Quote Originally Posted by Smidgeon View Post
ESPN's John Clayton in his first preview of the Super Bowl said that Capers learned the zone defense from LeBeau. He went on to say they were both assistants on that team. As far as I've heard everywhere else, they developed it together. Heck, Dom was the D-coordinator, was he not?
You mean zone-blitz scheme, right?

Lebeau was a long-time Cincinnati D-back coach then coordinator - was in both SuperBowls, before getting the axe and getting hired as dbacks coach under Capers 92-94. Capers got hired away, Lebeau became d-coordinator and then got hired away by Cininnati and came back after a stint as d-coor, coach, then buffalo assistant. I think Lebeau developed the zone blitz mostly on his own with Cincinnati, but didn't use it as much in the 80s. I'm a little murky on how much, if any influence Capers had on the zone scheme, but when they were together was it's real big inception with Greene and Lloyd and thus the nickname 'Blitzburgh.'