Coach -

The trash is in the backfield.

The misdirection. The motion. The play action. Every lie the offense is selling lives there, and the second your linebackers' eyes drift up to look at it, the run gap they were supposed to fit is gone.

Coach Michael Patterson at Brophy teaches his linebackers to never look at it. He gives them one window, one read, and a daily EDD that installs it. He calls it the triangle.

Video: Michael Patterson on Triangle Reads and Daily Linebacker EDDs

The Daily EDD Setup

The triangle is installed in warm-ups. Every day.

After dynamic stretch, the linebackers go right to it. They line up in pairs. Mike and Will, or any two backers. Two scout-team linemen front them as guards.

Then Coach Patterson points.

- Down = down block

- Up = pass set

- Left or right = pull

The scout-team guards execute the look. The linebackers react.

On the down-block call, both guards take a step inward like they're collapsing on the front. The Mike and the Will take a small hop step. Feet right. Eyes right. Then they trigger off the tail of the guards, sprint downhill, and break down.

The reason it's an every-day drill is that the eyes go where you train them to go. Coach Patterson walks through why the hop step is what gets a linebacker's feet under him before the trigger, and what the rep looks like when it gets cleaned up.

The Triangle: Outside Knee of the Guard to the Mesh Point

The triangle is the visual window the linebacker reads through.

Coach Patterson teaches it for his inside backers in the 3-4. Mike, Will, Anchor, and Stud.

The rule: eyes go through the outside knee of the guard, down to the mesh point.

Two reference points. One direct line. Everything outside that line is ignored.

"It keeps their heads down. Keeps their eyes lowered. They're not looking in the backfield from this direction."

The motion can buzz over the formation. The backers acknowledge it, but they don't chase it. Misdirection flows. They don't bite. Coach Patterson is direct: their eyes are on the triangle, not on the backfield, and that's how you stop watching the lie the offense is trying to sell.

The First Step Tells You Everything

Once the eyes are right, the read happens off the guard's first step. One foot.

Will or Anchor side, reading the left guard:

- Steps back with the left foot → pass

- Steps forward with the left foot → run

- Steps down with the left foot → run

- Shuffles, crosses over, turns horizontal → pull

Same rules mirrored on the Mike and Stud side, reading the right guard's outside leg.

"He steps down with his right leg, we know it's a run. He sets back with his back leg, we know it's a pass. If he pulls, we know either way we're going to chase the pull."

The linebacker doesn't wait for the play to develop. He doesn't wait for the back to declare. The first foot of one offensive lineman is the trigger, and he's already in his fit.

Coach Patterson covers what the trigger looks like on tape, including what he tells a backer who gets caught flat-footed because his eyes drifted off the triangle.

When There Are Two Backs

Two backs is the place a lot of linebackers lose their eyes. The picture gets busy. The temptation to track the backfield wins.

Coach Patterson's rule is built for it. With two backs, the triangle read still comes first. The backer takes his assignment off where he lines up, gets his feet set, and then his eyes drop right back to the outside knee of the guard.

The backfield picture doesn't get to pull his eyes up. The guard's first step still leads.

There's more in the clip on the two-back rules, including how he handles the trigger when the back's path complicates the read.

The triangle is a way of telling a linebacker exactly where his eyes belong, every snap, before the play tells him anything. Outside knee to mesh. First step is the trigger. The backfield is none of his business.

Coach Patterson installs it daily because that's the only way it actually sticks. Six months of EDDs and a backer doesn't have to think about it on Friday.

Always be growing,

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P.S. The triangle is one piece of a full linebacker system Coach Patterson builds across the offseason.

His full Linebackers EDDs and Defending the RPO clinic installs the rest: the #2 receiver as a pre-snap RPO indicator, backfield looks that tip the play before the ball moves, the weekly run-fit progression, block-recognition drills, flow work, and the pass-drop install.

If your linebackers see it late and react slow against modern RPO offenses, the full clinic is the system that gets them playing fast.

Link: Michael Patterson - Linebackers EDDs and Defending the RPO