Clay Matthews

[pbmax]

Here is Mr. Matthews at the combine. He seems to have a half stumble in the 40, so he might be faster if this was his recorded time.

http://www.nfl.com/goto?id=09000d5d80f2e421

My concern with this video is with the first agility test, when he was simply going left and right at the direction of a coach in front of him. He seemed slow to come to a dead stop and reverse field and his momentum. Like it took a definite braking step. I don't break down combine video often, so this maybe how it always looks, but it was the one thing I saw. He looked gone transitioning from lateral movement to dropping into coverage.

[Waldo]

Here is the video where Mayock gives the Senior Bowl tape a glance. I don't know his background, but my initial guess was [edit] that he is repeating what a scout told him the tape shows. Has to do with hand position, punch and playing on the line of scrimmage.

Somewhere, perhaps in another thread, someone said the OLB in a 3-4 doesn't have to play stout on the LOS. I think the opposite is true. All coaches mentioned that he could hold the point of attack. On the plus side, I will say that of all problems a LB could have, this seems correctable. Weight room, and break a habit. We were never able to make Torrance Marshall more alert.

http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d80ffbe64

I don't understand why Mayock made such a big deal about this. It is ridiculously easy to fix via coaching.

The big one I'm concerned about is that Raji plays his man and will let his pads torque relative to the line in the name of defeating his man. Which leads to getting earholed and pancaked when a double is applied. Harrell did this too as a rookie, but his 2nd season he was much better at squaring up his pads to the line when playing his man and moving laterally, he was much better at handling double teams in year 2.

[3irty1]

He could be a KGBesk liability against the run.

At the same time though, it's a 3-4 defense. There's going to be 3 bigs in the middle doing most of the heavy lifting against the run. When KGB was getting run at, there were only 2 bigs in the middle. The fact that the pass rushers don't need to be stout at the POA is largely the point of the 3-4 from a personnel perspective.

Only when in the base D. You start adding cornerbacks and the situation looks no different than it did with KGB asked to hold down a side.

But then they are in a passing formation not ideal to run out of, lacking a lead blocker to overload the POA. Often as well, at least with Pit, the team aligned like a 46 defense on the front line when in the 2-4-5 nickel personnel grouping, which is a run strong 4-3 alignement. Something along the lines of:

------TE---RT---RG---C---LG---LT---------
------SOLB---DE----DE-------------WOLB--
-------------------------SILB---WILB-------
----------SS---------------------------------

Seems like an odd alignment but it works well against the pass and run with the talents of the players. If they run to the strength of the formation, the defense has its beef over there and one of the SS or SILB has no blocker on him. If they run to the weak side of the formation, one of the linebackers has no blocker on him. They are also well positioned for either zone drops or man coverage (the SS on the TE), plus all sorts of wild blitzes from the formation.

You almost never see Pit run a traditional 4-2 out of the nickel alignment, like this:

------TE---RT---RG---C---LG---LT---------
---SOLB-------DE-------DE---------WOLB--
----------------SILB-------WILB------------

it just doesn't work to the strength of the players.

Thanks for taking the time to write all that with the diagrams and such. I guess it wouldn't shock me if the Steelers put Harrison as a down lineman in a passing situation but would you expect the Packers to use their rookie that way? Even without a lead blocker that's a big assignment for a 240lb pass rusher.

[Waldo]

The big difference is though the OLB's have T's on them, typically 3-4 defenses don't ask the OLB's to control 2 gaps, like is done with a 4-3 DE. The OLB's primary task is usually to prevent the back from going wide, a task they can excel at even with a T on them, as no T can move as fast as an OLB. KGB was fine for that, if that is all that was asked of him (he wasn't really any bigger than Matthews, playing in the mid 240's). The problem was he could be easily prevented from controlling the gap between the T and G, all undersized pass rushers/OLB's suck at controlling that gap. The 3-4 defense or 2-4-5 variants account for that weakness with the ILB's, DE's, and S's.

One of the 4-3 defenses big weaknesses is finding guys that can control both of those gaps and provide a pass rush. Those people are very, very rare. Gain the size to play the T-G gap, and they lose the speed to prevent the back from going wide and provide a fearsome pass rush. The Super Mario's, the guys with the size and speed to excel at both, are ultra rare.

[sheepshead]

Sorry if this has been posted. Long read, but it looks like we done good! It's about USC's three linebackers.

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1154750/1/index.htm

[Deputy Nutz]

In high school. we used a "Michigan" 52 defense. You had a 5 man front but one of the ends was a "drop" on the weakside, and the other was a "rush" end on the strong side. This defense had a nose, a "loop" tackle and a "slant" tackle. each down linemen meaning the nose, and both tackles were responsible for only one gap. The ends main responsibility was contain, especially on the weakside. The rush end would have gap responsibilty on certain calls and then contain on others depending what coverage we were in. If the SS was in the box the rush end usually have "c" gap responsibility and contain would go to the SS.

This defense was completely flexible by alignment. In high school you are only blessed with so many talented kids so you didn't want to pull a defensive linemen to go into a 4-3, because that linemen might be better than your next linebacker on the bench. The "drop" end would become your 3rd linebacker and the line would shift to an even front. Same with a shift into a 4-4, both ends or in my case the nose tackle would become the 4th linebacker and then the line would shift to proper alignment.

In the passing game and in the base defense the "drop" end would recognize pass and float into his coverage of the flat, much like that of the of a OLB in the Packer new 3-4. The "rush" end went after the passer after jamming the tight end on the line of scrimmage in the base defense, much like what will be expect of Aaron Kampman. Sure with blitzes and different coverages these responsibilities would change, but the defense was very flexible.

What I have heard of the Packer coaches, they will be running a 3-4 scheme in a much more complicated but similar why to what we ran in high school.

The number one reason a team wants to run a 3-4 defense in the NFL is to mask where the pressure is coming from. Regardless how they line up it, pressure can come from any where without giving up coverage responsibility.

Like Waldo mentioned, th Steelers on passing downs would have guys moving around all over the place with sometime 2 down linemen, and sometimes with no down linemen. Good luck figuring out where the pressure is coming from with that.

[MadScientist]

What WAS Torrence Marshall's problem? I was too young to remember.

The only thing I remember is that some fan called into Bill Michaels show and said how good he was at OU, and that we should get more playing time.

Athletically gifted... but was a knuckle dragging moron. Very low IQ. Really his problem was that he was just plain dumb.

Didn't he have a single digit Wonderlic score? My reaction to the pick at the time was 'the second coming of Jude Waddy'.

Jude Waddy was dumb as a post. His only value was that he took over for an injured Brian Williams in 1999 and helped Ray Rhodes out the door.

[pbmax]

The number one reason a team wants to run a 3-4 defense in the NFL is to mask where the pressure is coming from. Regardless how they line up it, pressure can come from any where without giving up coverage responsibility.

My only quibble with your excellent post is that I have read (Belicheck and Saban) that the number one reason they run 3-4 on the first two downs is to stop the run. They want to force a passing down so they can do what you and Waldo describe.

[BobDobbs]

I watched McCarthy's press conference and he definitely mentioned stopping the run as a primary reason to switch to a 3-4. I had always thought of it as a way to generate pressure on the QB, but played properly it allows the LBs to react to the RB and run past OL in space.

[RashanGary]

I watched McCarthy's press conference and he definitely mentioned stopping the run as a primary reason to switch to a 3-4. I had always thought of it as a way to generate pressure on the QB, but played properly it allows the LBs to react to the RB and run past OL in space.

I've heard that too. The primary reason is to stop the run. The nice side effect is a lot of 3rd and longs and a lot of pass rushing options (big, explosive LB's)

[sheepshead]

I watched McCarthy's press conference and he definitely mentioned stopping the run as a primary reason to switch to a 3-4. I had always thought of it as a way to generate pressure on the QB, but played properly it allows the LBs to react to the RB and run past OL in space.

Theres no question we did it to stop Peterson and Forte. You stand their guys up and the line backers attack whatever gets through.

[KYPack]

Nutz, had the same thought during the Super Bowl.

When the Steelers line up in their 3-4, it's the same thing as the 52 "Fire" we used to play. The OLB's have a lots of other responsibilities, but on 1st & 10, they are stand up DE's all the way.

Capers will be able to do so much more than we could with the Bates/Sanders set, it ridiculous.

[SnakeLH2006]

Nutz, had the same thought during the Super Bowl.

When the Steelers line up in their 3-4, it's the same thing as the 52 "Fire" we used to play. The OLB's have a lots of other responsibilities, but on 1st & 10, they are stand up DE's all the way.

Capers will be able to do so much more than we could with the Bates/Sanders set, it ridiculous.

True Dat KY. Snake agrees and is excited with the pedigree of 3-4 coaches on D we have now, and the high potential of our 4 LB's. Any of those guys can rush, or potentially run stuff. It's looking good, and was slightly a skeptic of the 3-4 with our personnel...yet the Clay Matthews "upgrade" really makes it scary to think when/where the pressure will be coming from for opposing O's. Good stuff. Really, a good running 3-4 does play to using an OLB (Kampy) with his hand in the dirt on at least 1st down...but is able to beast out at bringing heat from all over the field when it forces a passing down. That is hopefully where we excel at, esp. with BJ bringing heat up the middle on 3rd down. Should be fun to watch.

[Deputy Nutz]

The number one reason a team wants to run a 3-4 defense in the NFL is to mask where the pressure is coming from. Regardless how they line up it, pressure can come from any where without giving up coverage responsibility.

My only quibble with your excellent post is that I have read (Belicheck and Saban) that the number one reason they run 3-4 on the first two downs is to stop the run. They want to force a passing down so they can do what you and Waldo describe.

Sure, because when you have an OLB like Vrabel and the defensive line that team put together it makes sense. Maybe I should have said it hides pressure and where the team is attacking from regardless of run or pass down.

Thomas and Vrabel were pretty much 250-260 defensive ends, instead of a three man front in reality they had a five man front.

[rbaloha1]

The scheme allows for Matthews to runaround and make plays.

Matthews displays good feet and the ability to read and diagnose plays. My concern is when Matthews is required to take on fullbacks and tight ends.

Many of Matthews highlight plays are against lower tiered Pac-10 teams. Matthews is not going to be able to slice thru blockers in the NFL. Mano to Mano concerns me.

The comparison to Greenway was interesting. IMO Greenway was the better prospect due to the ability to take on blockers. Forget the 40 time and combo numebers--Greenway plays faster.

Lets hope Matthews develops the way Greenway is displaying.