How do you actually beat a zone defense?

Strategies for success against zone D

Jul 01, 2024

In my experience—both playing locally and watching high-level streamed games—many frisbee players only have a vague mental model of what to do against a zone defense. In a Hive Ultimate video, Felix says: "when I coach players to play against zone, [I teach that...] you either go around it, or go over it, or go through it". He expands on his ideas in the video, but I think there's still lots of room for a more detailed discussion.

So I'd like to share my own mental models for thinking about zone offense. For completeness, a few of the points I make below will be things everybody knows. Hopefully some of the other points qualify as semi-insightful!

Let's start with what I think are some wrong ways to think about zone offense.

Two myths of zone offense

1. "Swing the disc patiently"

"Let's swing the disc patiently" is common refrain in huddles when our offense is expecting to face a zone defense. To be clear, this isn't bad advice, exactly. It's just incomplete.

Say you have the disc with a cup zone in front of you. You swing the disc to the right side and the cup moves to guard that player. After a few seconds of considering, they swing it back to you and the cup returns. Then you swing it to the left. The cup goes that way. Rinse and repeat.

You can do this endlessly and never gain any yards. Nowhere does "swing the disc patiently" explain how your team is actually going to generate scores. It reminds me of the old meme format:

>> 1. Swing the disc patiently
>> 2. ????
>> 3. Profit!

Making open passes instead of throwing turnovers is tautologically a good plan. But you still need to know what's in the black box of "????" if you want to score against a competent zone defense. We'll get into that below.

Maybe I'm being too harsh to the "swing patiently" strategy. To steelman the "swing patiently" strategy, the "????" represents something like "make easy passes, wait for the defense to make a mistake (perhaps b/c we tire them out), and take advantage of it with yet another an easy pass". The problem I have with that is that "lots of easy passes until a mistake happens" is exactly the defense's gameplan as well.

So who's right? Will the offense be patient until the defense makes a mistake, or will the defense patiently slow you down until your offense makes a mistake? Now, maybe they're right, or maybe you're right, but personally I'd rather have an offensive strategy that doesn't include perfectly conforming to the defense's gameplan.

2. "Poppers"

The second plan I don't like is to treat your zone offense like the downfield players are in a horizontal stack, with wings near the sideline and "poppers" in the middle, all of who are cutting in and out. It's pretty common to see the downfield cutters spending way too much time running around against a zone defense. In zone D, the defenders are guarding an area, not a person. The offense, then, often doesn't need to accelerate away from their defender—they just need to find the unguarded spots. That often requires working together with teammates to help generate open areas. We'll get more into this later, as well.

Beating a zone defense

With those "myths" out of the way, here are the strategies/concepts I do like when playing zone offense (in no particular order):

Put your best players against their worst players

In a matchup defense, the defense chooses the matchups that are best for them—they put their best handler defender on the other teams best handler, and put their worst defender on the offense's least important player, etc.

In a zone, however, the defense just puts their worst defender in whatever spot they think the offense will be least able to take advantage of them. A smart offense should find ways to turn this to their advantage, when possible.

Most zone defenses will arrange their players before the point starts, and then stick with that arrangement throughout the point. Offenses, then, can rearrange themselves to attack the weakest points of the zone. Put your tallest player in a spot to catch over-the-top passes while being defended by the other team's shortest player. Use your give-and-go handler against a slow zone, but switch them out for someone with better over-the-top throws when the defense has fast players in the cup.

This technique works best where there are bigger talent discrepancies between the most and least experienced players—summer league, for example. Though at the same time, summer league is where you should think twice about using this technique, since it's somewhat devious to strategize around taking advantage of weaker players. In my opinion, it's pretty much fine since (a) the defense is choosing to play zone because they think it gives them an advantage (they are trying to generate advantages, too!) and (b) they can always go back to playing person D if you beat their zone.

Throw over the zone

This is one of the boring, "everybody knows that" strategies that I mentioned in the beginning. Gain yards by throwing the disc over the zone using blades, hammers, etc. Turn that yardage gain into flow when possible, or dump the disc and do it again if flow peters out.

This Jacques Nissen sequence against Belgium in the WFDF U24 finals is the Platonic Ideal of the "throw it over the top" game plan. He throws a flick blade to Orion Cable, catches a dump pass, and then immediately throws another flick blade:

You can see the same play from field level starting at 3:11 in his Callahan video.

This sequence is "putting your best players in the right spots", too—there probably aren't more than 5 players in the entire world you'd rather have catching a blade over the zone than Orion Cable. Cable isn't even that open—but Jacques knows who his receiver is, trusts his own throws, and throws it right past the helpless defender.

Give-and-go

Give-and-gos work as well against zones as they do against matchup defense.

Here's a point from the 2022 WUCC championship game (San Francisco Fury vs. Medellin Revolution). The Revolution offense is struggling to make even slow progress, until a series of Manu Cardenas give-and-gos breaks through the zone and they gain the last 35 yards in 5 passes.

Why does the give-and-go work well against zones? A few thoughts:

Because no one in the cup is specifically assigned to "guard" the thrower, they often won't have the instinct to accelerate with them when they release a throw and start running. The give-and-goer can often run away from the cup if the cup isn't focused on the need to shut down give-and-gos.
There's often no defenders right front of the disc just after a pass is caught (the cup is yet to arrive—and the downfield defenders are dropping back now that the disc has moved towards them). A give-and-go thrower can run right into this pocket.
The cup is already running a lot, so they often don't have the motivation to accelerate when a thrower starts a give-and-go. The give-and-go is demotivating to defenders who are already putting a lot of work in.
As many people have pointed out about give-and-gos in general: the give-and-goer is running forward and so is in a good position to catch a dish and quickly make another forward pass.
As highlighted by Manu's first give-and-go above, catching the disc with forward momentum allows you to continue to gain yards as you slow down.

I really like the "return to sender give-and-go" against a cup zone. Catch a reset pass in the middle of the field, give a quick pivot towards the opposite sideline to keep the cup committed to running that way, and then throw the disc right back to the same sideline you got it from. Done right, you start accelerating into the give-and-go at the same time that the cup is still running in the opposite direction, using their momentum against them to generate extra separation. Manu does this in the first give-and-go of the sequence above.

A screenshot of Manu's give-and-go shows how much separation she generates from the mark defender:

Do the same thing over and over, gaining more yards than you lose

Here's a technique that, in my opinion, people don't talk enough about. And it's a simple as dirt (I am not a soil scientist): gain more yards moving forward than you lose moving back.

UNC Pleiades famously took 53 passes to score on the first possession of the 2024 US College Nationals final. Given they picked the disc up about 60 yards from the endzone, they averaged only about 1 yard/pass. Let's say your offense can gain five yards on a pass to the sideline, and then loses two yards dumping the disc back to the middle. Even if you just repeat that sequence 20 times, you'll still score quicker than Pleiades did on this point.

People are always trying to find new things to do with the disc against a zone. But if a combination of 2-3 easy passes nets your offense 5 yards...just do the same thing, over and over, until the defense stops it.

On that first possession, Pleiades made about 5 yards net progress in their first 20 passes. Then a series of 5 "crash" cuts in 6 passes gained them about 20 yards:

Then...they go back to swinging the disc, and make no net progress for the next ~10 passes. If the crash cuts are working, keep doing them! It wasn't like the defense found a solution to their crashes, the offense just chose to swing the disc instead of continuing what they'd been doing.

Other sports are much better at forcing the defense to stop one strategy before they move on to another. The Dallas Mavericks will run the pick-and-roll with Luka over and over again if you can't stop it. The Philadelphia Eagles will run the "tush push" on every short yardage situation until the defense comes up with a solution.

If you catch a disc in the zone offense and your team has moved downfield since the last time you personally had possession, ask yourself: what did my team do to gain yards? How hard was it? And can we just do it over and over again?

Update (2024-09-17):

Colombia used the "do it over and over" strategy to perfection against the USA in their 2024 WUC Power Pool matchup. Watch the clip below—the US is playing some sort of "arrowhead"-style zone, and Colombia realizes that the US isn't stopping them from gaining 3-5 easy yards with a short pass to the thrower's left. So Colombia does that, over and over again, until they catch an easy score. Watch below:

Consistently gain all the yards you can

Zone offense is a great time to practice consistently gaining as many yards as you can. I've written about this before in Don't lose more yards than necessary on dump throws. I'd call this a "secondary strategy" to beat a zone. It's not enough by itself, but attention to detail in gaining as many yards as possible makes everything else easier.

Gained yards add up over time, and they add up much more quickly if you have the skill to take as much in the forward direction as the defense is giving you.

Click the link for a detailed discussion, but to summarize:

As a thrower, throw the disc in front of your receivers so they can run forward onto it. Encourage them (verbally and/or with hand signals) to keep moving forward when there's open space in front of them.
As a receiver, (a) move forward into open spaces (b) use your hand signals to show the thrower you want them to throw it in front of you, and (c) catch the disc with forward momentum so you can continue gaining yards after the catch.

Throw through the zone

An alternate plan to throwing over the zone is to throw through it. Instead of scoobers/blades/hammers, you're using backhands and forehands that squeeze into the lanes between downfield defenders.

A few of Pleiades's bigger gainers on that first point in their 2024 championship game were backhands through the zone:

I'm not a huge fan of trying to throw through the zone, though admittedly throwing over the top gets harder when the conditions get windier...which is exactly when teams are more likely to play zone. (Why don't I like it so much? To me, it feels like there are too many defenders who are keying in on stopping exactly those looks, and it's easy to miss a defender coming from a spot you weren't expecting.)

Felix's video, linked at the start of this article, suggests starting with a player who attacks into the cup from behind, catching a pass with momentum that takes them a few yards forward. This puts the cup slightly out of position, which may generate a gap for the offense to throw through.

One issue I have with throwing through the zone is that you need to know how to generate those opportunities. Yes, sometimes the defense will slip up and leave a gap. Or they'll get tired. The "swing the disc patiently" plan does work in these cases. But in general, a good defense knows you'd like to throw through them, and will be shutting down those opportunities. So what do you do to generate chances even when the defense is trying hard too? Which brings us to our last few points.

Swing fast to generate an advantage. Then seize it.

One of the nuggets of truth in the "swing the disc" idea: if you swing the disc quickly enough, you can keep the defense out of position. This generates brief opportunities that good players can take advantage of.

A solid example of this style comes from the Tokay Super Team at Windmill 2024. Although this possession eventually ends in a turnover, many of their passes highlight the style I'm describing:

Watch at 12:10 as Levke Walczak catches a pass and immediately continues to swing it to the opposite sideline, which leads to a pass through the zone. Later at 12:24 Tobe Decraene likewise catches a short dump and immediately swings the disc.

The same style is apparent on Super Team's next point, as well:

For example, at 16:40 and 16:45, Charlotte Schall probably has the disc in her hands for one second TOTAL between these two touches. She receives a swing pass and throws a short upfield dish, then a few seconds later catches a short dump and immediately swings it.

This style contrast clearly with the USA U24 Women's game I highlighted in Great Throwers Don't Pump Fake. The U24 players would generally: (1) catch the disc, (2) look downfield, and (3) pump fake a couple times. Only after they did all that would they look to swing.

But all that extra stuff is just giving the defense a chance to catch up. Super Team players aren't wasting time pump faking or looking downfield. They're keeping the disc (and often themselves) moving to stress the defense, and then taking the quick shots when that stress generates open receivers.

Overload a defender/run the option

I previously published this as a separate article: Running the option against a zone defense. This is one of the main things I think downfield players should be doing instead of "popping" endlessly.

Get good

One last mental model for defeating zones that we shouldn't forget about: get good. Not to harp on it too much, but as always, more skills = more scores. It doesn't matter if you have a good mental model of how to defeat a zone if you don't also have the individual skills to put that knowledge to use.

Can you throw a hammer/blade/scoober reliably, even in moderate wind?
Can your team trust you to catch a blade/upside down throw with a defender bearing down? Even if it's a long one? Even if you have to read it quickly and adjust your momentum?
Can you catch a disc and throw a continuation pass in a split second?
Can you give-and-go?
etc

Final thoughts

Hopefully these ideas will help you strategize with more mental clarity when facing a zone defense.

As always, I look forward to your feedback if you feel like there's anything I've missed. One thing I feel is missing from this article is an explanation of some of the subtle ways downfield offensive players adjust their positioning in response to the movement of the disc/defense. Yes, "stand around making it hard for one defender to guard two receivers" is an important strategy. But there are also moments where good cutters to use short, quick bursts of speed just after the disc moves to find the right spot for a continuation pass.

Another thing I see zone offenses do, even in some high-level games, is falling into the "youth soccer" tendency for everyone move in the same direction as the disc. You'll find opportunities to help your team if you can fight that instinct—if the entire defense is moving to the right, take a couple steps to the left. Keep the defense spread out and trust that your teammates will get the disc back to you eventually.

And finally, if the defense tries to run a "box-and-one" against you, I like the Alex Barnett strategy putting yourself near another zone defender and letting the rest of your offense play 6-on-5:

Update (2024-08-07): See also: Tuesday Tips: Basic Offensive Strategies to Beat a Zone. But as with many older Ultiworld articles, the GIFs are broken.

Some Flow

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