Give me a reading list so I know what you're talking about

Submitted by Will Trade Sou… on
I love some of the in-depth analysis in the diaries/UFR, but unfortunately can't puzzle out what most of it means. Whatever number you put after "cover" or before "technique" means little to nothing to me. Can someone please recommend a good primer on football terminology, either online or in print? I would like to be able to understand all the good stuff that the smart people are writing.
MGoBoard

Shalom Lansky

September 16th, 2009 at 3:49 PM ^

and folks told me that football for dummies is actually pretty good. Smart Football is also really good for whatever topic they're explaining but it doesn't give a basic primer on Xs and Os, which is what I'm after.

Joined: 09/29/2008

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umjgheitma

September 16th, 2009 at 3:53 PM ^

A Blutarsky is a slang football term for a 0.0 quarterback rating in a football game, the lowest such rating possible in the National Football League. Recent players who have had this low include Rex Grossman and Joey Harrington.

Joined: 12/02/2008

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UMFootballCrazy

September 16th, 2009 at 4:41 PM ^

There are some old archived Bob Davie stuff at ESPN that you might be able to find with a Google search that have moving x's and o's where he explains a lot of basic stuff, including the spread. [Edit: it seems his Football 101 series is now behind the paywall...but if you are an ESPN Insider it is worth the read] If you can find them still, there are some snippets of video's Coach Rodriguez had produced while at West Virginia. I used to have all the links saved in my favourites until my Suburban was broken into and my laptop stolen. The stuff is out there on the web if you are willing to search for it. Plus, I found the books that Football America (I think that is the publisher) puts out to help high school coaches teach fundamentals and basic schemes are excellent as well. You can often get these at your local library.

Joined: 06/30/2008

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dex

September 16th, 2009 at 4:46 PM ^

if you are under 18, go play. it always amazes me that football is so popular in this country as a spectator sport and so unpopular in terms of actual participation.

Joined: 06/30/2008

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Brian

September 16th, 2009 at 5:05 PM ^

Briefly: "Cover X" means X number of people are in deep zones. So cover 4 is a very conservative defense with four guys bailing out deep and "Cover 0" is a very aggressive one with no deep safeties. "Technique" is where someone lines up on the DL relative to the OL: 1 = between C and G. 3 = between G and T. 5 = over or sightly outside of T: 7 = well outside of T. http://forgeriver.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/technique.bmp

Joined: 05/26/2008

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Erik_in_Dayton

September 16th, 2009 at 6:42 PM ^

I've seen that get conflated with the stance a defensive lineman uses. A guy with one hand on the ground is in a three-point stance. Two hands = four point stance. No hands = two point stance...So you can have a guy in a three-point stance in the five technique, etc....The "techniques" along the line are also sometimes labeled by letters rather than numbers - "A Gap, B Gap." http://www.raiderfans.net/forum/football-101/96925-gap-b-gap-diagram-et… There's a lot of terminology out there that makes things seem more complicated than they actually are.

Joined: 12/03/2008

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Magnus

September 16th, 2009 at 8:48 PM ^

If you want to learn techniques, there are actually different ways of numbering defensive alignments. For example, the "A" gap can actually consist of three different alignments. First would be the outside shoulder of the center. The second would be directly in the gap. The third would be the inside shoulder of the guard. Our defense calls the inside shoulder of the tight end a "7", head up on the TE a "6" and outside the TE a "9." Other defenses call the inside shoulder of the TE a "6", head up a "7" and outside an "8".

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