Captain, Give Bedard Some Kudos: Martz vs Capers

[Waldo]

I think the coordinator in Bedard's article basically covers the entire question. Every defense has a weakness somewhere. The question is where and can the offense you face exploit it?

He didn't like the zone-blitz as an approach because he felt the weakness was deep. And if this coordinator is going to lose a battle, he is going to lose it short and force the offense to make more good plays to score, rather than give up a big gainer.

Zone blitzing? The weakness is shallow, the fact that you've got a guy in coverage that isn't supposed to be in coverage, which my surprise the QB on the quick stuff, but is easily beaten if he has time. Dom almost always runs cover-3 behind a zone blitz.

People's definitions differ. A zone blitz as I've always known it is a 4 man rush. But the 4 guys are not the typical 4 guys, the coverage responsibilities of the unconventional rushers are replaced by some of the conventional rushers dropping (see Clay's near int against Phi). Behind it almost always sky or cloud cover-3 is run, with at least one of the 4 underneath zones covered by somebody that would typically rush the passer. This allows overload blitzing of parts of the line while maintaining coerage integrity, somewhat, behind it.

One of the keys for Dom's D is to disguise what they are realy doing until almost the last possible second. Making the time the QB spends reading the D a waste of time, since the QB won't see the D tipping off what it is doing until he's dropping back. Making him either slow his throw by having to think about it, or vice versa causing him to throw to something improperly read that wasn't open.

But they do occasionally leave deep zones uncovered. Really they are just leaving the S's with huge zones, something that requires fast safeties. I don't think that it is any coincidence that the 2 most successful incarnations of this D (us and Pit) each have a sub 4.4 safety. Nor is it any coincidence that Ted went and drafted a significantly faster SS.

[Smidgeon]

I think the coordinator in Bedard's article basically covers the entire question. Every defense has a weakness somewhere. The question is where and can the offense you face exploit it?

He didn't like the zone-blitz as an approach because he felt the weakness was deep. And if this coordinator is going to lose a battle, he is going to lose it short and force the offense to make more good plays to score, rather than give up a big gainer.

Zone blitzing? The weakness is shallow, the fact that you've got a guy in coverage that isn't supposed to be in coverage, which my surprise the QB on the quick stuff, but is easily beaten if he has time. Dom almost always runs cover-3 behind a zone blitz.

People's definitions differ. A zone blitz as I've always known it is a 4 man rush. But the 4 guys are not the typical 4 guys, the coverage responsibilities of the unconventional rushers are replaced by some of the conventional rushers dropping (see Clay's near int against Phi). Behind it almost always sky or cloud cover-3 is run, with at least one of the 4 underneath zones covered by somebody that would typically rush the passer. This allows overload blitzing of parts of the line while maintaining coerage integrity, somewhat, behind it.

One of the keys for Dom's D is to disguise what they are realy doing until almost the last possible second. Making the time the QB spends reading the D a waste of time, since the QB won't see the D tipping off what it is doing until he's dropping back. Making him either slow his throw by having to think about it, or vice versa causing him to throw to something improperly read that wasn't open.

But they do occasionally leave deep zones uncovered. Really they are just leaving the S's with huge zones, something that requires fast safeties. I don't think that it is any coincidence that the 2 most successful incarnations of this D (us and Pit) each have a sub 4.4 safety. Nor is it any coincidence that Ted went and drafted a significantly faster SS.

Seriously, where have you been?

[Fred's Slacks]

Nice to see you back, Waldo.

[pbmax]

I think the coordinator in Bedard's article basically covers the entire question. Every defense has a weakness somewhere. The question is where and can the offense you face exploit it?

He didn't like the zone-blitz as an approach because he felt the weakness was deep. And if this coordinator is going to lose a battle, he is going to lose it short and force the offense to make more good plays to score, rather than give up a big gainer.

Zone blitzing? The weakness is shallow, the fact that you've got a guy in coverage that isn't supposed to be in coverage, which my surprise the QB on the quick stuff, but is easily beaten if he has time. Dom almost always runs cover-3 behind a zone blitz.

People's definitions differ. A zone blitz as I've always known it is a 4 man rush. But the 4 guys are not the typical 4 guys, the coverage responsibilities of the unconventional rushers are replaced by some of the conventional rushers dropping (see Clay's near int against Phi). Behind it almost always sky or cloud cover-3 is run, with at least one of the 4 underneath zones covered by somebody that would typically rush the passer. This allows overload blitzing of parts of the line while maintaining coerage integrity, somewhat, behind it.

One of the keys for Dom's D is to disguise what they are realy doing until almost the last possible second. Making the time the QB spends reading the D a waste of time, since the QB won't see the D tipping off what it is doing until he's dropping back. Making him either slow his throw by having to think about it, or vice versa causing him to throw to something improperly read that wasn't open.

But they do occasionally leave deep zones uncovered. Really they are just leaving the S's with huge zones, something that requires fast safeties. I don't think that it is any coincidence that the 2 most successful incarnations of this D (us and Pit) each have a sub 4.4 safety. Nor is it any coincidence that Ted went and drafted a significantly faster SS.

A zone blitz could be sending 4 but dropping someone unexpected into coverage, which is the way it was always explained on TV when it first came to prominence. They always emphasized the attention to coverage while sending someone on the rush unexpectedly. The extra coverage is not going to be as good as the LB or DB he is replacing.

But given the statement of the coordinator, he seems to be talking about the two seems in the cover 3 deep, between the safety and corner (or whoever is covering the deep sideline). In fact, it would seem he assumes there are 4 across short in some kind of coverage, to give the blitz time to get home.

The problem is that many of these alignments and personnel are situation specific. My favorite part of the Steelers D (and the Packers have executed it a couple of times this year) is when they force 3rd and long and can play deep while possibly blitzing, forcing an outlet throw well short of the first down marker.

[bobblehead]

Agreed. Insightful. Balanced. Un-Bedard-like.

Not to pick on him, because I did like the article, but he stays true to form in not letting the facts get in the way of a good story...

It almost seems inconceivable given their status as two of the top thinkers on their side of the football, but Monday night will mark the first time Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz and Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers have matched wits in the National Football League.

Martz directed the Detroit Lions against the Miami Dolphins in 2006, but Capers was calling the plays for Nick Saban's personal defense at the time.

Since Saban was the head coach and Capers was only calling the defensive plays, they didn't really "match wits?"

Bedard could have rephrased that to make the same point, but he flat out contredicts himself within two sentences.

Just sayin'

I think his point was that it wasn't capers' defense, it was saban's. Capers was calling the plays for a defense he didn't design. That is the way I read it.

[MJZiggy]

Agreed. Insightful. Balanced. Un-Bedard-like.

Wonder who he paid to write it for him. Kidding.

[Cheesehead Craig]

It's threads like these that make me love the damn place so much.

Fantastic discussion guys, learning a ton here.

[Fritz]

I think the coordinator in Bedard's article basically covers the entire question. Every defense has a weakness somewhere. The question is where and can the offense you face exploit it?

He didn't like the zone-blitz as an approach because he felt the weakness was deep. And if this coordinator is going to lose a battle, he is going to lose it short and force the offense to make more good plays to score, rather than give up a big gainer.

Capers and LeBeau have made a living by continuously racheting up pressure until they get a stop or big play for the defense. Ironically (not if you are named wist), Capers went away from this concept last year when DBs were dropping like flies. I agree with wist that this approach is beneficial in today's game, where the advantage has been tilted so far in the offense's direction, that putting together a string a good, short plays is commonplace. To string the offense along is simply delaying the score. QB completion percentages are off the charts, in part, because of the rule changes.

Its worth noting that the West Coast offense was designed specifically to defeat the Cover 2 of teams in the seventies like the Pittsburgh Steelers. Dungy began his coaching career with the Steelers during a time when they switched from the famous Steel Curtain 4-3 after all the HOFers retired. Pittsburgh went back to the 3-4 when the 4-3 was ascendant. But they still played plenty of zone.

Fast forward to Tampa, where he was faced with the same challenge of stopping the West Coast offense, but merged his ideas with Kiffin and suddenly he was combating the West Coast in a 4-3 with zone coverage again. As Waldo points out, it was a different kind of zone and required different personnel to run it. Though, like in Pittsburgh, you needed a MLB who could run like the wind.

Awesome thread. Kudos to PB, Waldo, all you football-knowledgeable people. And as an aside, I think that Packerrats is on the upswing despite the lack of a home page. More and more intelligent conversation, good postings.


I know litttle about the cover-2 versus man-2 versus the Martian-Deep-3 split (hey, I just invented a defense!) so this thread has been great.

If I am reading this correctly, Waldo is saying that the real weakness of Capers's defense is the short stuff that can take time to develop - which is to say, the screen pass (which the Bears have exploited). PB is making the point (with which I wholeheartedly agree) that the bend-but-don't break style of defense in vogue several years back just doesn't work anymore because offenses have become too proficient.

My recollection - and it is only that - is that way back in the 70's, completion percentages were much lower than they are today. However, a few years back on this site or the old JSO site I actually did some research about frequency of passing, and was surprised to find that in the 50's and 60's pass attempts were much higher per game than I'd imagined, but dropped in the 70's.

But my memory is that back in the 70's a guy who could complete 55% of his passes was doing pretty well.

[Smidgeon]

Awesome thread. Kudos to PB, Waldo, all you football-knowledgeable people. And as an aside, I think that Packerrats is on the upswing despite the lack of a home page. More and more intelligent conversation, good postings.

Agreed. Perhaps the long summer without football was getting to be too much.

[pbmax]

The current generation of football pundits grew up in an era when everyone believed the running game was the key to all football. But in reality, the 70s were a severe deviation from the previous two decades and some teams, like the Packers and Bears, before then.

No one remembers this, but in the early days of Bill Walsh, John Madden broadcast the 49er games like he was describing the Run and Shoot or the Air Raid offense from college. He clearly thought it was unwise and a poor choice of strategy, even while it worked. And this was from a guy, who despite going to school on Lombardi's running game, was influenced by Al Davis/Sid Gilliam in the passing game. The success of that team made him change his tune. But he never seemed to sign off on the wisdom of passing versus running, he reluctantly ascribed it to rules changes and the current coaching fad.

You see the result of this obstinacy in JSO's coverage, where three beat writers, who have witnessed the local team win a Super Bowl, playoff games and a majority of regular season games with a passing game, still think that you need to run the ball to win in November and December. And, of course, the playoffs if they are in cold weather.

It still has not occurred to them (at least not in their writing) that much of the running success they worship as the key to victory for this franchise, is a result of being the better team with a lead, rather than the other way around.

[Fritz]

The current generation of football pundits grew up in an era when everyone believed the running game was the key to all football. But in reality, the 70s were a severe deviation from the previous two decades and some teams, like the Packers and Bears, before then.

No one remembers this, but in the early days of Bill Walsh, John Madden broadcast the 49er games like he was describing the Run and Shoot or the Air Raid offense from college. He clearly thought it was unwise and a poor choice of strategy, even while it worked. And this was from a guy, who despite going to school on Lombardi's running game, was influenced by Al Davis/Sid Gilliam in the passing game. The success of that team made him change his tune. But he never seemed to sign off on the wisdom of passing versus running, he reluctantly ascribed it to rules changes and the current coaching fad.

You see the result of this obstinacy in JSO's coverage, where three beat writers, who have witnessed the local team win a Super Bowl, playoff games and a majority of regular season games with a passing game, still think that you need to run the ball to win in November and December. And, of course, the playoffs if they are in cold weather.

It still has not occurred to them (at least not in their writing) that much of the running success they worship as the key to victory for this franchise, is a result of being the better team with a lead, rather than the other way around.

Having come of age in the late 70's, I am one of that generation raised on running the football. I have to admit to that prejudice and have gotten nervous at the constant passing of the Packers over the past 20 years or so. My worry is that, knowing the team will pass, opposing pass rushers will pin their ears back and Packer QB's will get the snot beat out of them. I worry about pass protection (with good reason last year, I might add!).

However, I vowed to myself this summer to give that up and admit that the passing game works, and to stop pleading with the television for MM to run the football. I've got to trust that MM knows how to scheme to stop the opponent's rush, and that passing works best, aided by maybe 17 - 25 rushes per game.

I tell you what though, it's like kicking any habit. It ain't easy. I grew up with Walter Payton, with the end of Gale Sayers's career, with Franco Harris and the Redskins' old drunk running back - John something? If I recall the research I did a few years back, the 70's was one of the runningest decades ever. And DB's made a living knocking receivers' heads off, and if you hit a quarterback in the head you'd made a good play.

[Cheesehead Craig]

It still has not occurred to them (at least not in their writing) that much of the running success they worship as the key to victory for this franchise, is a result of being the better team with a lead, rather than the other way around.

Exactly, It's a myth I hope many other teams cling to so that the Packers can pummel them.

[pbmax]

I tell you what though, it's like kicking any habit. It ain't easy. I grew up with Walter Payton, with the end of Gale Sayers's career, with Franco Harris and the Redskins' old drunk running back - John something? If I recall the research I did a few years back, the 70's was one of the runningest decades ever. And DB's made a living knocking receivers' heads off, and if you hit a quarterback in the head you'd made a good play.

John Riggins. We nicknamed a friend of ours, who played with a similar style, after him. Riggo.

[pbmax]

It still has not occurred to them (at least not in their writing) that much of the running success they worship as the key to victory for this franchise, is a result of being the better team with a lead, rather than the other way around.

Exactly, It's a myth I hope many other teams cling to so that the Packers can pummel them.

You can still win by running, the Shanahan Bronco's teams were run first, but it is not any guarantee. You need first downs (or big plays) through any means necessary. Usually, that means you need to do a few things better than most. One of those ingredients can certainly be the run. But there is no magic mixture.

[Fritz]

I suppose logic dictates that it's easier to have to players standing fifteen yards apart and have one throw the ball through the air to the other guy than give one guy a ball and tell him to run past a bunch of guys who are trying to tackle him.