Quote Originally Posted by wist43 View Post
If you can't cover 3 WR's with 4 DB's - then you should be selling insurance instead of coordinating an NFL defense.

Add to those 4 DB's - a supposedly adept cover LB like Jones... and if it's a pass, both Jones and Hawk are going to drop - Jones, Hawk, and probably 1 of the OLB's.

You can't cover 3 WR's and 1 TE with 6 guys in coverage??

By dunderdummy's reckoning, and the brainwashed Packer masses - it would seem an absolute impossibility.

If it is an impossiblity to cover anyone out of base - then we should never run base - which we don't run much anyway... so why not just scrap it altogether?? Stopping the run isn't even a consideration for Dom, so why have any DL over 280 lbs at all??
Quote Originally Posted by 3irty1 View Post
Hyperboles aside, I don't think 3 WR on the field should automatically mean nickel or dime defense. The down and distance is just as important IMO.
Of course there are situations (certain down and distance or even more likely field position-goal to go) that don't call automatically for nickel.

But using nickel to combat 3x1 in typical situations was a lesson finally learned in the NFL by the last hold out Broncos when the 49ers tore their simple 4-3 Cover 2 to shreds in the Super Bowl which yielded a 55 to Doesn't Matter final score. John Taylor said at the time, this offense (both the original Walsh and the Holmgren 3x1 variation) was designed to pull apart the kinds of coverages you get from a base D, especially a Cover 2.

You have 7 in coverage assuming no blitz and almost always one (if not two) is deep safety. That's 6 to cover 4; you can double 2 which leaves 2 in single coverage. And those single coverages can be manipulated to put a LB on a WR or TE at will. See the Packers opening game against the 49ers when Perry was in coverage on Michael Crabtree.

You can play base or you can blitz in your nickel, but if its a medium to short yardage situation, you are playing with fire since the offense is happy with a quick throw.