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What's your defensive philosophy?


dustinwhylee

Defensive Philosophy  

36 members have voted

  1. 1. What's your defensive philosophy?

    • Boom or bust
      26
    • Bend but don't break
      10


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There is a reason Ed Reed will end up as one of the best safeties of all time. He had a great defensive line and linebackers in front of him. I never saw a safety get so many powder puff picks.

Our fan base seems to prefer paying corners and safeties.

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My biggest gripe with the bend don't break philosophy is it gives up too much field position.  Field position last season for us was awful.  I understand it, especially when you have a weak secondary, because you don't want to give up the big play.

 

Personally, I would like to see us achieve more negative plays on 1st and 2nd down.  I'd like to see us be a bit more aggressive early, try to let our offense get a lead, and then turn the game over to Almo.  

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It means you give up a ton of yards but don't give up a lot of points. Sorta like how our defense played towards the end of 2012.

I'll have to vote for bend but don't break. I don't think our guys have proven to be playmakers in the NFL, and save for Dhall I don't see any established play makers on the back end. Fact is the secondary sucks and sucks badly and save for some terrific sophomore performances, we are going to give up a TON of yards. But I think we have enough talent on the front 7 to get some stops even after letting them drive down the field.

 

While I get what you are saying, I will disagree with how the end of 2012 went. The first half we gave up yards and pts with ease, Yds were  - 406/gm total with 314.3 passing/gm and 92.1 rushing. This led to 28.4 pts/gm.

 

The pts for the second half went down as you stated - from 28.4 to 20.1.  But yds also went down significantly to the point we did not give up a ton of yds but few pts. - from 406/gm to less than 350/gm!!  This included reducing passing yds by 65yds/gm. Just for those playing at home 406 put is in 31st for yds - 28 pts tied for 30th. While 350/yds put us at 15th and 20.4/pts would put us at 9th.

 

I like pressure and TOs and I am OK giving a quick score here and there, as long at it's here or there, not 28 pts in Q - wait that was us...... 

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I agree with Gregg Williams philosophy. Build from the secondary in. In today's game, if you don't have players that can match up with these pass games, you're a sitting duck and will be lucky to win more than 6-7 games a season.

Of course if you have a STUD dline man fall into your lap you take him too.

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There is a reason Ed Reed will end up as one of the best safeties of all time. He had a great defensive line and linebackers in front of him. I never saw a safety get so many powder puff picks.

Our fan base seems to prefer paying corners and safeties.

Why I was against spending big money on Byrd/Mitchel/Talib etc.

I actually don't think that any defense really watns to be bend-but-don't-break.

I think that the differentiation is more "read and react" vs. (and I don't know a good term, but ... ) Aggressive. It might be somewhat semantics, but I think it's an important distinction. Also, I think you can use just about any base defense and formation and do either.

In other words, read and react looks at what the offense is doing, and tries to adjust on the fly. An "aggressive" defense tries to force the offense to react to them.

Both can work with the right talent. Neither will work with sub-par talent.

My personal opinion is that it's always better to have the other team react to what you're doing, so I would prefer being more aggressive, and force the offens to change adjust to me.

What's also worth noting is that a read-and-react defense, with the proper talent, can get a ton of turnovers and be a top 5 defense. Or it can allow teams to walk up and down the field on them.

And aggressive defense can also backfire. If you are aggressive, but don't have the right talent, you give up yards and points. There were times last year when the Skins consistently brought 5, but the talent wasn't there, it was predictable, picked up, and they still gave up big yardage.

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I'm still wondering what the OP means by a bend but don't break defense.

What are some examples in his view of a bend but don't break defense.

I obviously can't speak for him but I took it as a lot of Cover-2, keep the play in front of you type plays.  Rush 4 and force the offense to dink and dunk down the field.  Fairly passive and more focused on preventing the big play than looking for the big play/turnover.

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I see it as rushing through the pass lanes in order to force the QB to float the ball and thus force turnovers on the back end, make sure of bringing guys to the ground when you lay hands on them instead of going for the big play and play assignments rather than just go after the ball.  Can appear very aggressive when implemented properly.

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I obviously can't speak for him but I took it as a lot of Cover-2, keep the play in front of you type plays.  Rush 4 and force the offense to dink and dunk down the field.  Fairly passive and more focused on preventing the big play than looking for the big play/turnover.

That's my take also. I think the OP would consider zone defenses that keep the ball in front of them "bend but don't break" but I wouldn't. Some of the best defenses in history have been zone heavy Cover-2/Tampa-2. Even Seattle's defense, which I'm sure most would consider aggressive, played alot of Cover-3 zone.

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The purpose of defense is to keep the other team from scoring. Turnovers are great, and they are game changing plays.

But if you told me that the defense could limit teams to ~17 PPG, I really wouldn't care how' many yards they gave up in the process.

But to give up only 17ppg, you're going to have to get off the field and create turnovers.

Agreed. Obviously, I'd like to have a defense that posts shutouts every week and averaged negative yards allowed per game, but since that's an impossibility, I just want a team that keeps opponents out of the end zone and, preferably, out of field goal range. If that means giving up a few first downs every drive, fine. Heck, it might give the offense some time to catch its breath and prepare for the next series .

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The defense needs to change week by week, depending on the success of our front four. If our front 4 is not getting pressure, I want a 5th and 6th guy brought, even if we have to zone a bit more out back. My preferred defense tries to pressure the QB into mistakes, versus hoping he makes one mistake by giving him what I consider far too many chances. Make him make 15 plays to beat us = bend don't break. A QB without pressure, will have to have an unforced error for us to win in BDB.

 

What I want to see happen more, if we have pressure from our front 4, is do not hesitate to move up our corners. I can't take another Green Bay debacle game, starting out so strong and then falling apart.. Foot on the neck, don't let them off the hook like we did with Rodgers.

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Some Cover-3 BOTH press and OFF (lol, everyone's fav right? ;)

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A lil Cloud : as a 'trap' defense that allows one of the CBs to squat on a route

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Of course some Cover-1 again both press and OFF

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Gotta have at least  1 Cover 4:

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And of course some blitz:

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Zone Blitz

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Up Front:

Eagle

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Of course we gotta run some of everyone's favorite..2-gap Okie (who knew so many of our fans hated Okie as much as Haynesworth?)

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 A.C.E.

 

1. Attitude: morale can be wiped away in the blink of an eye. Their mindset should be nothing is going to stop us from doing what we want to do. Dictate more, play reactionary defense less.

2. Chemistry: this falls on players not communicating with each other, blowing assignments. Each player on the team should know what the other players are doing and thinking; get on the same page with each other.

3. Execution: do your job, plain and simple. The less highlight reel chasers we have, the better. After last year, there shouldn't be a player on the team dancing around after making a stop, just take your ass back to the huddle/sidelines and get ready for the next play. There will be plenty of time to 'express emotions' if they do their job on a consistent level.

 

The defense lacks aggression, at least controlled aggression. A smart but attacking defense will keep most offenses on their heels, but until I see the current DC getting things turned around, I'm not holding my breath.

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- The defensive philosophy should really be predicated by your opponent (ie. unpredictability, flexibility, attacking/aggressiveness, conservative/safe, stop the run, pressure the passing game, focus on stopping specific players/plays, etc).

- However, a defense can have an identity. Any that can be any number of things you value. A defense can have common physical characteristics (size/speed), attitude (physicality, professionalism, swagger/confidence), fundamentally sound (capabilities), longevity (quality of depth), etc.

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I think in today's NFL you HAVE to be aggressive. The rules favor the WRs too much and the QBs are too good when given time.

 

The way I see it, you're going to give up points in today's NFL. So you're better off being aggressive and trying to force turnovers to give you more possessions and maybe even score some of those points back.

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Agrees with this! Either you play aggressive and take over the game, or play on your heels and get schooled.

 

Against a high-powered quick-strike offense.... you don`t think it would be wise to slow the game down to keep their offense off the field -- like the Giants did to the Bills in the Super Bowl? You don`t think it be wise to minimize possessions... and milk the clock... playing a field-position game?

 

And also... by playing a bend-but-don`t-break.... you`re increasing the amount of plays in each possession for the offense to score. If it takes a team 13 plays each possession to score... you`re increasing the odds that at least 1 of those plays may result in an error that could lead into a turnover.

 

There`s a time and place for everything.

 

However, if you`re the dominant team (against a particular opponent) with particularly with a dominant defense... there`s no need to scheme that way....  against that opponent.... that week.

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If I were building a defense I would really focus on the line of scrimmage and front 7. I would never pay top dollar for a cornerback complete waste if money. Safeties used to be had cheap but that has changed in the past few years

I would use first round picks on defensive line and linebackers and I would comb the mid rounds and free agency to build my secondary. I would only ask my secondary to play basic zones and man coverages and I would almost always rush four max five, the idea being that you could create pressure with your first round talent and drop 7 into coverage. You don't have to be very good when there are 7 of you covering for a few seconds. Ideally your secondary doesn't need to possess talent but will look great as they take advantage of pressure situations.

Basically very vanilla concepts with talent focus on the front 7

 

So basically, the St. Louis Rams this upcoming season?

 

Although I doubt Greg Williams will be able to contain himself when it comes to sending extra rushers early and often.

There is a reason Ed Reed will end up as one of the best safeties of all time. He had a great defensive line and linebackers in front of him. I never saw a safety get so many powder puff picks. Our fan base seems to prefer paying corners and safeties.

 

Or, you know, maybe the fact that he had some of the best range in NFL history?  Bill Belichik and Tom Brady weren't gushing about Reed specifically in "A Football Life" just because of all the "powder puff picks" he was getting throughout his career.

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I don't like either type of defense because they don't give you enough stability or a chance to win. The Redskins defense plays with their CB's off the WR's so they get free release from the LOS which allows for big plays. It is apart of the BDB mentality. Teams can throw slants at will on this type of defense. So 5and 6 yard catches are available all the time. If our CB's can't run with their WR's then we need to draft big physical CB's that can play press coverage andmake them work to get off the line. Our LB's can't play in coverage in the 3-4 defense because they are always coming after the QB which puts pressure on the guys in the middle to cover a wider space. Our DL never gets to the QB because we have three against five unless we bring our LB's then it is an even match. That allows the QB to sit back in the pocket and pick the defense apart.

 

One of the things has been consistent in the lack of production is the timing of blitzes and where they blitz from. When was the last time you saw the Redskins DL do a stunt? All they do is drive right into the blocker and maintain the block so the blocker can steer them out of the play. No swim moves or any attempt to shed blocks happens. When was the last time a Redskin DL member shed a block and made a tackle for a loss? See what I am saying. They are not taught to shed blocks or disrupt the line play. That is how you make an offense uncomfortable and out of sync. It happened a lot to our OLine last year. Undersized OLines don't work in the NFl anymore.They will get run over.

 

So We need someone who knows how to teach defense that is aggressive and physical to wear down and disrupt other teams offensive flow. We do not have that person here in DC because Jim Haslett's track record proves that. So that is why I did not vote for either of the choices. 

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