richhilljr Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Ok. For those of you (probably everyone) who knows more about me than this stuff, please try to help me sort through this: We will know more after this weekend, but here are some initial thoughts on some schemes in the NFL. It looks to me like teams have figured out the Dallas and GB offenses. If so, expect to see both change the scheme a bit. Brett Favre said after the loss to the Bears that Chicago stayed in the Cover-2 the entire time. Does anyone know if that is what Buffalo did? I know they were doing that goofy stand-up d-line thing, which seemed to work pretty well. But, were they doing it off of the Cover-2? If it is that simple to beat those offenses, you can be certain both Dallas and GB will make adjustments. The question is whether those adjustments will hinder the offensive production of either team. I'm betting they will. NE still has not been tested, but Wade Phillips' 3-4 will be interesting. Does anyone know if you can run a Cover-2 or 3 out of a 3-4 or whether it is easy to switch from a 3-4 to a Cover-2? The great weakness of the Spread offense appears to be the "pass first" mentality. Those offenses want to be explosive and put up points by "spreading" the field and stricking quickly. Am I off base here? Therefore, if you defeat the "quickness" and slow down the defense, you will force these teams to run the ball. NE can do that...GB and Dallas are untested in this area thus far. So, if your spread is one dimensional, your offense can be broken. That is why I think Gibbs and Saunders are trying to institute a modified version of the "spread" offense...one that is "run first" or at least "run balanced." The entire philosophy depends upon slowing down the clock but being able to strick long and quickly if necessary. The beauty of the approach is that it keeps defenses guessing. If your opponent is equally capable of throwing and running, your defense better guess right or forget it. On the other hand, a pass-first offense which relies heavily on its QB (i.e Romo sits to pee, Favre, Kitna) is vulnerable to a defensive scheme which guesses pass most of the time. NE is a bit different because they have demonstrated an ability to run the ball over and over and consistently, even though they really haven't needed to do so thus far. Tell me where I am wrong. Hail! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bugski1210 Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 It looks to me like teams have figured out the Dallas and GB offenses. If so, expect to see both change the scheme a bit. Brett Favre said after the loss to the Bears that Chicago stayed in the Cover-2 the entire time. Does anyone know if that is what Buffalo did? I think mostly Buffalo was using the Cover 3 against the Cowboys... at least they were during Romo sits to pee's first interception. Had it been a Cover 2 the safety would not have been in the middle of the field and shaded over to one side of the field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richhilljr Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 I think mostly Buffalo was using the Cover 3 against the Cowboys... at least they were during Romo sits to pee's first interception. Had it been a Cover 2 the safety would not have been in the middle of the field and shaded over to one side of the field. That may be why Greg Williams developed the Cover 3 in pre-season...it gives us an option when we play those Spread teams. Is that what we utilized against Detroit? It looked like a Cover 2 to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SloppyOneXXVI Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 NE still has not been tested, but Wade Phillips' 3-4 will be interesting. Does anyone know if you can run a Cover-2 or 3 out of a 3-4 or whether it is easy to switch from a 3-4 to a Cover-2? First, let me give a short explaination of cover-3. 1. front four rush the quarterback. (easy so far right?) 2. outside linebackers have either flats or hook zones (about 8 yards back towards the sidelines). This depends on the play call, variation of the cover-3. 3. Middle linebacker plays in the middle, intermediate route zone. 4. Safties, one has the deep center of the field, and the other moves up to help with the middle linebacker. (This can vary to a large extent as well) 5. Corners each have the deep thirds of their side of the field. This is as basic as cover 3 can get. You can run a Cover-2 or Cover-3 from a 3-4, and actually you can do it with more creativity. In a 4-3 defense, cover-2 and 3 require a team to rush their front four and get into zones with their back seven. Granted, this is the most basic way to run cover-2 and 3. However, in a 3-4 defense, a team only has 3 down linemen, and 8 players back. (Talking about cover-3 again.) Therefore, the team can blitz either of its middle or outside linebackers and still have 7 back. Its also easy to blitz corners because both safties can stay in the deep zones (as opposed to one being in the short zone) and there are already 4 linebackers to play the 4 short zones described above. So to make a long story short, yes you can play cover-3 (and this would easily work for cover-2 as well) in a 3-4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richhilljr Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 You can run a Cover-2 or Cover-3 from a 3-4, and actually you can do it with more creativity. In a 4-3 defense, cover-2 and 3 require a team to rush their front four and get into zones with their back seven. Granted, this is the most basic way to run cover-2 and 3. However, in a 3-4 defense, a team only has 3 down linemen, and 8 players back. (Talking about cover-3 again.) Therefore, the team can blitz either of its middle or outside linebackers and still have 7 back. Its also easy to blitz corners because both safties can stay in the deep zones (as opposed to one being in the short zone) and there are already 4 linebackers to play the 4 short zones described above. So to make a long story short, yes you can play cover-3 (and this would easily work for cover-2 as well) in a 3-4. Ok, but with only 3 men up front, your rush will be less effective unless you bring a fourth up thus effectively switching to a 4-3 with zones. Right? If you don't bring an extra guy up, you've got an extra person to cover the middle or one of the side zones, so that would seem to be a good way of shutting down that middle area. I'll bet you could run more easily against a 3-4 cover than a 4-3 cover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Tater Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Does anyone know if you can run a Cover-2 or 3 out of a 3-4 or whether it is easy to switch from a 3-4 to a Cover-2? Why would a cover-2 be incompatible with a 3-4? I'd suspect that, given the right people, you'd be able to run a c-2 with 1 or 2 more blitz packages than a c-2 from a 4-3. A cover-2 can be run from all defensive formations I've ever seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlobberknockerSkinsFan Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 So, here is an example of a Cover 3 out of a 3-4 D. Notice this does leave you vulnerable to Draws and some screens.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whatmeworry Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Our basic formation is a 4-3 and i don't look for that to change. That said I'd like to Blades on the field more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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