Utilizing the Hybrid Linebacker to take away Offensive Advantages

• By Coach Grabowski

In today’s world of dynamic tight ends, use of hybrid offensive skill players, and personnel groups that stay on the field, the defense must respond in like fashion.  Enter the hybrid linebacker.  He is a fast and aggressive player and could play inside linebacker, yet physical enough to play defensive line. In the 5’10-6’ and 185-200 pound range, this is a player who can stay on the field and effectively match the different formations that the offense may throw at the defense.  

Many high school teams struggle to find defensive linemen, especially if they desire to be two platoons.  The hybrid linebacker allows for flexibility in the defensive structure.  Week to week at the high school level, a team might face a three back offense one week and a no back offense the next.  

Chris Wolfe, two time state champion head coach at Louisville Male High School knows first hand the advantages of utilizing this type of player.  Not only is it an advantage, but in many cases, a necessity.

Wolfe lists the following as benefits of utilizing a hybrid linebacker:

1. Flexibility

2. Match number and personnel

3. Can kick the font

4. Better screen recognition

5. Better block recognition

6. Better Drop Angles

7. More effective blitzes

8. Better pass rush position

9. Athletic players making plays

Whether it is week to week or within a single game, a defense wants to have its best players on the field.  Trying to match personnel constantly makes a defense susceptible to being dictated to, and in some cases, can even allow the offense to take a better player off the field.  Utilizing a hybrid defender allows the defense the flexibility it needs to be able to play with its best and therefore match numbers and personnel.

How and when to utilize

In some cases this might mean kicking the front and moving a hybrid out on an elite receiver. Other times it may mean dropping a defender down to defend a gap created by a tight end or h-back positioned next to a tackle. In either case, the player who can defend level one and level two negates any perceived advantage an offense may get from aligning ini multiple formations from 11 or 12 personnel.

Screens certainly have become an effective way to attack an aggressive defense.  Having players who can recognize screens and play in space with athleticism is an advantage.  Defensive linemen typically get used to playing in the box with a limited view of a play.  The hybrid defender is better trained to see, understand, and play in space, which directly translates to defending screens.

Here Coach Chris Wolfe talks about the qualities of a Hybrid Linebacker.

Similarly, the hybrid understands angles he needs to take on pass drops.  Zone dropping a traditional end, may force him into a skill set that he is not best suited for.  Because the hybrid spends as much time working on pass defense as he does playing in the box allows for a player better able to get the angles he needs in his drops.

Because he will play up on the line of scrimmage at times, the hybrid is in a better position to rush the passer, and by the nature of his athleticism, can have an advantage with his speed over a bigger offensive tackle.

In the run game, the two point stance also provides some advantage for recognizing block types and playing against them.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, a defense never wants to be dictated to, and more importantly, it has more athletic and faster players on the field who are able to take away space as well as defend on the line of scrimmage.

Coach Wolfe shares these benefits with plenty of film in his course on CoachTube.  All advantages are illustrated and explained on film. Though Wolfe utilizes the hybrid linebacker from a 4-2-5 defense, his explanation allows for these advantages to be realized from any type of defense.