10 years ago an article like this wouldn’t make much sense. NFL All-22 film wasn’t publicly available, and to be quite honest, many fans at the time didn’t care to watch it.
That’s the one thing I love about where sports media is headed. Access to the nuances of football is at a premium. A decade ago, GMs and coaches could hide behind the idea that the public has no idea what they’re watching. But that’s harder to say in 2025.
Former players and coaches have used their platforms to become content creators. And that’s made it possible for the casual fan to learn about the complexities and nuances of football. And football media is leaning into it. The NFL even created a high-level film tool that allows fans to sort through film like they’re a coach or player.
Even I, who’s writing this article in hopes to help someone else, is learning something new everyday. In fact I have so much more to learn about the game of football. I’m trying to do that everyday. The most important thing to recognize is that just watching the game from a different angle doesn’t give you the powerto draw new conclusions, but it does give you a chance to see something you might not have seen before.
So as we get ready for the NFL season, I thought I would share my process of how I watch film to create the content I do on @ColtsFilmRoom on X.
Who is on the field? And WHY are they on the field?
The first thing I do when loading up any play is to figure out who is on the field. The NFL is a matchup league. Players ultimately mean more than plays.
So if I’m watching the Colts offense or defense, I’ll always start with the offense. The reason for that is because they dictate who comes on the field. It’s the defense’s job is to matchup how they see fit.
You only get 5 eligible players so I want to figure out who those players are. Is it 11P (1RB-1TE-3WRs)? Is it 12P (1 RB-2TE-2Wrs)? Or is it some other combination?
Once I’ve figured that out, I want to see how the defense responds to that look. Do they matchup WRs with corners? Do they match TE’s and RB’s with linebackers? All that is important because that’s what the coaches are tracking on the sideline and in the press box.
What is the situation on the field?
The first thing you have to know is down & distance, spot on the field, and time on the clock/how many timeouts are available. Context is king. No two snaps of football are the same.
How are they aligned?
Alignment is the next key to the puzzle. I start with the offense again. How are they distributing the eligible WR’s on the field. Is it a 2×2 formation or is it a 3×1 formation? Are they lined up in a bunch? A stack?
If it’s a 3×1 formation the defense has to figure out how they’re going to distribute that space. If it’s a bunch formation or a stack formation the defense has to figure out how they’re going to distribute the routes, since the offense is lining them up in that way to create traffic and get someone free.
Before I look at the defense, the last thing I want to check for is if there is anything unique. Do they have a WR lined up at RB, do they have an offensive lineman in a weird spot (a tackle-over formation)?
Now I’m looking at the defense and this is where it get’s more complicated. But I try and look at it as if I’m the QB.
First I start with the front. How many down lineman are there and who are the obvious blitz threats. How many players are on the line of scrimmage? Is there a linebacker mugged up in the A-gap? If there’s a stud rusher, where is he aligned?
The next thing I’ll look for is the safeties. Is it one high safety or is it two high safety? That’s very important because that gives you a lot of answers to what the possible defensive look is going to be, and if there’s an advantageous look to run the football.
Football, on first and second down, is all about the box count. The defense can only allocate resources in so many ways. If the defense is in a two high safety look, the math is almost never on their side to the run football. They don’t have enough guys. That means they need one guy to handle multiple gaps, or find a way to eliminate a gap with a stunt.
Sometimes it isn’t always obvious what the defense is doing. Coordinators get paid to make life difficult on the QB, which means it’s even more difficult on the fan at home that hasn’t spent all week watching film of the defense.
So the next thing I’ll do is look at the nickel corner. The nickel often times is a great way to get a coverage indicator. If that corner is outside leverage then you’re expecting his safety help to be in the middle of the field. If he’s inside leverage then you can expect him not to have help in the middle of the field, which would mean it’s likely to be 2-hi defense.
If that nickel is pressed and heavy inside leverage than you can expect he’s lining up to pressure, especially if there’s a safety “capping” or lining up directly behind him getting ready to take his responsibility in coverage.
Really smart nickel corners can disguise there leverage, but for the most part, corners are alining where they don’t want to get beat.
What happens before the snap?
The next step is to see what happens before the ball is snapped. First offensively, is there a shift or motion? Who is the players that is shifting or motioning? Is it a “change of strength motion”? are they motioning into the boundary or to the field?
There’s so many reasons why a team is motioning or shifting. Most of the time it’s to force the defense to communicate before the snap and create leverage or matchup advantages.
Defenses have to decide the rules for aligning their nickel corner. For the majority of defenses, it’s to the side of the passing strength. The passing strength is the side of the field with the most receivers.
Take the Colts for an example. In a basic 2×2 formation Michael Pittman and Tyler Warren will be on side of the field, while Josh Downs and Alec Pierce will be on the other side. In other words the Z and the Y will be on one side, the F and the X are on the other. The passing strength would be to the side of Downs and Pierce.
If Josh Downs motions to the other side of the formation, well now the passing strength has changed. This forces the defense to adjust. Most teams will travel their nickel across the formation. So it can look like man-coverage but it’s still zone coverage.
The other option is to play like a college defense and keep your nickel to the field side at all times. This can be easier to adjust with motion, but makes it difficult if your best cover guy is away from the boundary and forces a mismatch elsewhere. If you notice the nickel is always aligning to the field, but then suddenly is aligning to the boundary, then you can be sure he’s blitzing or it’s man coverage.
Whatever the rule is, offenses have ways of using motion to take advantage of it— in the run and pass game.
On the defensive side, you want to see if there is any late movement or rotation that could tip off what the defense is going to do at the snap. This is why QBs use different cadences at the line of scrimmage.
What’s the final coverage and what’s the final play call?
This is not always a perfect science. Because we are never in the meeting rooms, there’s no way for us to know exactly what all 22 players are supposed to do on a play. Defenses have unique concepts where the coverage isn’t really activated unless the pattern distributes a certain way. It’s a grey area, but you can usually get a rough guess.
On the offensive side, it’s usually a bit more clear, but again not a perfect science. There’s so many intricacies between teams. The only way to get a best guess is identifying patterns. If you see the same play over and over again and the QB looks like he’s reading it the same way, well you can be sure that’s probably how they teach it.
Identify the trends and ALWAYS ASK WHY.
The mistake many make when they load up film is to start with the answers, instead of always asking questions.
As I’m going through a game, I’m charting everything I can observe. This is a bit hard-core but it does help you identify the trends easier. What are they trying to do on this down and distance? What’s the mismatch they’re trying to exploit? “They did this last time they were in the Red Zone and the defense did that, what are they going to do this time? Those kind of things.
If you have a notepad or a google doc, just jot down your observations. You’ll really be surprised what you can pick up.
For example, you might see a stud rusher always line up over your worst offensive lineman in clear passing situations. Or you might see a team play a lot of man coverage on third down, so the offense adjusts and calls a man-beater in a crucial situation.
You might even see a play caller sequence plays. They might line up in one formation and run the ball, and then later in the game call a play-action off that for a big gain. You might see a WR run a post route and the corner bites so hard on the route, that they call a post-corner later in the game.
But you’ll never be able to figure out what a team is doing if you don’t ask why. Everything is for a reason, some reasons are debatedbly better than others, but it’s for a reason.