Why I like fast breaks

Putting all the arguments together in one article

I've written a good bit about fast breaks in ultimate frisbee. For example, see:

• Putting your whole offense in the endzone is bad, actually

• The ‘post-huck’ fast break

• Brute Squad’s fast break ferocity

• [Updated 2025-02-19: I also wrote Fury’s fast breaks a year after this post]

It occurred to me that I've never fully explained why I think they're a powerful tool. I think that's worth doing—putting all the arguments in one post will hopefully be useful as a reference and more convincing as an argument. Here's a full accounting of why I like fast breaks:

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The defense isn't mentally ready

To me, the biggest reason to fast break is that the defense often isn't mentally ready for it. What happens to frisbee players (on either team) when the disc hits the ground? If your experience is anything like mine, the answer is they turn their brains off for a few seconds.

OK, now think about that statement from the point of view of the offense. You are on offense. Your job is to score (or, speaking statistically and accounting for the inevitable turnovers, your job is to maximize the chance this possession ends in a score). You know the defense wants to make that job hard for you.

If you're on offense, and you know the defense has turned their brains off, that's not a sign you should turn your brain off too! It's a sign your brain should be working overtime, trying to make them pay to the greatest possible extent for their mental lapse. They are your opponents!

The video clip below highlights this point. In this 2023 USAU Nationals game, Cleveland Crocs throws a turnover and Travis Dunn jogs into position for a 10-yard gain when Arizona Lawless picks up the disc. A couple more passes and the possession ends in an easy score.

He's the Offensive Player of the Year! It's Nationals!! And still, a turnover generates such a defensive lapse that all he has to do it jog over towards the disc and he gets a 10-yard gain. (The best part about this clip is that you can't watch the full play...even the video producer has mental lapses when a turnover happens!)

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The defense is out of position

Frisbee teams know open space is good for the offense, but sometimes don't take that fact to its natural conclusion. They know it's a good idea to isolate one player in the endzone...but they think it's a good idea to squeeze their entire team into the endzone before running that iso (see Putting your whole offense in the endzone is bad, actually).

The defensive "positioning" immediately after a turnover is a huge advantage to the offense. It's good if most of the defense is behind the disc after a turnover—it means there's more space for us to attack downfield. It's good if there are only two players on each team anywhere near the disc after a huck turnover— everywhere is an open cutting lane when you're playing 2v2 (see The ‘post-huck’ fast break). There's no one around to play help defense.

To put it another way, remember those defensive players were themselves on offense a moment ago. And when they were on offense, they wanted nothing more than to get away from the people they are now supposed to be guarding. If they were at all doing a good job of playing offense, they won't be in good position to play defense a split second later.

Think of the arrangement of the seven defenders (i.e, the former offensive players) on the field immediately after a turnover. Now, imagine you were told where the disc was lying on the field, and you had the magical ability to put seven defenders in the optimal position to stop the offense. Would you put them in exactly the places they were at the moment a turnover happened? Almost certainly not! But the more time an offense gives them before picking up the disc, the closer the defense can get to those optimal positions.

[Updated (2024-09-18)]: For another example, see this turnover from a 2024 WUL game. If they pick up the disc quickly, they have a 6-on-4 advantage, with none of those 4 defenders currently in great defensive position. The two players near the disc could easily start a quick give-and-go for 10+ yards:

Utah (white) just threw a turnover. Colorado is scoring towards the right side of the screen. The disc is by the head of the Utah player on the ground in the middle of the shot.

Instead, Colorado takes their time and Utah can set up their defense. While they do score on the possession, it took multiple tough throws, which is not an effective long-term strategy.

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You can bust through any zone

The previous two sections describe two examples of a general truth: fast breaks make it hard for the defense to 'set up'.

One more 'setting up' challenge is worth mentioning: fast breaks make it hard for teams to play zone against you. The faster you get the disc moving, the less time players have to get to their 'assigned' spots in the zone. And it's very, very rare to find a team with players capable of switching positions in the zone, mid-point.

If you'd prefer a team play person defense against you, fast breaks are a cheat code to force the defense into a strategy that you prefer.

(And yes, this argument can work the other way, too: if you think a team is breathtakingly dumb for attempting to play zone on you, it could be to your advantage to pick the disc up slowly to encourage them to play zone. But mostly teams choose zone D when they think it gives them an advantage. Fast breaking nullifies that advantage.)

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Predictability is not a good thing

Everyone who hates the vertical stack can tell you what's wrong with it: if the defense knows a cut is coming from the back of the stack, that knowledge is a big advantage for them. Knowing what you’ll do makes it easy for the defense to make it hard on you.

If you're on offense, you should not be happy if the defense knows what's coming (unless you play for, like, the New York Empire).

Fast breaking is inherently spontaneous. It forces the defense to react on the fly instead of being able to use prior knowledge to take away your best options.

There's an inherent advantage to playing offense: the defense has to wait and react to what you do. Good defenses try to nullify that advantage by being proactive wherever possible: watching tape to learn your tendencies, sagging into the throwing lanes, bracketing a cutter at the back of the stack if the rest of the stack isn't active, etc. The unpredictability of fast breaking takes away those opportunities for defensive proactivity, and gives the offense back their maximum advantage.

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Risks are worth the rewards

If you fast break, you'll sometimes turn the disc over quickly. But that isn't a valid excuse to not fast break. If fast breaking is what maximizes your chances of scoring, the turnovers are worth it.

In the long term, you'll win more games by fast breaking, just like American football teams win more by 'going for it' on fourth down. As I wrote in Brute Squad’s fast break ferocity:

It seems like it was only a few years ago that NFL (American football) teams almost never went for it on fourth down. But then it became obvious that, while "risky", the expected value of going for it was often much better than punting or kicking a field goal. A few short years later, teams are shamed for it if they don't go for it on fourth down. Fast breaks in ultimate are similar—they're "riskier", on the surface, but it seems obvious it'll raise the expected value of scoring. If you care about winning, you should care about fast-breaking.

There's no hard data that fast breaks work in ultimate, and there probably won't be for many years. But based on personal experience and the video I've watched, I think it's pretty obvious that fast breaks are the superior strategy in ultimate.

Yes, every once in a while I throw the quickest turnover you've ever seen. But that doesn't deter me from continuing to fast break. Good NFL teams don't stop going for it on 4th down after one unsuccessful conversion. They understand that efficiency is a game of statistics and that good strategies work on average even if there are individual failures. I trust the strategy and continue to fast break because in the long run it wins me games.

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You should try to win the game

Kyle Weisbrod mentions fast-breaking in his Ultiworld article The Playbook for Underdogs. I slightly disagree with his take, because I think fast breaks are good for every team. But in another sense, I think he makes a good point. If you're an underdog, you shouldn't just play frisbee exactly the way every other team does. If you do the exact same thing as the other team, but they're better at it than you, you're just going to lose.

You should try to win the game. Don't just accept defeat. Try an alternative strategy instead of just losing to the same team by the same amount for the nth year in a row.

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All the other sports do it

I recognize that an analogy is not a piece of evidence, but I think it’s still worth mentioning: pretty much every other sport recognizes the power of the fast break. No soccer player is giving up the chance for a 2-v-2 counter-attack to wait for the entire defense to set up. No good basketball player is missing an opportunity to fast break, either—it is, by far, the most efficient form of offense in basketball. I watch enough hockey to know the same is true there.

I feel like this is where a critic would say: but frisbee is different—possession is so highly valued, we can’t risk a turnover just for a better scoring chance! But I think that argument cuts both ways. If you highly value possession, then you should value even more the opportunity to play offense against an unprepared defense.

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Teams (and individuals) aren't good at what they don't practice

Perhaps you don't feel comfortable with fast breaks. Perhaps you don't feel comfortable with your team fast breaking. Before you decide fast breaks aren't right for you, ask yourself: have I practiced this enough?

The main reason frisbee players aren't good at (or comfortable with) fast breaking is that they've played frisbee for years but never practiced fast breaking. Basketball players are comfortable with fast breaks because they've been practicing them since they were 6 years old. Teams get good at the strategies they practice. Practice fast breaks, then use them. Your team being bad at a strategy you don't practice isn't proof the strategy is bad.

Wherever necessary elsewhere in this article, imagine the phrase "assuming your team has practiced fast breaks" in parentheses at the end of a sentence.

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If you're tired, they're tired too—and frustrated

The disc hitting the ground can feel like a moment to relax—I'm worn out, but now that there's a turnover I can finally stop playing defense and rest. But your opponent is tired too, and while you just gained a boost of energy (we forced a turn!), they just became a bit more dejected (ugh, we turned it over).

It can be tempting to rest and catch your breath, but you're just giving the defense a chance to rest, too. Their mental defenses are down—it takes a lot of fortitude to immediately be ready to play great defense after a discouraging turnover. If the offense takes their time, both teams get to catch their breath—but the defense also gets a moment to mentally prepare. I'd rather attack while their mental state is dejection than give them a chance to firm their resolve. Add the pain of playing hard defense while tired to their sadness at turning the disc over. (Why break a defense's heart when you could break their mind, am I right?)

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You can always slow down

Even when you pick the disc up quickly, the stall count is still ten seconds. Once your team gets good at fast breaks, they won't make bad decisions with the disc (any more than they do in the average situation). It's not any harder to complete a reset pass in a fast break than it is against a set defense. If nothing comes of the fast break, you're no worse off than if you had started slow. You're picking up an option that can only benefit you. The best-case scenario is "we get an easy score". The worst-case scenario is "we run our regular offense".

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We get to play more frisbee

Let’s switch gears and talk about things on a different level. Fast breaks mean you play more frisbee at practice.

Say my team puts the disc into play about 10 seconds faster by fast breaking. Every six turnovers in practice, we've made time for an extra minute of game-level reps. I coach a college B-team, so it wouldn't surprise me if there are 60 turnovers at a practice (we mostly use a games-based approach, so there is a lot of game action at every practice).

Add that up, and every month or so we get an extra hour of game-level reps that teams who aren't fast-breaking are missing out on. We're doing more in-game decision making, and doing more work to build our cardio.

I'd rather my athletes play more frisbee than play less frisbee, and fast breaks are one way to ensure we play as much frisbee as possible.

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It's good for vibes

We're frisbee players. Are we really playing frisbee if we're not touching the disc?

Newer players can actually be pretty effective picking up the disc in a fast break situation (given, again, that the defense is unprepared). It's much harder for them to make a useful first pass when the defense has had time to set up.

I was bad at frisbee once, and I know from personal experience that it's very frustrating to step onto a field to play frisbee and get told I’m not good enough to pick up the disc that's on the ground right next to me. When everyone is encouraged to pick up the disc, they feel valued. They feel empowered. They feel like part of the team. They have more motivation to improve because they feel the joy of making a good play with the disc and the frustration of making a mistake with the disc.

When you fast break, there’s no time to wait for certain players to get to the disc—whoever is closest picks it up. Encourage all your players to pick up the disc. What you lose in having slightly more first-throw turnovers, you'll gain back with interest in culture, vibes, and long-term skill growth.