line of scrimmage by shouting “Kill, Kill” or “Can, Can”.

Now when a second play is called, the formation and motion will typically stay the same, so there’s no need for the quarterback to repeat that part of the call. Instead he’ll just move onto the concept of the second play. Which in this case is…

67 Slant is the actual run call that the team intended to fake in the first place, which is an outside zone to the left away from the tight end. It’s always a safe bet to have the actual run called as a back up option in case the defense shows a look the quarterback doesn’t like at the line of scrimmage, as mentioned earlier. So if the quarterback yells “Kill, Kill” or “Can, Can” at the line of scrimmage, this play turns from a fake run into an actual run. The run itself might end up getting stuffed, but it’s a much safer call to have a run that gains little yards than to put the quarterback at risk on a naked bootleg. 

That pretty much covers the basic premise of a west coast offense play call. The exact terms of each component can change from team to team, as not all west coast offenses are the same. For example, in the Andy Reid system, an outside zone run to the left is called 97 or 67 based on if it's a two-back run or a one-back run. In the Kyle Shanahan version of the west coast offense, it would be called 19 regardless of how many backs are on the field.

It’s entirely plausible that Eric Bieniemy has his own terms and numbers that he wants to use for certain concepts, so he could call the play in this example something slightly different, but the overall structure would be the same because the structure and order of the play call is constant throughout all west coast offense variations.