So if the defense is terrible again this season?

[pbmax]

Defensive pressure by the Numbers (part of this applies to Packers): http://www.sportsonearth.com/article...k-runs#!bjbnjH

8. Defenses rush exactly four defenders on 62.9 percent of all pass plays.

A quick survey of depth charts reveals that exactly half of all defenses are listed as 3-4's right now. Also, a quick survey of coordinators reveals that about 95 percent of them insist "we are going to be multiple and hard to categorize," and 100 percent of them are going to be both "attacking" and "aggressive." At any rate, whether a team is officially a 3-4 or 4-3, whether they use tons of 2-3-6 personnel groups and blitz safeties on 1st-and-10 or come from the Tony Dungy school of Cover-2 fundamentalism, teams are going to rush four defenders on about two-thirds of pass plays.

Innovative, wacky, ultra-aggressive coaches rush defenders four at a time, just as they pull up their pants one leg at a time. The Cardinals, Chiefs, Packers, Saints and 49ers defenses were coached by a rogue's gallery of wild men and mad scientists last year. They combined to rush four defenders on 59.2 percent of pass plays, an insignificant smidge below the NFL average. Game situation and personnel quality are greater variables in determining how many defenders rush the quarterback than coaching philosophy. A coach who does not trust his cornerbacks is not going to blitz safeties, no matter what. A conservative coach whose defense forces lots of 3rd-and-long situations will blitz more than a barbarian whose defense cannot force obvious passing downs.

Five-man rushes occur on 22.8 percent of passes; six-man rushes (a pretty big blitz) occur on 7.2 percent of pass plays. Three-man rushes occur 5.8 percent of the time, despite all of those 3-4 defenses, which of course usually feature one or two linebackers who specialize in pass rushing. Rushes of seven or more defenders are typically reserved for red zone situations.

There's a fundamental mathematics at work with the four-man rush. A minimum of five defenders are needed to match up with five eligible receivers, a sixth defender is usually needed for double coverage, deep safety, quarterback spying or what have you, and diminishing returns kick in if three or fewer pass rushers make it easy for the quarterback to check his voicemail in the pocket. The aggressive defensive innovators of the 2010s express their individuality by sending four unexpected defenders. Bob Sutton of the Chiefs might send a nose tackle, a cornerback, a safety and Jamaal Charles (he does every other darn thing in Kansas City, so why not?), but he is more-or-less as likely to send four rushers as Lovie Smith is to send two tackles and two ends.

[wist43]

Defensive pressure by the Numbers (part of this applies to Packers): http://www.sportsonearth.com/article...k-runs#!bjbnjH

Of course 4 is most common number of rushers - always has been, always will. The questions become how do you create mismatches, confusion in the blocking scheme and coverage - and, also account for the run, as teams are now lining up with 3 WR's in run/pass sitautions.

Capers accounted for the run by plopping 650 lbs of Pickett and Raji in the middle of the line. Problem with that was Pickett offered zero pass rush, and Raji wore down in the role and offered no pass rush either.

The result was that if it was a pass, we effectively only had 2 pass rushers getting after the QB; and, if it was a run and the RB had a seam thru the line, our ILB's being below average, the second level of our defense usually wasn't there to clean up; hence, we routinely got gashed in the running game.

So it was the worst of both worlds the way Capers ran his nickel.

I read an article a while back which detailed the amount of nickel that teams are running now. The Saints ran the most nickel of any team in the league at 85% - but they ran exactly 0% 2-4. Granted, they are a base 4-3 team, but the 3-3 they ran was much better suited to dealing with run/pass than Capers 2-4.

The only other teams that ran the 2-4 more than 30% of the time were Washington and San Francisco, but I would argue both of those teams have vastly superior LB's, and could make the alignment work much better than Capers could with the personnel he has.

Given that Pickett and Jolly are not back, and looking at the stable of DL on the roster now, I'd imagine Capers will necessarily have to go to more of a 4-2/3-3 look, similar to how SF looks with Peppers and Aldon Smith being similar in stature and ability.