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Wings & Poppers
by Ryan Morgan
My college team always seemed to be able to only field 5 good zone offense players. The last two players on the line were usually assigned to play the wing position—that is, the popper responsible for making cuts to the sideline when the handlers swung the disc around. As a result, I never really appreciated how important the wing position is to an effective zone offense until I started playing club. In fact, I don't think it's a stretch to say that good wing players can do more to make a zone offense run smoothly than any other position.
All zone defenses are designed to make the offense throw a lot of completed passes. They do this by committing defenders to cutting lanes around the thrower. So in theory, when the handlers swing the disc quickly to the other side of the field there wont be enough defenders to cover the new cutting lanes. This is when a wing player with excellent timing can have the biggest impact. By this time, the wing should have set up a cut to the sideline for decent yardage. The wing, if open, should receive a pass from the thrower quite close to the sideline. If covered, the wing has succeeded in drawing one of the only defenders on that side of the field all the way to the sideline. This is important because there should now be a huge open throwing lane behind that defender which can be filled by someone else. No other zone offense position can do as much to open up cutting and throwing lanes.
The key to playing the wing position effectively is timing. When disc gets swung around the handler set to the off-side handler, he or she will only have one or two seconds to make an up-field throw before the zone defense adjusts. The wing must have already set up and made a strong cut to the sideline so when the handler turns upfield he or she sees either an open wing or a wide open throwing lane towards the middle of the field.
A team that consistently gets these types of opportunities to move the disc upfield will have much more success against a zone defense.
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Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 |
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