But let's say we stop having buck Allen and nick Boyle playing on third and long, say we send guys like Moore, Wallace, and Watson past the 8 yard line, maclin runs a slant/drag from the slot and woodhead finds the soft spot. Joe doesn't have to look downfield aside from looking off the safety.
Say Watson is inline, with Moore and Wallace outside, send Watson burning up the seam, that draws a safety bare minimum, perhaps a LB also, deep slant with Wallace across the field threatens a velocity pass so the safety has to anticipate this and play cautious, Moore on a fly route just in case the other safety doesn't bite, woodhead in the backfield demands attention. That leaves maclin 1v1 with either a LB or nickel back out of the slot, and THERE is your YAC. Have joe look at Watson off the snap and he WILL draw an extra defender, before joe finishes his drop his eyes should be turned to maclin where he strikes after a 3 step drop, maclin is ahead of his man, and the nearest LB and safety is on Watson, the other LB is on woodhead, and the FS is on either Wallace or Moore, wide open field and quick release so pass pro doesn't matter.
Theoretical and all, but one thing is certain, if something won't even work on paper it definitely won't work on the field, and sending everybody 5 yards deep on 3rd and 8 fails in every hypothetical and real life scenario. So you don't have to wait for deep routes to develop to make use of deep routes, you just use multiple route concepts to scheme guys open short. You simply can't let guys run downfield uncovered, you can't let big bodied TEs fly up the seam without covering his up-top and underneath, we don't have the pass pro to get downfield but we don't have to, we just have to threaten downfield.
