When receiver Malcolm Kelly ran the post in college, it was simple. He didn’t need any moves; he just needed to run to where he wanted to go. Most of the time, he’d arrive with the ball for a big play.
But the NFL is not that easy. So Kelly has had to learn how to run that route against professional players.
“I’ve had to learn how to run it more off the cornerback,” Kelly said. “In college, I ran the route as it was drawn on paper.”
Kelly tried to do that last season, too, and it failed. If he didn’t make a move to fool the defensive back, he would not get open. It didn’t help either that his knee still hindered him.
“I’d be covered like a blanket,” he said.
Now he knows he must give a move to shake the corner. And it must come at the top of his route. On a typical post, that will occur 10 to 12 yards off the line of scrimmage. The move can be a small step one way or the other; maybe a head fake.
“Just to give him something to think about,” Kelly said. “It’s all about making the defender think you’re doing something totally opposite from what you’re gonna do. Now that I’m starting to do that, it’s starting to work.
“It’s a matter of feet, maybe even inches. It’s not like you’re doing something durastic. These defensive backs read everything. They react when you react so you give them one little hesitation to throw them off.”
Against Pittsburgh, he did not have to make those moves because the Steelers were in a cover 2 zone. He just had to run to the ball and still got open.
If a corner is playing man, but is off the line then Kelly he must provide that hint of a different route. If it’s press man, then the fake must be more exaggerated.
“You have to make it that much more obvious that it’s something else,” Kelly said.
It’s a subtlety of the game that Kelly has learned.
“There were times I ran it in the preseason where I didn’t get the ball,” he said. “But it worked on the corner every time.”
The trick now is for it to work in the regular season.
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