Using Static Two-High Shells to Erase Pre-Snap Tells
Neutralizing the mental “lift” of modern offenses through static alignments, mixed contours, and the technical execution of the split-field shell.
In 2025, the Carolina Panthers won the NFC South with a statistical anomaly: they possessed one of the league’s worst pass rushes but finished #1 overall in Success Rate against play-action.
The Two-High Revolution has fully evolved in the NFL. Vic Fangio, along with Branden Staley, ushered in a philosophy of static split-field alignments married with a unique blend of zone coverages.
In 2025, Fangio pivoted to a more man-centric style, leading the NFL in man coverage usage (44%). Staley, now in New Orleans, along with Ejiro Evero (DC) and Jonathan Cooley (PSG) of the Panthers, has continued to carry the two-high zone-centric style since their days in LA.
Creating Entropy
en·tro·py: lack of order or predictability
Carolina is the best example of the evolution of this thought process, as the NFL’s two-high Revolution matures. The Panthers maintain an almost perfect 1:1 ratio between staying in a two-high shell and rotating to a Closed-Post (397 Static vs. 375 Rotated). Evero and Cooley use disguise to force the quarterback to guess on every snap, taking the mental “lift” out of the offensive coordinator’s hands.
In a league trending toward more 12- and 13-personnel packages to create advantages in the passing game, the split-field shell is becoming the new meta. In 2025, while playing with a top-down mentality, Carolina ranked in the top 10 in TD Rate and #1 versus play-action passing.
Evero and Cooley have built one of the most difficult pre-snap puzzles in the NFL, ranking second-highest in disguise usage (41.5%), behind only the Eagles. The Panthers' defensive identity is founded on a ~70% “open” shell with a near-perfect split between open- and closed-post coverages. Pre-snap identification is a near statistically impossible task for a QB.
“Everything is really out of a shell, not many tells or pre(-snap) things. It was just on the snap; everything happened. So that just kind of messes up the offense.”
— Jaycee Horn, September 2025
The Panthers want their DBs with their “cleats in the ground” before the snap. Every pre-snap picture should be “frozen.” When OCs look at the film, the goal is to have as few “tells” as possible for them to identify coverage. In a league that is constantly scouring the analytics for an edge, being “static” is a great way to erase cues that quarterbacks can easily identify.
—
Stop letting the offensive coordinator solve your coverage before the ball is snapped.
“Site” Mechanics: Automate hook/flat distribution to eliminate defender hesitation against the RB push.
Quarters Tools: Utilize Quarters-based mechanics to protect the vertical seam while maintaining safety depth.
The Entropy Blueprint: Access the technical logic that propelled Carolina to #1 in play-action success rate.
