Popeyejones
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vin.couve12":3ksh6v4b said:Prevent just doesn't work. It's so conservative that it's almost like bending over.
It's kinda hard to tell, because the term "prevent defense" gets thrown around MUCH, MUCH more than it's actually used.
It seems like every time a team is giving up pass yards with a lead late in a game fans decide that they should be blitzing more, and attribute the lack of blitzing (even if the team isn't blitzing any less frequently than they usually do) as the team running a "prevent defense."
When most teams run prevent it's a soft three or four deep shell with CBs playing 8-10 yards off, safeties playing 20-25 yards off, and the whole middle of the field being covered by one defender or at most two defenders while everyone else is blocking off deep strikes on the sidelines so that the clock can't stop.
People don't do it that much, but when they do, it works.
It just gets a bad rap because people only remember the rare occasions when it doesn't work. All the INTs that get generated when offenses are trying to press into the coverage of a prevent defense don't get attributed to the prevent defense (it's just a "great stop" or "great defensive stand to close out the game), and when offenses don't press into what the formation is taking away, fans stillthink it's hurting their team to give up dumps over the middle rather than helping their team, because we're so trained to think of stopping offenses as being the mark of defensive success.
This is the one case where it isn't, and an offense gaining five to ten yards (and sometimes 15) over the middle is actually better for the team on defense than an incomplete pass (why you always see the curl RB totally uncovered -- the offense is hoping he catches the dump off and breaks a few tackles, and the defense is ALSO hoping he catches the dump off, but the deep middle LB tackles him quickly, which is what usually happens).