Class Is In Session: The Zone Blitz

[Waldo]

Here is an explanation/diagram of some of Philly's zone blitzes from elsewhere. Notice that Lito is almost always in man to man, Samuel is almost always in zone:
http://www.footballsfuture.com/phpBB...c.php?t=238262

That looks like a specialty defense, like what we played against TO and Dallas. The problem with that defense is that there are big holes in the zones as the safety might have to abandon his zone to double, the Mike has to play deep and short middle zone. Just like the Cowboys found all the other receivers against us, Welker (as the description maintained) killed the Eagles.

This looks like a defense of last resort, not an everyday scheme.

Is a particular zone blitz ever an everyday scheme? The whole point is a zone blitz is a gamble that sacrifices ideal coverage for extra pressure. If we wanted an ideal, sound base scheme to run every play, Vanilla Bob was our man.

[pbmax]

Here is an explanation/diagram of some of Philly's zone blitzes from elsewhere. Notice that Lito is almost always in man to man, Samuel is almost always in zone:
http://www.footballsfuture.com/phpBB...c.php?t=238262

That looks like a specialty defense, like what we played against TO and Dallas. The problem with that defense is that there are big holes in the zones as the safety might have to abandon his zone to double, the Mike has to play deep and short middle zone. Just like the Cowboys found all the other receivers against us, Welker (as the description maintained) killed the Eagles.

This looks like a defense of last resort, not an everyday scheme.

Is a particular zone blitz ever an everyday scheme? The whole point is a zone blitz is a gamble that sacrifices ideal coverage for extra pressure. If we wanted an ideal, sound base scheme to run every play, Vanilla Bob was our man.

Actually, that is EXACTLY the idea behind a zone blitz. To play solid coverage while blitzing unexpectedly. This coverage takes the extra defender and commits him to a receiver without sending extra pressure. The advantage goes to the offense. The defense only gains if they cannot cover that one receiver and eliminating him will stop the offense. It didn't work against TO for us.

[Waldo]

Here is an explanation/diagram of some of Philly's zone blitzes from elsewhere. Notice that Lito is almost always in man to man, Samuel is almost always in zone:
http://www.footballsfuture.com/phpBB...c.php?t=238262

That looks like a specialty defense, like what we played against TO and Dallas. The problem with that defense is that there are big holes in the zones as the safety might have to abandon his zone to double, the Mike has to play deep and short middle zone. Just like the Cowboys found all the other receivers against us, Welker (as the description maintained) killed the Eagles.

This looks like a defense of last resort, not an everyday scheme.

Is a particular zone blitz ever an everyday scheme? The whole point is a zone blitz is a gamble that sacrifices ideal coverage for extra pressure. If we wanted an ideal, sound base scheme to run every play, Vanilla Bob was our man.

Actually, that is EXACTLY the idea behind a zone blitz. To play solid coverage while blitzing unexpectedly. This coverage takes the extra defender and commits him to a receiver without sending extra pressure. The advantage goes to the offense. The defense only gains if they cannot cover that one receiver and eliminating him will stop the offense. It didn't work against TO for us.

It not sacrificing coverage is partially the idea behind zone blitzing. When you are blitzing CB's and S's and dropping lineman into coverage, you are sacrificing coverage. Even if the #'s are not sacrificed, nobody is confusing the coverage that an end or LB gives with the coverage of a S or CB.

The second time we played them ('08) we were effective at eliminating TO. A lot of their passing yards came from great throws to well covered receivers, a case where there isn't a whole lot that can be done about it. In '08 Dallas chiefly beat us by ramming the ball down our throat up the gut. Almost half of Romo's 260 yds came from two bombs along the sideline to a well covered Austin. A perfect throw and catch will beat perfect coverage most of the time. There is a reason they gave Tony a fat contract, when that kid is on his deep sideline accuracy is stellar.

[Guiness]

It not sacrificing coverage is partially the idea behind zone blitzing. When you are blitzing CB's and S's and dropping lineman into coverage, you are sacrificing coverage. Even if the #'s are not sacrificed, nobody is confusing the coverage that an end or LB gives with the coverage of a S or CB.

The second time we played them ('08) we were effective at eliminating TO. A lot of their passing yards came from great throws to well covered receivers, a case where there isn't a whole lot that can be done about it. In '08 Dallas chiefly beat us by ramming the ball down our throat up the gut. Almost half of Romo's 260 yds came from two bombs along the sideline to a well covered Austin. A perfect throw and catch will beat perfect coverage most of the time. There is a reason they gave Tony a fat contract, when that kid is on his deep sideline accuracy is stellar.

The coverage used against Dallas (against TO really) is a tale of two games...

In '07, he did whatever he wanted against us, and was probably the biggest factor in their win. IIRC they rushed for <100yds, and scored 37 points?

This year, we were effective against TO - but Barber beat us up, Felix Jones helped, and those ridiculous catches Austin made were back breaking. Actually, on second thought, this makes it hard to tell unless you were at the game - they were successfully running, maybe they didn't even look to TO? Since tele doesn't show the WR that the ball WASN'T thrown to, maybe they could've went to him.

[rbaloha1]

Here is an explanation/diagram of some of Philly's zone blitzes from elsewhere. Notice that Lito is almost always in man to man, Samuel is almost always in zone:
http://www.footballsfuture.com/phpBB...c.php?t=238262

That looks like a specialty defense, like what we played against TO and Dallas. The problem with that defense is that there are big holes in the zones as the safety might have to abandon his zone to double, the Mike has to play deep and short middle zone. Just like the Cowboys found all the other receivers against us, Welker (as the description maintained) killed the Eagles.

This looks like a defense of last resort, not an everyday scheme.

Is a particular zone blitz ever an everyday scheme? The whole point is a zone blitz is a gamble that sacrifices ideal coverage for extra pressure. If we wanted an ideal, sound base scheme to run every play, Vanilla Bob was our man.

Agreed. The zone blitz is a critical component of any scheme. Pete Carroll and Nick Saban both use the zone blitzes from 4-3 alignments. Bob Sanders decided not to use.

IMO current personnel is not equipped to run zone blitzes as much as other teams. Free agency and the draft adds personnel to utilize the zone blitz effectively. IMO Capers slowly evolves the scheme to zone blitzing on a fairly regular basis.

[Guiness]

By the way, a delayed kudos to PBMax for starting a great thread, and digging up some reading that was really relevant.

I find myself with a few questions though

From the first article, 'What killed the R&S' it talks about dropping the linemen into coverage and blitzing OLB's, resulting in a free rusher. I think the idea is that by the time the OL realized the linemen weren't going to engage them, the OLB not covered by the RB was by the line, being chased by the OT, and the guards and center are blocking air?

What is a 'half rollout'? Sounds to me like a play where the QB takes a medium drop (say, 5 steps), starts to rollout, but stops and passes while still behind his line? Say, rolls out as far as his tackle, or maybe his TE if he's rolling to the strong side?

edit: ok, one more. What's the difference between a zone blitz and a fire zone? I always thought a fire zone was when you blitzed out of a zone coverage scheme. Is there another wrinkle?

[bobblehead]

This is an awesome thread and while I agree this defense won't play to Al's strenghts, he will adjust and be solid. I believe he is as good as anyone in the league in what we were doing before and deserved more probowls, but he will be a solid NFL corner in this scheme. Those calling for TWill to be the starter might get their wish, but you will still see plenty of Al Harris.

My biggest hope is that Al and Chuck attend the OTA's so neither will seem "lost" in this scheme.

[pbmax]

The Packer/Cowboy game reference was about the vulnerability of the coverage scheme, not simply the result. Jason Witten had 7 catches for 67 yards and in the first half, the Cowboys had 5 first downs by passing versus 6 by running. This game, other than over the top help for Woodson on Owens, might not have featured the coverage under discussion. It certainly did not have a zone blitz that I saw.

But it may illustrate why having one man in man to man coverage, while six others are in zone and four are rushing is vulnerable in the middle. The advantage goes to the offense if you do not bring unexpected pressure or overload. Your extra defender is tied to one man, you have committed help to that man as well, and you have extended your zones to makeup for the extra attention, which leaves the middle wide open. Used to combat teams with only an extraordinary WR like Owens, this may be a choice you must make. But this isn't the base defense you would choose. Al is going to have to play a reasonable amount of zone unless Capers chooses to do something else in the meantime. And he may very well do that. But I doubt its a one man man to man.

[Packnut]

D

If you look at what the man says, his D will be predicated on 2 basic principles of defense. Pressure and confusion which is something Sanders has no understanding of.

This does'nt mean you have to go blitz crazy. It's all about picking your spots, and confusing the QB about where the pressure is coming from. The more things you give to your opponent's QB to think about in his pre-snap read, the higher your chances are for success.

While I expect ANYTHING to be an improvement over vanilla Bob, it's going to take time to teach and get the right people for the scheme. Don't be surprised to see a few broken coverages next season.

This was a brilliant move by Teddy and McCarthy. It buys both of them time. That hour glass was running out but has now been "re-started'.

[pbmax]

From the first article, 'What killed the R&S' it talks about dropping the linemen into coverage and blitzing OLB's, resulting in a free rusher. I think the idea is that by the time the OL realized the linemen weren't going to engage them, the OLB not covered by the RB was by the line, being chased by the OT, and the guards and center are blocking air?

Exactly. Or, if they rushed four, one guard would block air. Normally, an O Line would make a call to slide protection to the extra guy, or call off man to man assignments and block an area, or block inside out. But if you do not know which of the five, six or seven you are facing are going to rush, then its a guessing game and the O Line is going to get it wrong enough to hurt. Some offenses, like McCarthy's would go with more blockers, but the Run and Shoot had six and that was it. Smart Football talks about pass protections here and he knows much more than I do.

What is a 'half rollout'? Sounds to me like a play where the QB takes a medium drop (say, 5 steps), starts to rollout, but stops and passes while still behind his line? Say, rolls out as far as his tackle, or maybe his TE if he's rolling to the strong side?

He actually takes the snap and rolls out immediately, usually. He stays behind the LOS as he would normally. A half rollout would be just past the tackle, a full rollout would plant the QB not quite midway on that half of the field. In the R&S, all the lineman head out and if their guy has not come with them, they turn back towards the pursuit and block. This is what gives the RB space and time to both block an edge rusher and be able to run a screen.

edit: ok, one more. What's the difference between a zone blitz and a fire zone? I always thought a fire zone was when you blitzed out of a zone coverage scheme. Is there another wrinkle?

I believe they are used almost interchangeably, but I would bet there are either subtle differences or they at least came from different sources. Both mean you are playing zone behind some kind of blitz, overload or stunt.

[Waldo]

Re: D

If you look at what the man says, his D will be predicated on 2 basic principles of defense. Pressure and confusion which is something Sanders has no understanding of.

This does'nt mean you have to go blitz crazy. It's all about picking your spots, and confusing the QB about where the pressure is coming from. The more things you give to your opponent's QB to think about in his pre-snap read, the higher your chances are for success.

The thing that is so odd, it on the other side of the ball, McCarthy is a master of confusion. His offense breaks a lot of "rules" for what is normal. Using you slow guys as deep threats (Jones, Martin) is unusual, putting 2 FB's on the field is very unusual, using a WR to run block in the backfield is practically unheard of. Pretty much every play moves guys around, and when he has it going, he is making fairly major personnel substitutions on virtually every play. Plus the run/hot option that is built into virtually every run play, it has to be mentally draining to be a defender against his offense.

Whereas Vanilla Bob ran one of the least confusing defenses out there. Hopefully Capers can scheme on the defensive side of the ball as well as McCarthy can scheme on the offensive side.

[KYPack]

By the way, a delayed kudos to PBMax for starting a great thread, and digging up some reading that was really relevant.

I find myself with a few questions though

From the first article, 'What killed the R&S' it talks about dropping the linemen into coverage and blitzing OLB's, resulting in a free rusher. I think the idea is that by the time the OL realized the linemen weren't going to engage them, the OLB not covered by the RB was by the line, being chased by the OT, and the guards and center are blocking air?

What is a 'half rollout'? Sounds to me like a play where the QB takes a medium drop (say, 5 steps), starts to rollout, but stops and passes while still behind his line? Say, rolls out as far as his tackle, or maybe his TE if he's rolling to the strong side?

edit: ok, one more. What's the difference between a zone blitz and a fire zone? I always thought a fire zone was when you blitzed out of a zone coverage scheme. Is there another wrinkle?

Yeah, Kudos to PB fer shure.

I dig this thread, too.

Fire zones are one component of the zone blitz. Fire zone is the final iteration of the zone blitz. In fire zone, you overload the shit out of a side. The classic fire zone is you send 5 (that's blitz, you send 4, it's a pass rush) You blitz the weak corner and the weak backer. Plus you move everybody over a half gap and send 'em all. (Fire and storm are coach talk for blitzes) The whole defense moves like an amoeba to cover all the hot people the O sends out in hot routes. DE's and even Dt's take away the routes run by the TE, FB, etc. That's the LeBeau staple in this scheme. You don't run it much, but run it when you know it's gonna get home.

There is another fire zone blitz that I really like. In the Fire X you send both ILB's, but they cross, to screw up the blitz pick-up by the FB (or other rb if he's staying home). I think Nick and Hawk will shine when called on to do this storm

Most Fire zone blitzes have 3-3 cover behind the blitz. The weak safety will come down to cover the CB's zone and the cb will drop back in the cloud or sky coverage deep. That's why I went pretty nuts about the whole"Al Harris will still play press coverage and man-man D in this scheme" bullshit. No he won't. This D is very complicated and requires precision teamwork and recognition. Al will surely be singled up and have man coverage responsibility in this scheme. But the old "Al in press and taking on one guy all the time" days are deader than Kelsey's nuts.

The thing I like about the ZB scheme are the run fits. You don't need the front 4 having all the run responsibility. The front 7 gives lots of different run fits and attacks the shit out of the run. Denying all up and down the line and making tackles. i think we can make some better progress against the run than we did last season and that's why I like MM's move to go to this D.

PS Zone blitz was invented to stop the run and shoot?

I think that article was bullshit and still do.

[pbmax]

Yes, authorship is hard to prove KYP. That is why I would never make that assertion about a football idea. Its quite possible some of this kicked around elsewhere and no telling where Davie picked it up. Its also possible that it took more than a zone blitz to kill the Run and Shoot and after 20 years there were probably plenty of ideas around. But I think he makes a good fundamental case about why the R&S would be hard pressed to make hay against this concept. He also makes an excellent case that while the R&S as an NFL offense has gone by the wayside, many of the concepts live on, including certain types of routes and route combinations. Which may be one reason why the ZBP lives on.

Here's a little something for guiness on Fire Zones so we can see what we are talking about:


from of Smart Football

[Partial]

Re: D

The thing that is so odd, it on the other side of the ball, McCarthy is a master of confusion. His offense breaks a lot of "rules" for what is normal. Using you slow guys as deep threats (Jones, Martin) is unusual, putting 2 FB's on the field is very unusual, using a WR to run block in the backfield is practically unheard of. Pretty much every play moves guys around, and when he has it going, he is making fairly major personnel substitutions on virtually every play. Plus the run/hot option that is built into virtually every run play, it has to be mentally draining to be a defender against his offense.

Whereas Vanilla Bob ran one of the least confusing defenses out there. Hopefully Capers can scheme on the defensive side of the ball as well as McCarthy can scheme on the offensive side.

Are you kidding? You might as well call him Vanilla Mike, because his play calling is piss poor more often than it's great. It is very vanilla, especially this year. It took a huge step in the wrong direction in predictability and big-play-over-the-middle-potential this year in favor of a more conservative offense.

[Waldo]

Re: D

The thing that is so odd, it on the other side of the ball, McCarthy is a master of confusion. His offense breaks a lot of "rules" for what is normal. Using you slow guys as deep threats (Jones, Martin) is unusual, putting 2 FB's on the field is very unusual, using a WR to run block in the backfield is practically unheard of. Pretty much every play moves guys around, and when he has it going, he is making fairly major personnel substitutions on virtually every play. Plus the run/hot option that is built into virtually every run play, it has to be mentally draining to be a defender against his offense.

Whereas Vanilla Bob ran one of the least confusing defenses out there. Hopefully Capers can scheme on the defensive side of the ball as well as McCarthy can scheme on the offensive side.

Are you kidding? You might as well call him Vanilla Mike, because his play calling is piss poor more often than it's great. It is very vanilla, especially this year. It took a huge step in the wrong direction in predictability and big-play-over-the-middle-potential this year in favor of a more conservative offense.

LOL, let Major Brad and Bevell call the plays for a year, then say that MM is vanilla. He is so very unvanilla, if he is too vanilla for you, might as well stick to college ball as you aren't going to find satisfaction in the pros.

You do know that every play has big play potential, right? He doesn't call 5 yard outs, he calls 5 different routes short-long, with one or more WR options to adapt route to coverage, and Aaron chooses where to throw the ball. MM doesn't tell Aaron who to throw it to, just who is most likely to be open.