also: nub side · nasty side · solo side
A tight end side with no receiver outside him. It is the one alignment that gives a defense a run-heavy side to work with, which is why defenses have specific calls for it.
A side of the formation where there is a tight end on the line and no receiver outside him. The word describes what the side looks like: short, with nothing extending it toward the sideline.
What makes it worth naming is the defensive consequence. Every other formation gives a defense somebody to cover out there; a nub side gives it nobody, which frees a defender who would otherwise be aligned wide. So a nub side is a side where the defense gets a body back, and offenses use it deliberately to run away from that body or to force the defense to decide what to do with him.
Some staffs use it for any side without a receiver outside the tight end, and others reserve it for specific formations. The general sense is the useful one.
nub side, solo sidetrips, unbalanced, split and nasty split"Nasty" is used for both a nub side and a tight receiver split by different staffs, which is a live collision worth knowing about. See the split and nasty split entry.