Luke Braun's Film Room: Caleb Williams & Controlling The Chaos

Luke Braun brings us another film room, this time breaking down scramble rules for receivers and quarterbacks and how that applies to scouting Caleb Williams.

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When you think of a Caleb Williams highlight, you probably think of a long, chaotic scramble where he impossibly finds an open receiver deep down the field. His game is defined by plays like this one:

It looks like magic. How, in all that chaos and panic, can Caleb Williams possibly find those open receivers? The answer is that there is less chaos to this than you might think. It may not look like it, but that’s all part of a plan. A backup plan, but a plan nonetheless.

When a quarterback drops back, receivers begin their routes in a precisely timed way. When that quarterback is flushed out, or chooses to scramble for any other reason, receivers are told to abandon their routes and enter into a scramble drill.

The Universal Scramble Drill Rules

Scramble rules are specifically tailored to attack unsuspecting defenders who have settled into their coverage assignments. Everyone flows with the direction of the scramble, working deeper or shallower, almost transforming the play into another design entirely.

Here’s an example from Doug Pederson’s first install with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2016.

Here is one from Jim Caldwell’s 2012 Ravens QB manual:

Here’s one from Texas that includes write-ups of everybody’s responsibility.

These all look pretty similar, don’t they? Scramble rules are more or less universal across football, with some small variations team to team. That’s helpful to us as idiots outside of the game because we know exactly what to expect from everyone.