A nice refresher for some or introduction for others--from a post on blitzing, "fire zone" blitzing is briefly explained:
This basic alignment is known as a “fire zone.†The reigning king of fire zones is, of course, Nick Saban. This is not because his coverages are better, however, but it’s because of how he teaches it. I’ve discussed many of these principles before, but a few of those can be summarized briefly. He is big on technique for his secondary. Specifically, he often aligns them in a “press-bail†technique, meaning that they do all they can to make it look like press man coverage before the snap, but then bail deep into a deep coverage. If they are fast, they can do this. Next, he really stresses “pattern reading†with his undercoverage guys. This is what makes the coverage work: he drills into them the pass patterns they are most likely to face, and although they are in zone, they guard receivers, not empty areas of the field. The basic idea is to make the absolute most of only three guys in underneath coverage. Last, Saban puts a lot of thought into who will blitz and where they will come from. It’s not enough to rush five, you want those five to cause confusion up front, and further to stil be in position to stop a run play. This is not simple to do either, but the devil’s in the details.
Of course, football is a copycat game, and these techniques are not limited to Saban. Every team runs plenty of fire zone these days, and some, like Penn State, focus on it even more than he does and use a wider variety of looks. Among the options are to blitz a corner instead of a linebacker, and therefore rotate the coverage over for the three deep look  i.e. use two safeties and a corner as the deep coverage rather than two corners and a safety. Or to not drop a defensive linemen at all, but still rush five from different areas, etc. This is where the possibilities are endless. Check out the video below for a flavor of Saban’s zone blitzes, again courtesy of Brophy. When you watch the video, don’t watch the ball. Instead, focus on the safeties and corners, and then focus on the linebackers. Don’t worry, it’s always evident where the ball goes.
[ame="http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5768821/15106908"]fire zone on Yahoo! Video[/ame] @ Yahoo! Video
As far as what works against the zone-blitz, that is still an ongoing battle between offenses and defenses. Zone-blitzes are malleable  one reason I said they were conservative is that zone-blitzes almost always play with three deep zone defenders, which is a very conservative strategy. But overall one reason you see so many screens these days is because coaches feel that these harm zone-blitzes: with all the movement before the snap and various guys rushing (and sometimes defenders in pass coverage who aren’t used to it), the offense feels like it can win if it sucks the rushers upfield while getting a receiver and blockers on a limited number of pass coverage defenders. The other issue is protection again: if you can figure out how to block the defense’s five blitzers (or even figure out which five guys are blitzing), then you should be able to hit a pass downfield against the very soft and not crowded zone defense. But that’s a big if.
The run game answers tend to depend on gameplan issues. Where do they blitz from? If you think you can, say, kick out the blitzing linebacker with your fullback and cut inside, then maybe you have a big play. Or maybe the linebacker or safety is actually dropping down and will stuff it. Overall though, some of the same plays that worked against the man blitz can work against the zone, if you can get to the perimeter or break through the defense’s initial front by using their aggressiveness against them.
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