New defenses, positional importance

[Chawker]

The new NFL defensive schemes have changed, taking one player from the front 7 (old 4-3 scheme) and adding him to the secondary to combat todays modern NFL offensive passing game.

This puts a greater strain on our run defense, being there is one less player to deal with the run, and less man coverage.

So, this leads me to todays question, which postion has the greatest importance on having a successful NFL defense?

Cheers

 

[ZagHawk]

The new NFL defensive schemes have changed, taking one player from the front 7 (old 4-3 scheme) and adding him to the secondary to combat todays modern NFL offensive passing game.

This puts a greater strain on our run defense, being there is one less player to deal with the run, and less man coverage.

So, this leads me to todays question, which postion has the greatest importance on having a successful NFL defense?

Cheers

Defensive Tackle. You got a stud player in there (think Aaron Donald), he has the quickest shot to the QB and/or RB. I think some people fail to realize one stud in that position makes an ENTIRE defense. If you got an Aaron Donald (in his prime) in there commanding double-triple teams, your DEs have free reign on the QB. The opposing team is getting zero yards running through the middle. You can really get away with having average players at linebacker, defensive end, saftety and corner back and still have an elite defense just by having one worldly talent at Defensive Tackle.

Meanwhile if you have a stud at any of the other positions, an opposing offense can still work around that.

DE - okay we'll work through the middle or the other side
CB - Okay we'll throw to the other side or run up the middle
Safety - We'll dink and dunk all game

DT - When they penetrate, there's no time to throw/run.

Even not having a wordly talent like Aaron Donald. I'm thinking Red and Mebane. They dont get the flashy INT plays of the CBs and the Sacks of the DEs..but they truly are the unsung hero that make the entire defense effective.

 

[morgulon1]

Id have to agree . Defensive line. Aaron Donald's are pretty rare but even of you
Had a couple of outstanding interior DL
It would change things for this team .

 

[bileever]

This is a great question. I think that a position that has been undervalued for some time, linebacker, has become more important. Think of the teams with good defenses--the 49ers, the Ravens, the Saints, the Chiefs, the Bills--all have a good if not great linebackers.

 

[flv2]

The best Rams defense by far was when Staley was DC. Staley ran a 3-2 with a strong-side edge-control as the 6th guy. Leonard Floyd, (edge control), was responsible for making sure no RB or QB got outside him. If the RB releases you grab him and drive him back into the QB. You take away the RB outside and QB scramble to buy time. It meant the very poor LBs only had to cover the weak-side 2/3rds of the field. Edge control has to be strong enough to take on a T+ double team, whilst being fast and agile enough to run with 85% of RBs/TEs in coverage. It's a thankless, team-first role that doesn't produce stats but it makes everyone else better. Floyd excelled in it. Donald is/was an irreplaceable force of nature but Floyd was my favourite Ram. Worth every penny.

 

[Dvl Dug]

Chawker presents us with the best question of the last decade; Which position has the greatest importance on having a successful NFL defense?

My initial reaction would be... The defensive coordinator that can either collect, draft, or develop all of the players he needs in order to field a squad that can play in a way that most of the opposing team's offenses cannot effectively react to, but that doesn't really answer the question.

I'm considering the Steelers defense from the mid 1970's up until 1980. Da Bears 46 defense in 1985 and 1986. Perhaps the best current defenses of this year, including the Baltimore Ravens & San Francisco 49'ers...

Can't say that I have an exact answer as to which "position" is the most important, but I will offer the following... Give me a defense that has a highly talented young player to build around at all three levels; defensive lineman, line backer, and defensive back.

Any defense that has a at least one player at each level mentioned above, seems to have a real chance of adding future players that can become a dominant unit on defense.

How many more years will it be until this team brings in another young stud defensive tackle like Cortez Kennedy, or even a Brian Mebane?
What is their long-term solution at middle linebacker, or even the free side inside linebacker?

Seems to me that this team has an abundance of highly talented young players at cornerback (Devon Witherspoon, Tre Brown, Ty Woolen, Michael Jackson), but somehow this team is not able to take advantage of all that cornerback talent?

I'm as perplexed as everybody else is (sigh)....

 

[morgulon1]

Great post btw..

Has anyone else noticed that Seattle doesn't have one guy that truly puts fear in the opposition? Yeah , Witherspoon is a great young talent but he should be like the cherry on top . DreMont Jones was supposed to be a big time acquisition this off-season. I think I've heard his name called a half dozen times this season . Of course , I'm not a top notch analyst of defensive football nor do I know whether he's being used correctly. I guess it could all come back to coaching or lack thereof.

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

It’s so hard to find a game changer inside disrupter of the caliber of an Aaron Donald or even a Chris Jones, Fletcher Cox, Ndamukong Suh in his prime.

You almost need to draft top 5, possibly, to get a player that is rated that high with that particular lightning quick first step that equally has power and an array of pass rush moves to dominate an offensive line.

And oh yeah, all 32 teams want that player.

Sometimes it’s just shear dumb luck that you are able to snag that player and that player also develops and is in the right scheme that will make that significant impact.

Knowing the Seahawks and this front office, they’ll continue to search for this player for a long long long time….they are like once in a generation type players, honestly….

 

[Spin Doctor]

4-3 and 3-4 are a misnomer at this point. Hardly anyone plays base defenses anymore. I've noticed many Seahawk fans complaining about the switch to 3-4, in reality what we've done is run more nickel packages.

Modern NFL defenses thrive on deception. They've evolved to become a lot more complex just over a span of 4 years or so. Even the most adept of NFL QB's have had issues diagnosing what coverage is being ran and where pressure is going to come from. Many times you're seeing combos of man and zone being ran even in the same play even in more traditional zone coverages like cover 3. The line between certain positions and their roles is getting blurred.

One thing I've noticed about the best NFL defenses is you have got to have strong gap integrity and communication. There are many moving pieces shifting. I'm going to go a little off the cuff here and say having a versatile safety and a strong interior line as well as side line to sideline speed are the keys to executing modern NFL defenses.

The guy that makes the Ravens defense run is Kyle Hamilton. Kyle Hamilton can play up in the box, Kyle Hamilton often times kicks out corner as a lot defender, Kyle Hamilton is the guy that calls the shots on the Ravens defense. On any given play he can be anywhere and everywhere. This also allows them to be creative about where they bring pressure.

This modern system is what Hurtt and Carroll has been trying to execute. The big issue here is the implementation of it is really funky. This is the biggest dig at Hurtt and Carroll. The defense doesn't seem to know what it's doing. Communication is non existent and we don't have the personal to run these schemes. Our safety group in particular has been a giant weakness this season. We don't have a field general like Kyle Hamilton on the Ravens. Our guys have been unable to do even the basic principals correctly.

It's not just one position, at this point it's a coaching issue. Hurtt doesn't know what he's doing and the new NFL Defenses are outside of Carroll's scope of expertise. We aren't even executing the basics correctly.

 

[seahawks08]

DE, DT, ability to disguise, dictating your will, mixup of man and zone along with lining different looks that offenses don’t get a read on. Hard hitting personnel also helps with sound disciplined football where ever person should be able to tackle on their own.

 

[Chawker]

For me its the interior linebacker, we gone from the old 4-3 with a front seven to a 2-4 front which is one less player. Still 2 DT, 2 DEs and 1 less LB.

This improves our pass coverage at the experience of our run defense. The LB postion plays both run and pass which makes it a very important postion.

 

[Dvl Dug]

Great post btw..

Has anyone else noticed that Seattle doesn't have one guy that truly puts fear in the opposition? Yeah , Witherspoon is a great young talent but he should be like the cherry on top . DreMont Jones was supposed to be a big time acquisition this off-season. I think I've heard his name called a half dozen times this season . Of course , I'm not a top notch analyst of defensive football nor do I know whether he's being used correctly. I guess it could all come back to coaching or lack thereof.

Morgulon1,

You, me, and about 31 other opposing teams all seem to be in agreement.
It really doesn't take any type of pedigree to notice that this defense is just too soft.

 

[Dvl Dug]

For me its the interior linebacker, we gone from the old 4-3 with a front seven to a 2-4 front which is one less player. Still 2 DT, 2 DEs and 1 less LB.

This improves our pass coverage at the experience of our run defense. The LB postion plays both run and pass which makes it a very important postion.

Agree with Chawker.

 

[Polk738]

4-3 and 3-4 are a misnomer at this point. Hardly anyone plays base defenses anymore. I've noticed many Seahawk fans complaining about the switch to 3-4, in reality what we've done is run more nickel packages.

Modern NFL defenses thrive on deception. They've evolved to become a lot more complex just over a span of 4 years or so. Even the most adept of NFL QB's have had issues diagnosing what coverage is being ran and where pressure is going to come from. Many times you're seeing combos of man and zone being ran even in the same play even in more traditional zone coverages like cover 3. The line between certain positions and their roles is getting blurred.

One thing I've noticed about the best NFL defenses is you have got to have strong gap integrity and communication. There are many moving pieces shifting. I'm going to go a little off the cuff here and say having a versatile safety and a strong interior line as well as side line to sideline speed are the keys to executing modern NFL defenses.

The guy that makes the Ravens defense run is Kyle Hamilton. Kyle Hamilton can play up in the box, Kyle Hamilton often times kicks out corner as a lot defender, Kyle Hamilton is the guy that calls the shots on the Ravens defense. On any given play he can be anywhere and everywhere. This also allows them to be creative about where they bring pressure.

This modern system is what Hurtt and Carroll has been trying to execute. The big issue here is the implementation of it is really funky. This is the biggest dig at Hurtt and Carroll. The defense doesn't seem to know what it's doing. Communication is non existent and we don't have the personal to run these schemes. Our safety group in particular has been a giant weakness this season. We don't have a field general like Kyle Hamilton on the Ravens. Our guys have been unable to do even the basic principals correctly.

It's not just one position, at this point it's a coaching issue. Hurtt doesn't know what he's doing and the new NFL Defenses are outside of Carroll's scope of expertise. We aren't even executing the basics correctly.

I agree with this 1000% The thing is most of the really good defenses in the league are running variations of Fangio's split safety system and I would agree that at it's core it's meant to rely more on deception than pure raw talent like Carrol's cover 3 schemes did. The problem is when Carroll decided to switch to it, nobody on the team had experience in it, remember this is Bobby's first year in it and it's clear he is at a HUGE disadvantage due to his age and trying to learn his responsibilities in this new scheme. I watched a video breakdown of these split safety systems that are taking over NFL defenses now and HOLY SHIT, are they complicated as hell it's no wonder the secondary is struggling with it and then when you have your supposed "super star safety" that can't execute even basic coverage concepts it clearly turns into a disaster. The run fit problems I'm not entirely sure about, I think losing Nwosu had a very big impact as it exposed a real lack of pass rushing depth, Frank Clark and Darrell Taylor are pretty bad, Derrick Hall hasn't had the best season either but then again, he's clearly not getting the snaps. Williams and Reed have been really good but they need more rotational depth in the interior.

 

[Bear-Hawk]

Eberflus says the 3-tech is the “engine” of his defense. I want Bears to draft Johnny Newton with their second first round pick.