The Fangio scheme is ruining defenses

[Polk738]

I thought this was a great video breakdown of the Vic Fangio scheme and how it has been exploited this season by many teams, it is kind of long but definitely worth the watch

 

[hawkfan68]

The NFL is a copycat league. Fangio's defense is successful so every team wants to copy it. With many more teams doing it, it becomes easier for opposition to counter it. My preference is to stick to something different than the crowd. This is what Pete did in his earlier. He took an unconventional QB and had success. Now everyone is copying that model. He took big corners and created the LOB.

 

[morgulon1]

The NFL is a copycat league. Fangio's defense is successful so every team wants to copy it. With many more teams doing it, it becomes easier for opposition to counter it. My preference is to stick to something different than the crowd. This is what Pete did in his earlier. He took an unconventional QB and had success. Now everyone is copying that model. He took big corners and created the LOB.

It was in fact different when he came back to the NFL 10 + years ago. Many teams are trying that model now and doing it better than Seattle. Seattle had one really strong draft in 10 years and HAVE to get this next one right .

IMHO

 

[Spin Doctor]

The NFL is a copycat league. Fangio's defense is successful so every team wants to copy it. With many more teams doing it, it becomes easier for opposition to counter it. My preference is to stick to something different than the crowd. This is what Pete did in his earlier. He took an unconventional QB and had success. Now everyone is copying that model. He took big corners and created the LOB.

Carroll's system has always been extremely simple. He didn't do anything groundbreaking when he came into the NFL. He ran a lot of cover 1 and cover 3. What he Carroll did is identified trends in the NFL towards bigger wide receivers. He went after bigger corners that could maul them at the LOS. He also drafted a tweener in Chancellor that could straddle the line between linebacker and safety since he played a lot of single high. He also needed a rangey safety that could cover for the corners aggressive play, Earl Thomas fit this bill.

Carroll's defense actually was EXTREMELY vanilla. His biggest win was that he realized a trend in the NFL that others were ignoring.

Carroll's defense put a lot of pressure on the safeties and he also valued them higher than just about any team in the NFL. The other thing about Carroll's scheme is he required everyone to play their assignments and only those, there was no freelancing.

This is something that makes the Adams trade a bit perplexing to me. Adams was a player that thrived on freelancing, something Carroll's teams schemes never did a lot of.

The NFL is an adapt or die league. There will always be things that come in and out of the meta.

 

[DarkVictory23]

This video really pointed out a lot of what I had been seeing in our defense that I personally couldn't describe as intelligently as he did, so thanks for posting this.

Some important points I think he made that apply to our situation:

First, this scheme, as mentioned, was designed to attack a specific type of NFL offense. It's designed for Kyler Murrays and Russell Wilsons. (Originally it was aimed at Mahomes, but Mahomes has proven that he's far better at adapting his game than those two guys). Yet, our major downturn defensively in this season is when we took a hard turn back to these concepts against Tom Brady. You couldn't ask for a more ridiculous opponent to try and run this scheme against. That is a major knock on our coaching staff.

Second, I think one thing he points out is that this scheme requires some ridiculous talent at basically every single position on the defensive side of the ball. Your DL needs to be adept at two-gap tech, your LBs need to be great at reading and reacting to your DL AND need to be great at shedding blocks, and your secondary needs to be almost automatic in switching assignments and handing off. Here is a problem for us: Our front 7 has been built around Pete's much simpler one-gap tech pretty much forever. Barton, in particular, is not great at reacting or shedding heads up blocks (though I think he is underrated in other aspects of his game). And while this system really plays to the strengths of an elite talent at safety like Jamal Adams, he is... not here.

Third, as mentioned, this scheme is terrible against the run, and I was not aware how prevalent this problem seems to be across pretty much every team that's heavily reliant on this system. He specifically points out that teams running this scheme look almost uniformly soft, which has been an oft lamented critique of our defense on this board.

Finally, he points out that the stubbornness of the teams running this scheme in thinking that this is a miracle defense that can be run regardless of who your team is facing. In fact, it appears moreso that this needs to be run much more as a situational scheme and is a poor base defense. The Seahawks took a noticeable turn away from this scheme in the first half of the year and the results were impressive. For some reason, we took a hard turn BACK to these techniques (as I mentioned, against pretty much the worst possible opponent to do it against) and seem to be stubbornly trying to force a round peg into a square hole.

Some of this I understand: This is a COMPLICATED defense that requires teams to get a lot of reps and familiarity with each other running it. There is a problem though: We arguably barely had the talent for this scheme when we had our very expensive Safety healthy and on the field. We definitely do not have it right now.

And more importantly, the question for me is: Is the juice worth the squeeze? Losing winnable games now to try and build familiarity with this system for the future? After watching this video, I feel even more confident that the answer to this is NO. It's not.

 

[keasley45]

This video really pointed out a lot of what I had been seeing in our defense that I personally couldn't describe as intelligently as he did, so thanks for posting this.

Some important points I think he made that apply to our situation:

First, this scheme, as mentioned, was designed to attack a specific type of NFL offense. It's designed for Kyler Murrays and Russell Wilsons. (Originally it was aimed at Mahomes, but Mahomes has proven that he's far better at adapting his game than those two guys and ). Yet, our major downturn defensively in this season is when we took a hard turn back to these concepts against Tom Brady. You couldn't ask for a more ridiculous opponent to try and run this scheme against. That is a major knock on our coaching staff.

Second, I think one thing he points out is that this scheme requires some ridiculous talent at basically every single position on the defensive side of the ball. Your DL needs to be adept at two-gap tech, your LBs need to be great at reading and reacting to your DL AND need to be great at shedding blocks, and your secondary needs to be almost automatic in switching assignments and handing off. Here is a problem for us: Our front 7 has been built around Pete's much simpler one-gap tech pretty much forever. Barton, in particular, is not great at reacting or shedding heads up blocks (though I think he is underrated in other aspects of his game). And while this system really plays to the strengths of an elite talent at safety like Jamal Adams, he is... not here.

Third, as mentioned, this scheme is terrible against the run, and I was not aware how prevalent this problem seems to be across pretty much every team that's heavily reliant on this system. He specifically points out that teams running this scheme look almost uniformly soft, which has been an oft lamented critique of our defense on this board.

Finally, he points out that the stubbornness of the teams running this scheme in thinking that this is a miracle defense that can be run regardless of who your team is facing. In fact, it appears moreso that this needs to be run much more as a situational scheme and is a poor base defense. The Seahawks took a noticeable turn away from this scheme in the first half of the year and the results were impressive. For some reason, we took a hard turn BACK to these techniques (as I mentioned, against pretty much the worst possible opponent to do it against) and seem to be stubbornly trying to force a round peg into a square hole.

Some of this I understand: This is a COMPLICATED defense that requires teams to get a lot of reps and familiarity with each other running it. There is a problem though: We arguably barely had the talent for this scheme when we had our very expensive Safety healthy and on the field. We definitely do not have it right now.

And more importantly, the question for me is: Is the juice worth the squeeze? Losing winnable games now to try and build familiarity with this system for the future? After watching this video, I feel even more confident that the answer to this is NO. It's not.

Can't argue a single point.

 

[Jville]

As a rear mirror observation .............

Once upon a time, back in the day, in a previous era, there were two young interior linemen who could have fit the scheme. They were Cortez Kennedy and Sam Adams. Team couldn't afford to keep both of them back then. And to date, the current regime has yet to identify and develop so much as one of them.

I have doubts that the Fangio scheme is actually affordable in terms of talent and cost.

P.S. Thanks for contributing an excellent video as a starting point to jump start meaningful conversation.

 

[hawkfan68]

As a rear mirror observation .............

Once upon a time, back in the day, in a previous era, there were two young interior linemen who could have fit the scheme. They were Cortez Kennedy and Sam Adams. Team couldn't afford to keep both of them back then. And to date, the current regime has yet to identify and develop so much as one of them.

I have doubts that the Fangio scheme is actually affordable in terms of talent and cost.

P.S. Thanks for contributing an excellent video as a starting point to jump start meaningful conversation.

Great point, Jville. They also had Michael McCrary and Mike Sinclair. I wish they had that DL currently. Unfortunately they weren't able to keep Adams and McCrary. I believe both ended up on the Ravens after their Seahawk stints.

 

[seatownlowdown]

I think one thing he points out is that this scheme requires some ridiculous talent at basically every single position on the defensive side of the ball.

yep, and although this has been a "transition" year for the defense, it just shows how inept we were at implementing this scheme- how ill-prepared we were in terms of player personnel to inact it. we just don't have the personnel on the front 7 to stop the run in this scheme. we certainly don't have the do-all linebackers required. jordyn brooks is a good chase/tackle guy but asking him to defeat offensive line blocks and control gaps isn't his strong suit. barton gets washed out and has been exposed. darrell taylor can be a good 4-3 edge rusher but don't ask him to contain or cover downfield, that's a terrible idea. same thing for boye mafe. and because running backs are so often getting to the 2nd and 3rd levels, it's exposed safety play in the run game. quandre diggs has been just awful in the run game. i also think losing jamal adams really has hurt more than we think. he may have actually excelled in this scheme and was going to be a key to success.

 

[SonicHawk]

Great post @DarkVictory23

 

[Jville]

Great point, Jville. They also had Michael McCrary and Mike Sinclair. I wish they had that DL currently. Unfortunately they weren't able to keep Adams and McCrary. I believe both ended up on the Ravens after their Seahawk stints.

I hear that .....

I suspect the motivation for trying a new scheme may have been born out of the frustration with continual disappointment in getting rush ends and hybrids to set the edge against the run game. There is quite a collection of such examples on the current roster. Some of whom are still listed as defensive ends and other who are now listed as linebackers. Chris Clemons on the right side and Cliff Avrill on the left side (toward the end of his career) are the last pair that come to mind that made the transition into well rounded (do it all) defensive ends.

I suspect colleges are producing less in the way of well rounded players and more in the way of specialists. That plus the ongoing indoctrination that only sacks matter to defensive ends.

 

[Polk738]

What I found interesting is the fact that it isn't JUST the Seahawks that are struggling to run this scheme effectively, if you noticed in the video some of the worst defenses in the league are trying to figure out this scheme

I remember awhile back after watching one of the Vikings games someone tweeted out how bad Ed Donatell's scheme was and how it was REALLY struggling bad, I was going to post something about it here how maybe we got lucky that the Seahawks got Desai instead of Donatell considering those were one of the names the team was looking at bringing in, I completely forgot that he was from the Fangio tree, and was just thinking damn....this guy REALLY did screw up defense for the league.

I really hope Pete comes to this realization as well, he seriously can't sit there with his coaches and not see how complete shit this scheme is considering that other coordinators are struggling with it as well, and with FAR better defensive talent on their rosters, we're talking guys like Z'darius Smith, Khalil Mack, Myles Garrett etc etc.

 

[cymatica]

So that begs the question: Why the hell can't professional coaches see this when a YouTube video and posters on a forum bring up points that make sense and should be obvious?

 

[Spin Doctor]

So that begs the question: Why the hell can't professional coaches see this when a YouTube video and posters on a forum bring up points that make sense and should be obvious?

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest through the trees. You see experts miss obvious things all of the time because they're married to an idea or they think they know better. For example, let's talk about the Russell Wilson trade that Denver orchestrated.

There were many guys, both amatuer and profesionals alike such as Kurt Warner, random youtubers and guys such as JT O'Sullivan over at QB school that were sounding the alarms. Despite this, Denver's GM not only pulled the trigger on Wilson, he also signed him to a FAT contract that will make it impossible to part with him for years.

Or how about when Carroll hired Ken Norton Jr. as DC straight after being fired from the Raiders for fielding a piss poor defense. Guess what happened here? The same issues that the Raiders magically followed Norton here.

Professionals get it wrong all of the time. When you're bogged down in the weeds it can be hard to see things from an objective point of view. Especially when a good deal of your work is married to an outdated or flawed idea.