Two backs stacked behind the quarterback

I formation, a american football formation drawn in Playmaker: 11 of our players on the pitch. — Left tackle — 1 of 11

American football · Formation · 11 of your players

Everything that matters in the I formation sits on one vertical line: centre, quarterback, fullback, running back. The play can go either way, and the alignment says nothing about which.

Open in Playmaker

Opens on a american football pitch with the shape already drawn. Free, no signup.

What the picture actually shows

Five linemen sit across the 25, drawn two and a half yards apart rather than at the yard a real split takes, because eleven honest dots on the line of scrimmage is one blob. The tight end is outside the right tackle, on the line and just inside the right hash. The split end stands alone on the left, five yards in from the sideline. The flanker balances him wide right, a yard off the line so that only seven men are covering it.

Behind the centre the three of them stand on one vertical: quarterback three yards back, fullback at six, running back at nine. On grass an under-centre quarterback is a yard behind the snap; this backfield is pushed back two so the four markers can be told apart. The gaps between the backs are the real ones.

Why the stack is the whole idea

Nine yards is a run-up. The running back gets to see the front, pick a side and arrive at full speed, and because he starts directly behind the ball he reaches either A gap in the same number of steps. The fullback at six yards is the lead blocker who gets there first, and he is the reason the picture is worth drawing at all: he can kick out the end, wrap through to a linebacker, or fake all of it and slip into the flat.

Nothing in this alignment declares a side. Two backs on the midline plus a tight end means strength gets created after the snap rather than announced before it, which is why the formation survived thirty years of spread offence in short yardage and in second-half leads.

The cost is as plain. Two backs are two players who are not receivers, so the passing game runs through one tight end and two wideouts against a defence that is allowed to keep eight men near the ball.

Things worth drawing on top of it

Lead the fullback both ways. Draw the same run left and right. Which gap he attacks changes which linebacker is unblocked, and that is the argument.
Twenty-five yards of route. The shape sits on the 25 deliberately: a corner route, a post and a play-action deep shot all fit on the page without leaving it.
Take a back out. Move the fullback into the slot and look at what happened to the run. That is how a squad understands personnel rather than being told about it.

Open it in the designer, draw your own inside run with the fullback leading, then animate the flanker's fake and see whether the safety bites.