Tight End Formation in Football

If you're an old school football coach chances are that you're sentimental about the Tight End formation. With a lot of youth football programs now implementing a spread formation as part of their passing attack the Tight End formation is not as popular as it used to be but still can be a very effective football offence especially against the popular 4-3 and 3-4 defenses.

One of the hardest things about the Tight End formation is finding the type of player that would be a good Tight End. Ideally, you would want a tall athletic player with decent speed but also tough and strong enough to play as part of the offensive line and block both linebackers and defensive ends and tackles. The biggest factor is that they have to be able to catch the football and most of the time it means catching the ball in close proximity of defensive backs and linebackers. Overall, these types of players are difficult to find at the youth and high school football levels.

One of the things a Tight End formation will do especially against a solid run stopping 4-3 defense is that it will effectively spread out the box a little bit more and create better blocking angles for your offensive linemen and with wider splits create good running lanes for your athletic tailback. The most potent thing about a Tight End is their stealth ability to hang in there with a block on short yardage and then pop out and catch a short quick pass for a first down. This is a very effective play at all levels of football, the defense becomes so wrapped up in stopping the run on short yardage or goal line situations that a lot of times they forget about the Tight End until he's celebrating in the end zone.