The Playbook Caller — the football playbook that checks the rule book

A formation builder and play-call tool for football coaches and coordinators at small colleges, high schools and clubs. Draw any offense, defense or special-teams look and The Playbook Caller checks the alignment against the NFHS, NCAA, NCAA + Texas UIL or NFL rule book, flags what is wrong and shows the rule behind the call. A product of MiaMetrix.

The Playbook Caller

Draw

Play, Pause, Reset, Undo, Redo and Clear are on the console above.

Export

Personnel code = number of RBs, then number of TEs. Receivers = 5 minus both.

Football Glossary

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About these definitions

Term list follows the topic outline of the GoRout football glossary. Definitions are written for this board. Rules details vary between the NFL, college and high school.

Playbook

How to read the arrows

Solid arrows are runs, routes and zone drops; flat ends are blocks; dashed lines are motion, fakes and man coverage. Each play is drawn on the formation named on its card, and assignments are typical, not any one team's rules.

Game day

Save it as a PDF from the print dialog.

Case Studies

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Sources and notes

Teams, seasons and coaches come from the titles listed in the FootballXOs.com offense and defense playbook archives; the special-teams studies have no archive listing. No playbook was downloaded or reproduced: the summaries are written for this board from general football history, and the formation links are this board's closest matches.

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Your custom formations and plays are saved to your account and follow you to any device you sign in on. This browser keeps a working copy, so the board also works offline; changes sync when you are back online.

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How to use The Playbook Caller

Browse

Game week in 10 minutes

1. Make a plan for this week's opponent.
2. Add your plays and give each one a call.
3. Tag the situations: 3rd & short, red zone and the rest.
4. Run the plan check: are we tipping it?
5. Print the wristband and the call sheet.

Overlay and compare

Draw on the field

  1. Open Draw on the console and press its Draw button, or press D. The field becomes a whiteboard.
  2. Pick a notation — run, pass, block, motion, pitch or zone drop — and a colour, from the swatch button that opens the palette.
  3. Drag to sketch. The line follows your finger while you draw and settles when you let go, keeping the turns you meant and dropping the tremor. A cut comes out sharp and its legs dead straight; a route you swept round comes out as a true curve, so what you draw looks like the plays in the book beside it.
  4. Correct as you go with Undo, Redo (also Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y while Draw is on) or Clear, which Undo can bring back.
  5. Start a stroke on a player to make the route his. Play on the console, or Shift+R, then animates him along it.
  6. Say who gets the ball. It goes from the quarterback to the last player you drew for, or pick a receiver from the Ball to list in the Draw group beside the colours, or drag the ball onto any player. Either way also sets the receiver of a custom play, and both are undoable with Ctrl+Z.
  7. Press Save as play to keep it in the Custom section of the Playbook.

Defensive coverages

  1. Open Draw on the console. In its Coverage row, pick a family (Cover 0 to Cover 6, or All coverages), then a look. Looks drawn against the offense on the field are listed first. The board switches to Overlay, with the defense against the offense the look is drawn for.
  2. Read the marks. Deep zones are solid and underneath zones hatched; a line ending in a diamond is a zone drop. Man coverage is a dotted line to a dot on his receiver, set on the inside or outside shoulder for his leverage: a cup under the receiver means trail, a cap over him means over the top, and a double bar across the line means press. A thin arrow is a rush; a double line with a solid head, and a bolt on the defender, is a blitz. A spy, a job you can give any defender in the editor, runs long dashes to his spot, with a dashed ring on the quarterback and an eye on the defender. On a split field (Cover 6) a dash-dot seam divides the field and each half carries its name. Legend and letter key in the right panel lists every mark.
  3. Tap or hover a defender for his job, or open the Coverage section of the right panel: every assignment with its key and job, the other variants of the family, and where the coverage is stressed. In Quarters the key and job spell out each read: the safety takes #2 if he goes vertical, otherwise he helps on #1.
  4. Press Play on the console (or Space): any motion, the set, the snap, then the drops, and the man defenders carry their receivers. Pause, Reset and Speed work as for any play.
  5. Zones in the Coverage row (or V) shows and hides the coverage zones, Areas / Bubbles changes how they are drawn, and on a Cover 3 look Seams marks where four verticals attack three deep.

Edit a coverage or build your own

  1. With a defense on the field, press Edit in the Coverage row, or E. A built-in look opens as your own copy, named "(my copy)"; a defense with no look on it starts blank. The stroke tools give way to the editor: a row of tools, and under it an inspector for whatever you select.
  2. With Players (key 1), drag from a defender. Let go on a receiver and he plays man on him. Let go past the line of scrimmage and he rushes (a lineman) or blitzes (anyone else) through the nearest gap, or goes after the quarterback if you drop him there. Let go anywhere else and he drops to that spot, in the zone that holds it.
  3. Tap a defender to set him in the inspector: his job (Drop, Man, Rush, Blitz, Spy or None), the zone he drops to and the spot, his receiver, Leverage, Technique (Trail or Over the top) and Press, or the gap he attacks. Drag the handle at the end of his line to move his spot.
  4. Deep zone (key 2) or Underneath zone (key 3): drag a box on the field, or tap for a standard one. Drag a zone to move it. Tap it to select it, then drag a corner to resize it, or type its Label, Type, edges and size in the inspector. Delete zone (or Delete) removes it.
  5. Split field divides the field in two halves (Cover 6 style): drag the seam across, and name each half with Left label and Right label. Family sets the coverage family the look belongs to.
  6. Undo and Redo on the console (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y) step through the editor's changes first. With something selected, the arrow keys nudge it (hold Shift for bigger steps) and Esc lets it go.
  7. Save look names it and keeps it with your plays. It is listed under My coverage looks in the Coverage row, and in the playbook's Custom section (Choose a play, in Single view), where Edit and then Edit the coverage of this play open it in the editor again. Done (or E) closes the editor; the look stays on the field.

Build your own formation

  1. In the left rail, under 04 Team Formations, press New formation. The field empties but keeps its line of scrimmage and end zones, so you can still see where everyone is standing.
  2. If you want a different unit, change it in the Unit dropdown in the Edit tab — offense, defense, or any of the special-teams units.
  3. Tick players in Players on the field. Each one lands on the alignment he normally takes, read out of the built-in library, so ticking Offensive tackle puts both tackles on their real split rather than on top of each other. The number beside a role is how many of him you want: two guards, two corners, three linebackers.
  4. Drag anyone who should sit elsewhere (snaps to half yards; hold Shift for tenths, or focus a player and use the arrow keys). The counter beside the heading reads 11 of 11 when the set is full, and the alignment check under it updates as you go.
  5. Give it a name, then press Save as new formation. It appears under 04 Team Formations, which lists everything you have saved on either side of the ball.

Edit a formation that already exists

  1. Put it on the field, then turn on Editor on the console.
  2. Drag players to move them, or edit labels, roles and every other field in the Edit tab.
  3. Undo and Redo on the console (or Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y when you are not typing) step back through your changes.
  4. Save as new formation keeps a copy. Built-in formations are never modified — saving always makes one of yours.

Team cheat sheets

  1. Put a formation on the field — one of yours or a built-in one — and turn on Draw.
  2. Sketch the routes, starting each stroke on the player who runs it. When you let go, the line settles into the shape a called play is drawn with: the corner of an out stays sharp, a swing stays a smooth curve, and the wobble of your hand goes.
  3. Press Save as play and name it.
  4. Open the drawer at the bottom of the field and pick the Team cheat sheets tab. Your play is now a row on it.
  5. Press Edit on that row to fill in Typical looks, Usual defensive answer and Notes. Code, RB, TE and WR are taken from the formation and shown read-only — a play cannot disagree with the set it is run from, so change those in the formation editor.
  6. Use Print sheet or Export CSV at the top of the tab when you want it off the screen.

Export and print

Plans and billing

Keyboard

Ask the rule book (beta)

Coming soon: ask why a formation is legal or illegal under NFL, NCAA, NFHS or NCAA + Texas UIL, and get the rule cited, in English or Spanish. What would you ask?

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Not an official ruling tool. The game officials' decision governs.