H4: Finding Ed Reed
Five on five. [Upchurch]
When news broke recently that Jabrill Peppers was moving to safety, Brian threw up a quick explanatory post, Why Peppers Might Be A Safety, talking about how modern spread offenses dictate modern quarters defenses, which in turn dictate that the safety over the slot is the glamour position du jour.
An offensive innovation like the zone read will open up the entire book again as coaches figure out ways of running all the things they already like out of new looks, new play-action, etc. But defensive innovation, with a few notable exceptions, is much more reactive.
Often what we call a "new defense" is just rediscovering an old, unsound thing that takes away the thing offenses are doing these days. The 46 defense was bringing a safety down. The zone blitz was having a defensive end playing coverage. The Tampa 2 had a middle linebacker responsible for deep middle coverage. The 3-4 made three linemen responsible for six gaps. And the hybrid man/zones of today put your deep coverage into the middle of the run-stopping game.
The way a defensive innovation becomes a sustainably great defense is great players. Dantonio's quarters dominated college football with a string of NFL-bound defensive backs. The 3-4's proliferation through the NFL was accompanied by a rush on anything that looked like Vince Wilfork. The Steel Curtain (the first Tampa 2) was built around Jack Lambert. Miami (NFL Miami)'s "No Name" zone blitz defense had a 6'5/248 lb. track star named Bill Stanfill at WDE. And the '80s Bears could pull off this crap:
…because that "46" was the jersey number of one Doug Plank.
You don't need to be a football guru to see what made the 46 defense tough: there are eight dudes in the box, six of whom are just a few steps from the quarterback. Running into a stacked box is futile (DO YOU HEAR ME? DO YOU HEAR ME, AL?!?). You can try to identify who's blitzing and throw to holes in the coverage before they arrive, but you'd better have Dan Marino.
[After the jump: how to 46 a modern offense]
The Impact of a Dynamic Safety
One of my most visited bookmarked Chris Brown articles is How Troy Polamalu and Ed Reed Changed NFL Defenses.
Peppers-Like CB Recruits (Detail—>LINK) | |||
---|---|---|---|
Player | School | Size | Career Summary |
Justin King | PSU | 6'0/183 | Size and speed were overrated, but immediately an effective nickel and early NFL corner with a vagabond NFL career |
Demetrice Morley | Tenn | 6'0/176 | Nickel then moved to safety, was effective until career derailed by off-field issues |
Eric Berry | Tenn | 6'0/194 | Nickel then star safety probably deserved Heisman, NFL All Pro |
Patrick Peterson | LSU | 6'1/197 | Nickel then boundary corner, fringe Heisman candidate, NFL All Pro at CB |
Dre Kirkpatrick | Bama | 6'2/180 | Reserve on deep roster then bestial boundary CB. Backup NFL CB. |
LaMarcus Joyner | FSU | 5'8/192 | Safety/nickel, led resurgence of that defense. Rising NFL safety |
Charles Woodson | Mich | 6'1/195 | Blue know it. |
The theory behind the 46 was that offenses seized the advantage because defenses let them dictate terms. For 30 years, defenses more or less tried to match and mirror offenses based on personnel and alignment, but they couldn’t keep up. Ryan planned to negate this advantage by force — the 46’s simple guiding principle was to kick ass.
Kicking ass is usually a luxury of teams that have a decided advantage in player recruitment or retention; otherwise you're just playing rock-paper-scissors with the other coordinator.
The 46 itself was an aggressive formation that worked because it could line up so many players so close to the quarterback but still defend the deep pass because Plank could; once offenses began to spread out, quarterbacks again had the time and space to work through their choreographed progressions, and defenses were forced to get bendy again to cover all of that open space.
Football guys hate bendy. Walk into any defensive guy's presser in America on any given day and you're more likely than not going to hear him talk about wanting to "get more aggressive."
The Sliding Scale of Aggressive Quarters
As soon as the spread offense took hold, defensive coordinators began dreaming up ways of kicking its ass. The Greatest Show on Turf exploded onto the scene in the 1999 season; just one year later the offensively anemic Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl, giving up just 20 points in four playoff games.
The reason the Ravens could play super-aggressive against the run while remaining sound against spread passing was Rod Woodson, who could set up in a linebacker-ish spot and still get back to play deep. But that Woodson was at the tail end of his career; the Ravens sustained their dominance after Rod by drafting Ed Reed.
That defense took its name from the most bendy defensive look: cover 4:
Nobody's sending four verts against that, but you can run against it all day. What made it "Quarters" was this look was hybridized with Tampa 2 into a read scheme: if the inside receiver went vertical the safety would be there to catch him (left side of the gif below), and if he didn't the safety was free to cover the outside receiver over the top (right side of the gif below).
Aside from the "pattern matching" (Saban's term for it) of coverages, the additional benefit of Quarters was the safeties didn't have an immediate threat to cover, and therefore could peek in on the run game.
Nine Guys Versus the Run
Because of this, Quarters defenses like to claim they put "Nine in the Box," but what they really mean is they ultimately have nine defenders involved in their run fits. When you run this scheme, you quickly find the cornerbacks are basically playing man defense, especially since they're responsible for whatever those outside receivers do in the first few steps of the play. They can't really do that and play a run gap, but those safeties can.
Well the first rule of stopping the run game: how fast does the tackler get to his hole? If you're starting out loose, it's going to take some time before those defenders get to where the run's going, by which time the blocking is set up and the ballcarrier is picking his way to the hole.
The tighter you get, the more "aggressive" you can be against the run, the more effectively you can blitz, and the more you're in a position to dictate terms to the offense, i.e. kick some ass.
Starring Peppers as Ed Reed
We've come back around to something very much like 46 defense, and like 46 defense, that safety is sitting in a lot of space. This is why Quarters can only be as aggressive as its safeties' ability to cover the slot seam.
That "FS" in the diagram above is matched against the slot receiver, who through the history of the spread evolved into the havoc-wreaking star of the offense. Rodriguez found athletic little bugs who were death in space and blocked like mountain goats. Urban Meyer had them be that and super-smart, well-trained route-stemmers who could get to open space no matter how the defense played them. Holgo and the latest offenses had them be that and that and the other thing, and a supreme deep threat. All of that was toward the same goal: get that m'er f'ing defender away from my run game!
So you see why having Ed Reed lets you get away with ass-kicking, because that guy can reliably track down a slot bug in space, can't be blocked by anyone in the bell of normal human size distribution, is too agile to lose with clever route running, and will win any footrace against any receiver you try to send over the top of him.
This is what Michigan is going to try to do with a redshirt freshman who by every possible indication is going to be the best damn football player Michigan has fielded since Charles. How much it will kick ass will largely depend on how much Peppers can.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:41 AM ^
So what you are saying is, a move to safety is actually a move to the safety/linebacker/destroyer of worlds we all knew Jabrill could be.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:43 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 12:02 PM ^
Though I agree with you 100% and want him in this game destroyer role, the counterpoint is he could make one side of the field irrelevant, similar to Revis. He wouldn't be on the highlight reel, but he'd make a huge difference at CB as well.
Maybe at safety he can make the entire field irrelevant /s?
January 27th, 2015 at 12:07 PM ^
You can't really take a safety out the defense
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January 27th, 2015 at 12:14 PM ^
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January 27th, 2015 at 12:45 PM ^
it clearly makes no difference, teams that can take Calvin out of the game still usually have very little success against the lions
/s
January 27th, 2015 at 12:58 PM ^
Are the team's top 3 WRs more or less equal? Is it Bama who has Amari Cooper and some other dudes? Or is it a team like OSU who's run game is nearly impossible to stop without dynamic safety play?
January 27th, 2015 at 1:08 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 3:47 PM ^
Unfortunately, I think the move says more about what UM doesn't have at safety than what UM does have at corner. More than anything, though, I think the move is a sign of what the scheme will be and the type of players they want at safety.
January 27th, 2015 at 5:21 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 2:02 PM ^
The idea is that the FS position (as described above) can take away your slot and disrupt your running game. This causes more problems than taking away your best reciever.
It is also a different philosophy of defense. The idea isn't to take a player away from the offense and then play rock-paper-scissors with the other 10 guys. That is reactive. The idea is to be pro-active as a defense. The idea is to say that we, as a defense, don't give a shit what you do. We are going to pack the box, kill your running back and blitz your QB into next week. It is having a guy who can play like Ed Reed that lets you do all of that without leaving a slow MLB to chase after a slot-bug in miles of space.
Also, a team running the spread may have its best (or most targeted) receiver in the slot anyway.
January 27th, 2015 at 1:07 PM ^
I'd much rather have a safety making downfield irrelevant than a corner making field or boundary side irrelevant.
January 27th, 2015 at 12:41 PM ^
The packers did this with Woodson. He won NFL DPOY the next year
January 27th, 2015 at 11:45 AM ^
and boyhowdy do we hope we'll see it.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:49 AM ^
...as my browser broke the first sentence of the story with a line break after:
"When news broke recently that Jabrill Peppers was moving to safety, Brian threw up "
...and I wondered why this upset Brian so much.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:51 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 11:53 AM ^
I need help. I have to confess that much of the above is beyond my understanding of football. I can get the basics but really have no idea on on how to understand formations, concepts, schemes, etc.
Does anyone have any advice on blogs, sites, dare I say books, that would help me to better understand the workings of the game? I would greatly appreciate any advice.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:57 AM ^
Check out the user curated HOF and go to space coyote's explanations of offense, 4-3, 3-4 ect. then check the comments section of the diary post below where I ask the same thing and WMUKirk and space coyote offer some suggestions
http://mgoblog.com/diaries/dj-durkins-defensive-scheme-part-1
January 27th, 2015 at 12:13 PM ^
Smart football makes complex concepts accessible to the layman.
January 27th, 2015 at 12:17 PM ^
Take your eye off the Ball by Pat Kirwan. Great read, not too crazy to understand, and will really open up and change your understanding and how you watch the sport.
January 27th, 2015 at 2:52 PM ^
It's a just a little bit of self-promotion, but there is this little blog that I know of that I'll link below.
breakdownsports.blogspot.com
It's admittedly a work in progress, but it's attempting to cover things from the basics to the in-depth stuff. So hopefully that helps.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^
Are we ever gonna see Dymonte Thomas with significant playing time? Seriously, what happened to him?
January 27th, 2015 at 11:59 AM ^
yea he always seemed to have decent size and the gobs of talent needed to play a position similar to this. Not Peppers talent but close enough to excel
January 27th, 2015 at 12:01 PM ^
Well for one he was just a true sophomore and should have been a redshirt freshman last year. For two it seems he was having a hard time covering against college competition.
Either way you can't really say "what happened to him" for a guy who earned three starts at Michigan before he could buy a beer.
January 27th, 2015 at 12:42 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 12:49 PM ^
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January 27th, 2015 at 12:56 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 12:11 PM ^
All due respect to Ed Reed but the baddest of the bad safeties is Sean Taylor.
January 27th, 2015 at 2:05 PM ^
How many games does he sit for the last hit?
January 27th, 2015 at 12:19 PM ^
I imagined Dymonte Thomas in this role. My ideallized Dymonte Thomas is also a destroyer of worlds.
January 27th, 2015 at 1:33 PM ^
We are allowed to have nice things now right? Get your best guys in postions to make plays.
Re: Dymonte... I think we will see some different folks get playing time this year. Even though we had more coaching clout on the defensive side of the ball, I'm not sure we were great talent evaluators/developers anywhere. Furman was lost at UM for years and was quoted as the key to OK States defense this year.
January 27th, 2015 at 12:25 PM ^
Those are the 2 keys to the defense and Peppers' role. With Lewis, Countess, Stribling, et al., moving Peppers to S is an OPTION. Moreover, it's a GOOD option because playing in space is pretty much the hardest aspect of defense (perhaps this is shortchanging DL, but I digress) and Peppers has unreal talent to do this. I can see valid arguments for having him be a shutdown CB, but again, I think UM probably thinks it has good CBs without Peppers, and using him to cover a ton of space is a good use of his skills.
January 27th, 2015 at 2:33 PM ^
Don't drop a bomb and pooh-pooh it as a digression. Do not EVER short-change linemen. The line is where it all starts, and ends. If your DL can't hold their ground the opposing offense will just go "welp" and smash your mouth all day. The DL's job is to get their mouths smashed and ask for more. If your line can't hold, the secondary might as well go home because they're just not going to matter. And I'm saying that as a space defender (soccer these days but still).
What a great space player allows you to do is underplay certain threats. Woodson basically freed up the safety on his side to roam, as he could man up against any team's #1 receiver without help. Otherwise, routes are more or less drawn up to force defenders into bad decisions when there isn't an obvious talent disparity to exploit, forcing the defense to commit multiple defenders to stop it. The safety against spreads is under particular stress because DCs expect him to play a run gap, read the inside receiver, occasionally blitz, and cover the slot or bracket the deep threat. As such, on any given play the safety's man could be a fullback, TE, slot, tailback, wideout or even (if things go badly) a pulling guard. To which the safety goes, "Can you make up your %*(FJHH#R# mind??" One play he's getting steamrolled by a TE or puller; another he's getting juked by a slot bug, then he's in a horse race against the deep threat. Very few players can handle that, which is precisely what today's offenses expect.
Well, Peppers has the athleticism to actually do all that. Against today's offenses it really makes sense to make him a safety, and I'd been hoping for that since he stepped on campus. We lack playmakers back there anyway.
January 27th, 2015 at 4:53 PM ^
With what you said, but that doesn't really address what I was getting at - namely that defending space is the hardest/rarest defensive skill, to which you replied 'but DL is most important'. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding your comment. In any event, I got nothin' but love for DL.
Your characterization of the 2 possible roles for Peppers are accurate, but I'm curious to hear your opinion on which you think Peppers is better at, which is more valuable to a defense (defensive scheme is important here and we may not know for sure until the games start), and how the roster (i.e. the fact we have other good CBs) impacts the final analysis, if at all.
January 27th, 2015 at 7:12 PM ^
I guess it depends on the definition of "hardest", but FWIW in addition to physical punishment D-linemen routinely outscore DBs on Wonderlic, if you're into that sort of thing. Personally, I don't think of defending space as hard so much as unforgiving. I think getting off blocks is much harder (D-linemen redshirt almost as often as O-linemen and not always because of the need to bulk up), but unless he gets pancaked it takes a trained eye to see a lineman's mistake and often he can recover or at least limit the damage. Coverage is usually simpler, but bust an assignment and the whole world sees you give up a long TD.
As for which one Peppers is better at (CB or FS), I think he at least has the potential to have an NFL HoF career at either position. He certainly has the athleticism for it, so it'd come down to the mental/"intangible" side of things -- vision, reflexes, intelligence, preparation. So far he seems up to the challenge on that side as well. Anyway, "better" wouldn't be the way to put it so much as I think he wasted a fair amount of potential at corner. Yes he could be a Woodson-esque shutdown corner, but that limits his range. CBs are specialists. He could do either equally well, but there's more to do these days at safety.
January 27th, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^
I do think that Raven defense had great players all over the field though.
January 27th, 2015 at 12:55 PM ^
"The way a defensive innovation becomes a sustainably great defense is great players"
I'm not convinced it's great players that make these systems go so much as these systems that make these players great by giving their specialized skillset a place to thrive.
I've always thought it rather dubious - the idea that Joe Montana and Steve Young produced at HOF levels because they were all-time great players. It seems unlikely these great players just happened to come consecutively to the same roster with the greatest innovator of the 70s and 80s (Bill Walsh) and a guy many argue is the greatest WR of all time (Jerry Rice).
I'm also not at all convinced that any of Dantonio's DBs are great player, anymore than I am convinced that any of Michigan's RBs of the 80s and 90s were great players. Dantonio has put into place a great defensive system and finds guys that fit it. Bo-Mo-Lloyd had dominating OLs and coached run games so well that almost any reasonably talent RB could produce impressive numbers. It's really about coaching to execute, just as it was for Rich Rod QBs - none of which have done anything as NFL QBs.
Going back to the idea of sustainability -- this is really hard to acheive at the college level. Even if you're Alabama. Michigan did it with OL through the 2000s but that was founded on Bo's coaching, not personnel. In other words, there it was the egg (coaching) that led to the chicken (a stream of NFL OLmen who wanted to be coached by the best.)
None of this is really the point of the article or have much of anything to do with Peppers, Reed, or Berry. I think your argument for his move to safety is definitely sound.
As for being the best player at UM since Woodson -- no pressure kid. Also Jake Long probably wants a word with you...
January 27th, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
It's a both/and situation. It's having a system that can dictate terms but it's also finding players that fit the system, developing them, and putting them in the right positions to succeed. You can't separate these things. I think the point Ace is making is that great offenses will expose even the best systems if you don't have great personnel.
January 27th, 2015 at 12:56 PM ^
So here's a question. If we had Woodson today would he be better playing Safety? Would he have been better at safety in 97?
January 27th, 2015 at 1:59 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 3:12 PM ^
Thanks for the detailed answer. It's really interesting how the spread offense has turned the "lock down half the field" corner into a thing of the past.
January 27th, 2015 at 4:49 PM ^
but it's not even clear if he's a starter, let alone the best DB on the team, let alone the best DB in nearly 20 years.
I think some qualifiers like COULD BE similar to Woodson would be useful here...
January 27th, 2015 at 1:07 PM ^
For what it's worth, while the 46 was indeed named after Doug Plank, he was retired from football by the time '85 Bears made the defense legendary.
January 27th, 2015 at 7:52 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 1:47 PM ^
JP to be the best, most exciting, most hard hitting, and most terrifying safety that opponet QBs have ever seen. Is that too much to ask!?
January 27th, 2015 at 1:51 PM ^
Good write up, Seth. But Ed Reed didn't get drafted until 2002, and the Ravens won their Super Bowl in 2000, so he wasn't on that defesively stalwart team.
January 27th, 2015 at 2:11 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 2:39 PM ^
it seemed they tried to set up 3rd and short and it was a qb run with a 250 lb guy against a db. Anything beyond their own 40 yard line and they would go for it on 4th. I can see Meyer using Jones on 3rd and 4th downs like he did Tebow when Tebow was a freshman. Basically spread em out and let their guy plow his way to 1st downs as their bread and butter play. How does putting peppers at FS address this part of containing the buckeyes?
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