Transition From The Grabled Mess

Adam Sigelman

Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010

The anti-reset mark is very effective at putting throwers in an uncomfortable position. You’ve been working it up the line effectively, dumping when needed, but generally marching up the field. Now, the defense has shifted, and you either have to make a tough break backwards or hope that your resets can break free up the line. The sideline, as the 8th defender, limits your options. Typically in these situations there is a flood of players close to you, as cutters come in for the bail or defenders sag a bit into the lane.

I find it helpful in these situations to make a 90 degree turn and pretend I have a normal force mark moving horizontally, not vertically. Now, instead of looking at a garbled mess and a shrunken open side, I am looking at 40 yards with both an open side and a break opportunity. More times than not, there is chaos in the new open side but a decent throw available to the new break side — either an IO to someone coming into the middle of the field, or an angled throw (think hammer or blade) to a cutter whose defender is sagging in. Not only do these throws beat the anti-mark, they also often lean to additional yardage up the break side.

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