After 1 preseason game - Pack it in, the season is already over

[3irty1]

You're being intentionally thick. If you stop running the beefy 2-4 on first down are replace it with the 3-4 you're no longer running the 2-4 80% of the time now are you?

Ever wonder why so many college DE's become 3-4 OLB? Because its the 4-3 job that most resembles the responsibilities of a 3-4 OLB. They are primarily pass rushers and many OLB put their hand down regularly to play DE (see Wake, Ware, Suggs, etc) so when I say the only difference is a job title and a hand on the ground that's what I'm talking about. Since this is the most important defensive position in the NFL, you can get cute with Clay on occasion but to get your moneys worth he's going to need to be putting pressure on the QB off the edge.

To turn a 4-3 into a 4-2 you take a LB off the field.
To turn a 4-3 into a 3-3 you take your NT off the field.
To turn a 3-4 into a 3-3 you take your NT off the field and put one of your OLB in a 3 pt stance.
To turn a 3-4 into a 2-4 you take your NT off the field.

The 3-3 isn't more common than the 2-4 even though its used by both 3-4 and 4-3 teams, but seriously go get a look at tell me where you want Clay to play. If its anywhere off the edge then we'll agree to disagree about that. If you think him putting his hand on the ground solves all our defensive problems we'll agree to disagree about that instead.

[Just Jeff]

You're being intentionally thick. If you stop running the beefy 2-4 on first down are replace it with the 3-4 you're no longer running the 2-4 80% of the time now are you?

Ever wonder why so many college DE's become 3-4 OLB? Because its the 4-3 job that most resembles the responsibilities of a 3-4 OLB. They are primarily pass rushers and many OLB put their hand down regularly to play DE (see Wake, Ware, Suggs, etc) so when I say the only difference is a job title and a hand on the ground that's what I'm talking about. Since this is the most important defensive position in the NFL, you can get cute with Clay on occasion but to get your moneys worth he's going to need to be putting pressure on the QB off the edge.

To turn a 4-3 into a 4-2 you take a LB off the field.
To turn a 4-3 into a 3-3 you take your NT off the field.
To turn a 3-4 into a 3-3 you take your NT off the field and put one of your OLB in a 3 pt stance.
To turn a 3-4 into a 2-4 you take your NT off the field.

The 3-3 isn't more common than the 2-4 even though its used by both 3-4 and 4-3 teams, but seriously go get a look at tell me where you want Clay to play. If its anywhere off the edge then we'll agree to disagree about that. If you think him putting his hand on the ground solves all our defensive problems we'll agree to disagree about that instead.

You can agree the keep him on the edge and there are two edges, yes? You can also put him on the two edges, with in a three point. I can't see how that would hurt. I can see how it would help. I can also see putting him inside and having him stunt outside. I could also see him outside stunting inside. I can see lots of things to do that aren't what we've been doing. Having Clay inside would be a new look. I'm not a fan of the old look. If he reads run, I put him ahead of our existing ILB at stopping the run. If he reads pass, he could cover the short zone or matchup with a TE short. Or on a run read he could either rush up the middle or stunt outside. You got a star player (albeit for half a season on average), use him in all sorts of ways. One might work. The one we have him in now..... not so much.

[3irty1]

You can agree the keep him on the edge and there are two edges, yes? You can also put him on the two edges, with in a three point. I can't see how that would hurt. I can see how it would help. I can also see putting him inside and having him stunt outside. I could also see him outside stunting inside. I can see lots of things to do that aren't what we've been doing. Having Clay inside would be a new look. I'm not a fan of the old look. If he reads run, I put him ahead of our existing ILB at stopping the run. If he reads pass, he could cover the short zone or matchup with a TE short. Or on a run read he could either rush up the middle or stunt outside. You got a star player (albeit for half a season on average), use him in all sorts of ways. One might work. The one we have him in now..... not so much.

The one we have him in now is the one that made him a star. When he's on the field you're not happy with what you're getting out of Clay? Wow. I'm with Wist about some of the other 10 guys and just trying to show him the tradeoffs of his scheming. But if you think perennial pro bowler Clay Matthews is held back by the scheme I guess we can agree to disagree about that.

[bobblehead]

Specialized Passing Defenses are the New Base Defenses Throughout the League

True, but as wist points out, nobody is using our 2-4....and getting shitty results.

[wist43]

You're being intentionally thick. If you stop running the beefy 2-4 on first down are replace it with the 3-4 you're no longer running the 2-4 80% of the time now are you?

Ever wonder why so many college DE's become 3-4 OLB? Because its the 4-3 job that most resembles the responsibilities of a 3-4 OLB. They are primarily pass rushers and many OLB put their hand down regularly to play DE (see Wake, Ware, Suggs, etc) so when I say the only difference is a job title and a hand on the ground that's what I'm talking about. Since this is the most important defensive position in the NFL, you can get cute with Clay on occasion but to get your moneys worth he's going to need to be putting pressure on the QB off the edge.

To turn a 4-3 into a 4-2 you take a LB off the field.

Usually, yes that is what a DC will do.

To turn a 4-3 into a 3-3 you take your NT off the field.

You typically won't have a NT on the field in a 4 man line - but if a 4-3 team did go to a 3-3, it would be a DL that would come off, of course.

To turn a 3-4 into a 3-3 you take your NT off the field and put one of your OLB in a 3 pt stance.

Some teams yes - but our personnel certainly don't make that a viable solution - when we go to a 3-3, we would need to replace all 3 down linemen in the base, and replace them with nickel pass rushers - defensive linemen, not linebackers; and the one of the ILB would come off the field along with the 3 defensive linemen.

This is what Baltimore has done for quite some time now - Ngata, used to stay on the field almost every snap, but age and injury are catching up with him... and of course their LB's had heretofore always been much better than ours.

To turn a 3-4 into a 2-4 you take your NT off the field.

Capers doesn't do that... certainly not in his "jumbo nickel". Capers jumbo nickel essentially had 2 NT's line up as the "2"... it killed us in more ways than 1, i.e. not only did we not stop the run with any consistency, we couldn't get any pass rush either, b/c Pickett and Raji were not there to rush the passer, they were there to clog up the middle.

As for our pass rush 2-4 nickel, with D. Jones and Daniels on the line, and Matthews and Peppers at OLB - expect that this alignment will work okay at times, but you still have those below average ILB's on the field, and the pass rush tends to be very, very static.

Given our personnel, the 3-3 is a much, much better fit.

The 3-3 isn't more common than the 2-4 even though its used by both 3-4 and 4-3 teams, but seriously go get a look at tell me where you want Clay to play. If its anywhere off the edge then we'll agree to disagree about that. If you think him putting his hand on the ground solves all our defensive problems we'll agree to disagree about that instead.

About 1/2 of the teams played at least some 2-4... most of them, no more than 10%. No one played it more than 40% of the time - except Green Bay which played it 65% of the time.

Last time I looked up alignments, the 3-3 and 4-2 were the most common nickel alignments.

[pbmax]

Having Clay inside would be a new look. I'm not a fan of the old look. If he reads run, I put him ahead of our existing ILB at stopping the run. If he reads pass, he could cover the short zone or matchup with a TE short. Or on a run read he could either rush up the middle or stunt outside. You got a star player (albeit for half a season on average), use him in all sorts of ways. One might work. The one we have him in now..... not so much.

He has done this and was doing this last year. In fact, it was one of the adjustments Capers made in 2012 to get him off the tackles he wasn't beating as regularly. It had to stop twice last year, once when he got hurt and again when every other OLB was hurt and they had only Muluma and Palmer to spell him. When he got hurt and when every other OLB was hurt and they had no one but Palmer and Mulumba to line up at OLB to spell him.

[Just Jeff]

He has done this and was doing this last year. In fact, it was one of the adjustments Capers made in 2012 to get him off the tackles he wasn't beating as regularly. It had to stop twice last year, once when he got hurt and again when every other OLB was hurt and they had only Muluma and Palmer to spell him. When he got hurt and when every other OLB was hurt and they had no one but Palmer and Mulumba to line up at OLB to spell him.

I know, I was responding to 3irty1 who said he didn't see any other role for CM3 other than OLB standing up.

[wist43]

Wist, I am with you mostly, but you don't concede certain points. One is that if a team puts 3 wide on the field they are taking one blocker away from their running game. We should still be able to deal with the run in mid distance situations. My gripe is when we match up on 2nd and goal from the 2. You don't need CB's to cover zones/flats. You need to stay big in these kind of situations to avoid getting run over. 3rd and 7 or more however....we should be able to stop the run in the 2-4. Now, based on what we have seen so far, we can't be sure what will happen in the regular season. I am not necessarily optimistic, but I am not suicidal either.

I won't concede that 3 wides automatically means pass, or that the offense is at a blocking disadvantage even against a base defense.

Play side - you're going to have the same number of blockers at the point of attack most of the time anyway. You still have a strong side/weak side, you are still going to be sending guys in motion, etc.

Just as a team lining up with 2 WR's, 2 RB's, and 1 TE isn't a slam dunk to run. Most teams are looking for more athletic, get up the seam types of TE's these days anyway - so they're always a threat in the passing game; and RB's like Forte and Gio Bernard are always a threat to catch passes.

It only makes sense to run base against their base personnel - but, when they go 3 wides, a defense needs to be able to defend that out of both the nickel and the base. The nickel response is dependent upon 1) your personnel, and what their strengths and weaknesses are; and 2) your opponent, their personnel, and their strengths, weaknesses, and tendancies.

Against most opponents, there is no reason we shouldn't be in base against 3 wides on 1st and 10 - but again, that is dependent upon the opponent and their tendancies.

By playing 2-4 70% of the time (the breakdown is about 20% base, 10% dime/other, and 70% nickel - almost all of which is 2-4), we're getting run over - the Green Bay Packers are not a good run defense team. I think we had the players to effectively stop the run, but Capers misused them in the jumbo 2-4, and now those guys are gone.

One of the big problems with our 2-4 was that we had crap opposite Clay. Perry is perfectly capable of playing that role, but he hasn't. He isn't miscast, he simply lacks an attribute. Not sure if its talent, desire, brains, or my guess, health...whatever, but he isn't doing what he is easily strong enough and fast enough to accomplish. Neal did do it, but then Mathews was hurt. Hawk stinks on ice when it comes to taking on a blocker, and Jones isn't much better which exposes the problem even more. Honestly though, in the 2-4, the 2 DL and the OLB have to be stout enough that Jones/Hawk don't have to defeat anyone other than a FB or TE. To date they haven't been, and that's not usually a schematic problem (except in shorter yardage in the red zone).

This addresses personnel - the Niners can get away with running the 2-4 40% of the time b/c their personnel are vastly superior to ours. I think we have good personnel, but they need to be used differently. We simply don't have the players to run the 2-4 - that's my point, lol...

I hate the alignment anyway, b/c if I were a DC I would see it as limiting my ability to attack with size and length in the middle of the field. I want 3 DL firing out of their stances that the OL has to deal with - I can dictate those matchups; Matthews is more often than not coming on the blitz, and you can do anything you want with the other 2.

What I don't want is for both of the other 2 to be Brad Jones and AJ Hawk. Those 2 players are a huge liability. If I'm DC, and those are the players my GM stuck me with?? I'd be looking at ways to get them off the field as much as possible.

The 2-4 has a place as a subpackage, just as the 3-3 or 4-2 do... which one a team runs is dependent upon their personnel. Most teams do not run much 2-4 at all, and about half of all the teams don't run it at all.

The 2-4 is an alignment that would be much better manned by true 3-4 personnel, namely top flight linebackers. We do not have top flight linebackers, we have Clay Matthews and a bunch of slugs.

On the other hand, the 3-3 is geared more toward teams with strong defensive linemen and hybrid players - which is what Green Bay has, e.g. we should be running more 3-3, and little if any 2-4.

[Pugger]

Yeah... b/c our base alignments were the same as last year. They didn't change. Did you miss that when you were watching the game??

They'll probably not be running a "jumbo nickel" (thank God) - I can't imagine that Capers hasn't learned that lesson, but the 2-4 is very unsound the way that Capers uses it. He's still running it, and the personnel are largely the same - so I don't know why you guys expect that things will be substantially different??

Peppers helps, and a healthy everyone can only help... but, we simply don't have the personnel to run a 3-4/2-4. Given our personnel, if we're not going to go back to a 4-3, we can get away with running a 3-4 base by employing some 4-3 principles; but nothing can be done to help the nickel alignment if Capers insists on benching defensive linemen in favor of either/or Hawk and Brad Jones.

I think we'll wear down as the season goes along, and we lose guys to injury... Capers won't adjust, and we'll likely have a repeat of last year. If everyone stays healthy, we can be better than last year, but that isn't saying much - we were terrible last year.

And we are going to show the entire world any of our changes in the first preseason game of the year? Seriously? Now, if it was all lip service and nothing is going to change in 2014 you have an argument. I suggest we wait and see how our D looks against the seachickens in week one before we decide Capers won't adjust. If he won't then he should be shown the door without haste.

[3irty1]

You admit that it seems the beefy nickel, the one with guys like Raji and Pickett, appear to be a thing of the past this season. Even if that's the only change, how are we going to manage to run the 2-4 65% of the time without running it in that situation? Those snaps make up the entire difference between us and the teams running schemes like ours when it comes to subpackage tendencies. Except the steelers who run relatively little nickel of any kind but run more base and much more dime.

Mainly though I don't feel you're recognizing the difference between OLB in a 2-4 and OLB in a 3-3. Sounds like what you really want to run is a 5-1 with the DE's standing up.

[MadScientist]

If one of the 4 in a 2-4 is Peppers, is it really different from a 3-3? If the Packers are in nickel and want to rush their best 4, Mathews and Peppers should both be rushing, so that naturally leads to a 2-4 formation.

Also in the review of the Titan's game, the papers were mentioning the Packers being in a 4-2. Was this something people here saw as well, or just dyslexic reporters?

[wist43]

And we are going to show the entire world any of our changes in the first preseason game of the year? Seriously? Now, if it was all lip service and nothing is going to change in 2014 you have an argument. I suggest we wait and see how our D looks against the seachickens in week one before we decide Capers won't adjust. If he won't then he should be shown the door without haste.

They stayed with the 2-4... no, nothing has changed except a few of the players. Pickett and Jolly are gone - both good players - and Peppers is in. He's a good player too, and he's a better fit for running a 2-4, but he's 63 years old and playing LB for the first time in his life.

The scheme doesn't fit the players - or - the players don't fit the scheme... take your pick - and that situation has not changed. 'Keep doing the same thing expecting different results'...

Keeping Capers as our DC is wasting Rodgers years... year after year - they have a way of ticking by.

[Rutnstrut]

They stayed with the 2-4... no, nothing has changed except a few of the players. Pickett and Jolly are gone - both good players - and Peppers is in. He's a good player too, and he's a better fit for running a 2-4, but he's 63 years old and playing LB for the first time in his life.

The scheme doesn't fit the players - or - the players don't fit the scheme... take your pick - and that situation has not changed. 'Keep doing the same thing expecting different results'...

Keeping Capers as our DC is wasting Rodgers years... year after year - they have a way of ticking by.

I totally agree with you, but the common reply here is they had a great D in 2010.

[Just Jeff]

I totally agree with you, but the common reply here is they had a great D in 2010.

Or "another armchair defensive cood. If you can't do better, shut up"

Or "who would you replace him with? If you can't name names, shut up"

In fairness, I would like to add that the above does not apply so much to this forum as it does to others. This seems to be a permissive, tolerant board. Other boards have a soft policy of banning people that disagree with the mod/admin.

[wist43]

If one of the 4 in a 2-4 is Peppers, is it really different from a 3-3? If the Packers are in nickel and want to rush their best 4, Mathews and Peppers should both be rushing, so that naturally leads to a 2-4 formation.

Also in the review of the Titan's game, the papers were mentioning the Packers being in a 4-2. Was this something people here saw as well, or just dyslexic reporters?

Peppers makes us better. He is a legit piece in any front six/seven. He's not what he was 5 years ago, but he is still a big, stong, fast dude. He will make us better just with his presence.

But by that same POV, 2 of the 4 are still Brad Jones and AJ Hawk. They're lower end calibur starting NFL Linebackers - so for Green Bay to play those 2, they are sitting one of their more talented defensive linemen. That's the point.

If the argument is that the 2 ILB's are to provide little or no threat of pass rush, but are needed for coverage - why have them on the field at all?? Just go to 7 DB's.

As for the 3-3, by definition you have 3 guys with their hands in the dirt - it helps generate pass rush up the middle. The way Capers does it, outside of the occassional blitz (which he is just brilliant at devising - some of his blitzes are a beautiful thing), the interior OL knows they only have to deal with the 2 DT's with an occasional T-E stunt. The outside guys can be counted on to rush upfield the majority of the time.

It makes pass protection an easier task for the offense - whereas I'm a big believer in controlling the LOS, and the center of the field. By doing so, the defense can make the offense give concessions - which can be counted upon, and a good defensive coordinator can make use of those advantages.

Any of this discussion relates to the 2-4 strictly against the pass - to deal with the run, i.e. Capers's 'jumbo nickel'?? That's a whole other can of worms, but the 3-3 would obviously increase our ability to defend the run in the nickel as well. It only makes sense to go to a 3-3.