Class Is In Session: The Zone Blitz

[KYPack]

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.

Davie didn't invent the zone blitz at the NFL level.

As you said, the "inventor" of pro scheme or wrinkle can be very difficult to pin down.

The zone blitz in the NFL is Dick LeBeau's creation. He came up with the concept of it in Cincinnati in the 80's when he was DC for Sam Wyche.

The finished version of it that is widely implemented in the league presently came about in Pittsburgh. It happened when DL shared his zone pass coverage concepts with Dom Capers and the two of 'em put together the zone blitz packages we all see now.

Davie is fulla shit if he wants to take credit for the zone blitz concept.

He needs to stay behind the mike. He's a great x & O guy, but no head coach at any level.

[Bossman641]

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.

Yep. Sorry Partial, but I gotta agree with Waldo. The Packers must have used more formations and packages than any team in the league. There were stretches where I think MM sometimes got stubborn with his playcalling or was too slow to branch off a couple key plays. For example, I think MM took too long to add in PA plasses off of the inverted wishbone formation.

[Partial]

I agree he uses different packages, but what does that give you besides odd personnel groups that don't necessarily offer any advantages?

Rob Demovsky of the GBPG did a piece this year on how he accurately predicted the plays the Packers ran over 80% of the time just based on their personnel and package. That to me is pretty bad.

They don't mix it up enough. It's pretty obvious what they're up to before the snap imo.

[Waldo]

A team that is good at running the ball can walk up to the line and tell the opponents that they are running, and where they plan on running. They do anyway with lineman tells that defenses key on. They still can't cheat off coverage or Aaron is liable to give it a toss without telling anyone but winking at his WR, and Grant runs to daylight, not a set hole. It doesn't matter, running is attitude. He who want the other man to move out of the way more will win the battle. A well designed run occupies all but 1 box defender, or if catching the D in a poor substitution package (an MM specialty) occasionally runs are into an even box. Defenses align to formation, not whether they "think" that it is going to be a run or pass, that is dictated by the call to the formation based on the personnel substitution. MM does a lot of shifting between run and pass formations with motion.

I bet if I watched a Vikings game I could hit on 90%+ of the play calls, run or pass. Brad is a run, run, pass kinda guy, and rarely changes it, unless the WR's come out of the huddle with a spring in their step, then they are going PA deep. He calls like 5 plays.

[pbmax]

Davie didn't invent the zone blitz at the NFL level.

As you said, the "inventor" of pro scheme or wrinkle can be very difficult to pin down.

The zone blitz in the NFL is Dick LeBeau's creation. He came up with the concept of it in Cincinnati in the 80's when he was DC for Sam Wyche.

The finished version of it that is widely implemented in the league presently came about in Pittsburgh. It happened when DL shared his zone pass coverage concepts with Dom Capers and the two of 'em put together the zone blitz packages we all see now.

Davie is fulla shit if he wants to take credit for the zone blitz concept.

He needs to stay behind the mike. He's a great x & O guy, but no head coach at any level.

Agreed about the NFL version, Davie has never coached at this level, that I am aware of. LeBeau was D coordinator for Cincy from 84 to 91, so he did precede Davie's time as DC at A&M. So its entirely possible that LeBeau has this first.

The point of the Smart Football article was that Davie succeeded at A&M in stopping the Run and Shoot with the Zone Blitz, he may not have been as vigorous in assigning credit carefully. I yield the point to your information.

Later...Actually, I yield the entire point. Going back to the article itself, its entire point is that Davie did what no one else had done and that was succeed in slowing the Run & Shoot offense. He did not make the case that Davie invented it. Just that he applied it in this instance to great effect. My apology for the confusion.

[KYPack]

Davie didn't invent the zone blitz at the NFL level.

As you said, the "inventor" of pro scheme or wrinkle can be very difficult to pin down.

The zone blitz in the NFL is Dick LeBeau's creation. He came up with the concept of it in Cincinnati in the 80's when he was DC for Sam Wyche.

The finished version of it that is widely implemented in the league presently came about in Pittsburgh. It happened when DL shared his zone pass coverage concepts with Dom Capers and the two of 'em put together the zone blitz packages we all see now.

Davie is fulla shit if he wants to take credit for the zone blitz concept.

He needs to stay behind the mike. He's a great x & O guy, but no head coach at any level.

Agreed about the NFL version, Davie has never coached at this level, that I am aware of. LeBeau was D coordinator for Cincy from 84 to 91, so he did precede Davie's time as DC at A&M. So its entirely possible that LeBeau has this first.

The point of the Smart Football article was that Davie succeeded at A&M in stopping the Run and Shoot with the Zone Blitz, he may not have been as vigorous in assigning credit carefully. I yield the point to your information.

Later...Actually, I yield the entire point. Going back to the article itself, its entire point is that Davie did what no one else had done and that was succeed in slowing the Run & Shoot offense. He did not make the case that Davie invented it. Just that he applied it in this instance to great effect. My apology for the confusion.

Hey, you don't have to apologize, honey!

Any time someone is credited with being "the first" to implement a football innovation, there is always an old coach or indian chief who claims to have done the same thing years before. Many things have been done in ancient football times and then dusted off and revamped by a modern coach. That coach then becomes the "inverntor" of the scheme.

My favorite thing along those lines is the '46' defense. This was the famous D invented by Buddy Ryan and used by the '85 Bears to help dominate the league. Buddy was the sole inventor of this defense and it secured his place as a defensive genius, right?

Wrong.

That Bear defense was invented by Fritz Shurmur when he was head coach of the U of Wyoming Cowboys in the early 70's. It was a radical scheme that was really only known in the coaching underground. Ryan lifted it and added a slight wrinkle to form the Bear D. And never gave Fritz an ounce of credit for his invention.

Fritz? He didn't give a shit. He wrote 4 books on coaching defense & his rep as the top mind in defensive coaching didn't depend on other coaches giving him his just due.

Buddy? he was and is an asshole.

[Waldo]

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.

Yet the players that currently play in this scheme disagree with your little rant, Ike Taylor (Steerlers CB) had this to say:

The Steelers play mostly Cover 2 and Cover 3 zones, and when they blitz it's almost always with zone coverage. However, Taylor pointed out that in zone blitzes the two outside cover men actually are locked in man-to-man coverage.

Excluding third-and-long plays, Taylor also said he had the freedom to play bump-and-run within the scheme, and often did. That, said Taylor, should play to the strengths of Al Harris.

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/38509364.html

[Guiness]

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

Yes, I saw that when I read the article.

I'm still trying to get a clear picture of how it's a Fire Zone as opposed to a Zone blitz.

Is it a Fire Zone because the pressure is coming from unexpected sources (the MLB and safety) as opposed to the down linemen, trying to cause some confusion, as opposed to a standard overload blitz? In this example, they're only sending 5 guys, and there would be 5 or 6 blocking.

This defensive alignment play also seems like it would be susceptible to the screen described in the article. If the TE went out and blocked the SLB, and the FB realeased the S after a 1001 count, he should be alone in the flat.

[KYPack]

[
Yet the players that currently play in this scheme disagree with your little rant, Ike Taylor (Steerlers CB) had this to say:

The Steelers play mostly Cover 2 and Cover 3 zones, and when they blitz it's almost always with zone coverage. However, Taylor pointed out that in zone blitzes the two outside cover men actually are locked in man-to-man coverage.

Excluding third-and-long plays, Taylor also said he had the freedom to play bump-and-run within the scheme, and often did. That, said Taylor, should play to the strengths of Al Harris.

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/38509364.html

When they zone blitz they play the corners in press. They probably do it in other situations, too. But the Pitt corners don't do it with the frequency that the Packers showed in previous seasons. Plus, both corners will have lots of additional responsibilities that they haven't had in the past. Al Harris won't have the same job he did in the Sanders regime.

Ike Taylor gets to play press, but in some blitzes, he has to roll back and provide deep cover in the 3-3.

I think the same schemes will be applied here, also.

Or I could be wrong.

That's happened in the past, too.

[KYPack]

[
Yet the players that currently play in this scheme disagree with your little rant, Ike Taylor (Steerlers CB) had this to say:

The Steelers play mostly Cover 2 and Cover 3 zones, and when they blitz it's almost always with zone coverage. However, Taylor pointed out that in zone blitzes the two outside cover men actually are locked in man-to-man coverage.

Excluding third-and-long plays, Taylor also said he had the freedom to play bump-and-run within the scheme, and often did. That, said Taylor, should play to the strengths of Al Harris.

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/38509364.html

When they zone blitz they play the corners in press. They probably do it in other situations, too. But the Pitt corners don't do it with the frequency that the Packers showed in previous seasons. Plus, both corners will have lots of additional responsibilities that they haven't had in the past. Al Harris won't have the same job he did in the Sanders regime.

Ike Taylor gets to play press, but in some blitzes, he has to roll back and provide deep cover in the 3-3.

I think the same schemes will be applied here, also.

Or I could be wrong.

That's happened in the past, too.

After watching the game last nite to make sure, Ike Taylor's rant was a little strange. The cover that Pittsburgh uses the least is CB's in press cover playing man. The Steeler CB's play all over the place and their role changes a lot from down to down.

I really hope Al Harris plays CB for us next year. But if he does, his role will change radically.

The days of him in press, playing a man cover are gone in a blitz zone scheme. He will have to become a versatile player, altering his role from one cover to the other.