Question for the more football-educated 11w-ers here. Both Northwestern and Washington sat back in zone defenses, and according to the announcers in both games, this limited Haskins' ability to throw the deep ball. My question is, would it not be effective to keep 7 in to protect Haskins, and send 3 receivers in routes -- one down each sideline and one down the seam? If they have 2 deep, they can't cover all 3 receivers. Meanwhile, literally every other defender who's sitting back in a zone has no one to cover -- they're essentially wasted. And with 7 protecting Haskins, he should have plenty of time for his receivers to get deep. I've heard people talk about flooding/overloading a zone, but I've only seen that in reference to left vs. right, not the deep zone. What am I missing? This seems like a great way to get teams out of a 2-deep zone, and once you force them to put a 3rd guy back there, it enhances your numbers advantage either in the run game or the short/intermediate passing game.

Tell me what I'm missing.