What to look for in opponent film: down & distance tendencies
To find down and distance tendencies, chart every snap of your opponent's film with the down, distance, field position, hash, formation and play type. Then group the snaps by situation, such as 2nd and long or 3rd and short, and look for what they do most. A repeated choice in a situation is a tendency your team can practice against.
Why down and distance matters
Play callers are predictable for good reasons. On 2nd and 1, almost any play works, so coaches take shots. On 3rd and 9, the offense has to throw past the sticks or hope for a draw. Down and distance shapes what a coach calls, and over a game those choices become patterns. Finding those patterns on film is the core of opponent scouting.
What to chart on every snap
Watch the film once just to get a feel for the team. Then chart every offensive snap with the same columns:
| Column | What to write |
|---|---|
| Down & distance | For example 2 & 7. Use the score bug or the chains. |
| Field position | The yard line, so you can group by field zone later. |
| Hash | Left, middle or right. |
| Personnel & formation | Backs and receivers on the field and how they line up. |
| Motion | Who moved and where. |
| Play type | Run (inside, outside, option) or pass (quick, drop-back, play-action, screen). |
| Direction | Strong or weak side, field or boundary. |
| Result | Yards gained, first down, turnover, penalty. |
Keep the labels consistent. If you call a formation "Trips Right" on one snap and "3x1" on the next, your totals will lie to you.
Group the snaps by situation
Once every snap is charted, group them. Most staffs use simple distance buckets: short (about 1 to 3 yards to go), medium (about 4 to 6) and long (7 or more). Then count, for each down and bucket, how often the opponent ran or passed, which formations they used and which plays they called. Always write the count next to any percentage, so everyone knows how much film is behind it.
What to look for on each down
1st down
1st and 10 shows a team's identity: the plays they trust when nothing forces their hand. Note their favorite formation and whether they open with a run, a quick pass or a shot play.
2nd down
2nd and long and 2nd and short are two different games. After a bad 1st down, look for screens, draws and quick passes to get back on schedule. After a good one, look for shots down the field, because the coach knows a miss still leaves 3rd and short.
3rd down
3rd down is where tendencies matter most. On 3rd and short, find their go-to run and the formation it comes from. On 3rd and long, find the receiver they look for and the route that moves the chains. Many teams have one or two plays they trust here, and finding them is often the biggest win in a report.
4th down
Note where on the field they go for it and what they call. Coaches who go for it often tend to reuse their best 3rd-and-short play.
Red zone, goal line and two-minute
The field shrinks inside the 20, and many offenses lean on a small set of plays there. Chart red zone and goal line snaps separately. Do the same with two-minute drives: tempo, formations and whether they attack the sideline or the middle.
Defensive tendencies
The same method works on defense. Chart the front, the coverage shell before and after the snap, and whether they pressure. Pressure often shows up on obvious passing downs, and some defenses disguise it with the same pre-snap look every time. A defense that plays one coverage on 3rd and long gives your quarterback an answer before the snap.
A worked example
Example with made-up numbers, for illustration only. Say an opponent showed 10 snaps of 2nd and long. They threw on 8 of them, and 6 of those 8 came from the same spread formation, mostly quick passes to the field side. That is a tendency worth a call: when you see that formation on 2nd and long, your defense can sit on the quick routes to the field.
Notice what the example does: it names the situation, the count, the formation and the play, then turns it into one action.
Common mistakes
- Trusting tiny samples. Two snaps are not a tendency. Note them, but don't build the plan on them.
- Mixing garbage time into the totals. Plays late in a blowout often look nothing like a team's real plan. Tag them or leave them out.
- Ignoring the opponent's opponent. A team may play differently against a strong run defense than against a weak one. More than one game of film helps.
- Charting without a question. Before you chart, write down what you need to know for your game: their 3rd down plan, their red zone plays, their best player.
Need help reading the finished product? See how to read a football scouting report.
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