Most important position for Carroll's Defense

I have heard before that the Seahawks built this defense from the back up. Can anyone attribute Pete's prior defenses to being built the same way? Is there one position that is more important than any other. My thought is that he has has numerous start LB's play for him, but DE or pass a pass rushing specialist is extremely import.

Just my opinion, in order of importance (at NFL level):

DBs --> DL --> LBs.

Probably at the college level, it was built entirely back-to-front, DBs/LBs being extremely valuable at USC. However, Pro QBs are too good to beat without pressure, so DL moves up a stop.

Yes, Carroll's prior defenses were built in generally the same way. Freakish athleticism at FS (Troy Polamalu, who technically played SS, Jason Leach, and Taylor Mays all ran 4.3 40s), power hitting at SS (Kevin Ellison was known to be a hard hitter at 230 lbs, and so were Darnell Bing and T.J. McDonald), and tall corners (Terrell Thomas, Josh Pinkard, Kevin Thomas, Cary Harris, etc. all 6'1 or taller) were staples of Carroll's defenses at Southern Cal. I don't know if they were necessarily built from the back up. It might have been a coincidence that he hit on certain positions earlier in the process, while his rushers had to be added in free agency (Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett).

Carroll's LBs at USC were probably so impressive (Lofa Tatupu, Keith Rivers, Brian Cushing, Clay Matthews, Ray Maualuga, Malcolm Smith, etc.) because they were being recruited and developed by Ken Norton, Jr.

People say that because Pete is a secondary coach first and foremost, and chronlogically, in Seattle, he drafted for secondary before filling in the rest.

But I think Pete is a middle out guy. Safeties, middle backers, and while his draft focus has not been DTs, he does get DTs who can force RBs to try and go around the outside of the DEs.

Passing too. He wants QBs to be throwing those difficult sideline outs. Middle out.

Truth be told, defensively Pete tries not to leave a single area subpar. Offensively, that is a totally different story.

I'd vote MLB

HOLLYWOOD":pk9cub26 said:

I'd vote MLB

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I like that opinion. I remember when he got rid of Lofa, I knew then Pete was not the least bit sentimental about player types.

Don't lose your footspeed, Wagner. If you do, bye bye.

Scottemojo":2ty1eopz said:

HOLLYWOOD":2ty1eopz said:

I'd vote MLB

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I like that opinion. I remember when he got rid of Lofa, I knew then Pete was not the least bit sentimental about player types.

Don't lose your footspeed, Wagner. If you do, bye bye.

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We missed Wags last year when he was hurt. Things perked up when he returned.

+ Given the state of the LOB, we will certainly be glad Bobby is there.

It's basically the coach's preference. The Giants won two superbowls building their defense from front to back. Meaning their emphasized DL and LBs, pass rush and run defense over pass defense. I believe Bucs when they were considered the top D also emphasized front to back philosophy. Without a decent pass rush or pressure, even the best secondaries get torched. Prime example of this was last season's superbowl and the regular season game against the Chargers. The Seahawks don't put much emphasis on LBs like they do with DL or DBs. Wagner is a great LB but Wright and Irvin are good but not great. Bennett, Mebane, Avril are all All-pros. Clark has tremendous potential to be great. Sherman, Thomas, Kam are all-pros. The most important positions on the Seahawks are DL or DB.

I would say back to front, we have used more picks and signed more F.A. guys to sort and work thru then just about anything else, he seems to be constantly looking for guys that can play fast and big. Earl is small in stature but plays big and is fast. I think Pete also knows that successful CB's are only good for maybe one good contract before they prove to costly to retain, thus the turnover as well. We keep a lot of them in the wings and on the P.S. as well typically.

hawkfan68":3f1zeee3 said:

It's basically the coach's preference. The Giants won two superbowls building their defense from front to back. Meaning their emphasized DL and LBs, pass rush and run defense over pass defense. I believe Bucs when they were considered the top D also emphasized front to back philosophy. Without a decent pass rush or pressure, even the best secondaries get torched. Prime example of this was last season's superbowl and the regular season game against the Chargers. The Seahawks don't put much emphasis on LBs like they do with DL or DBs. Wagner is a great LB but Wright and Irvin are good but not great. Bennett, Mebane, Avril are all All-pros. Clark has tremendous potential to be great. Sherman, Thomas, Kam are all-pros. The most important positions on the Seahawks are DL or DB.

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Yeah but, a lot of things that were the norm back then, has been shifted a bunch since the "Pass Happy" Offenses have emerged......Kind of like the Seahawks Defense in Super Bowl 48, there was a major eye-opening for Peyton Manning and his prolific passing trend that was stymied by the Seahawks Legion Of Boom secondary, that was waiting for the "Ducks" to fly.
Pressure from the D-Line and Line Backers were the first hurdle for Pey Pey.
If everyone remembers right, Peyton was going to burn everyone with his killer-quick passes.
It became pretty obvious early on, that the Seahawks Secondary was wedged pretty tight in Manning's head, ESPECIALLY after Kam Chancellor dropped the hammer a couple of times on Peyton's outlet Receivers, causing him to hang onto the ball for longer than he wanted to.
And as far as Secondary's getting "Torched"?, it's happened a lot less to Pete's LOB, than any other Secondary's in the League = SB 48 Victory, and another run in SB 49.
Injuries to the LOB is why Brady was able to mount a 10 point come back.

Earl is the straw that stirs the drink.
Without him, you'd see 2 high safeties a lot more.
Gotta let the SS move around if you are going to make a QB hold the ball and let the pass rushers get home.

I would think it all starts in the trenches. if you can't apply constant pressure to good QB's I don't care how good your backers and db's are, they can't cover forever. JMO

hawker84":x7ltsqak said:

I would think it all starts in the trenches. if you can't apply constant pressure to good QB's I don't care how good your backers and db's are, they can't cover forever. JMO

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The really good Quarterback knows that he doesn't have "forever" to take his shot, if your receivers are covered for more than 5 Seconds, the Quarterback either has to dump it off, throw it away, run with it (Russell Wilson) or eat the ball.
See Peyton Manning in SB 48, and he's more than just a "good" Quarterback.
So, with a get after it D-Line, the quick pass is usually what a good Quarterback will do to kill the D-line for being too aggressive.
It was the LOB (Kam in particular), that forced Peyton out of his quick drop and dump game.
He was never given the time to get into a rhythm.
With Kam being out for this game, the D-Line is going to have to pick it up a bunch.

There isn't a most important position on any defense by default. The type of coach you have sort of dictates that. Many are static minded who have run the same crap for 20-30 years and its the players responsibility to fit into said system. In that scenario, it's really is sort of coaches preference because it's all their static minds know.

In a dynamic aspect you want communication through multiple levels of the defense. In Seattle, you regularly see Wagner and Kam in constant communication between the front 7 and back 4. Then you also see Wagner and KJ communicating regularly as well as ET, Kam, and Sherm barking at each other as well.

Communication.

Everyone being on the same page is really where it's at. You might think that the coverage called is supposed to be what keeps everyone on the same page in that if everyone does their job then all is well. That's not the case.

At any given time, a cover 3 can get killed just as man, cover 2, etc can all get killed. If people just go to their designated areas and play like high school football an NFL offense lead by a legit NFL quarterback will cut it up like child's play. Hence there are some aspects where you have to be somewhat dynamic on the field even within the constructs of a given defense and you do that by communication.

Most important position? Depends on if you think in old static kind of football or something more intelligent....more dynamic.

Chip Kelly is a good example. I'm not a Chip fan or even an Oregon fan. I can't stand all the damn 0 stickers I see on cars everywhere when these people, if you ask them, have never even been to Eugene, have no association what so ever, and rarely even cross into the frickin state, but I think most people said Chip would fail in the NFL because they were thinking in static terms. That Chip only has his system. That is/was not the case. He makes his offenses around what he has and that's why he's so extremely successful. He's a dynamic thinker.

Seahawks defense...I don't think there is a most important position.

Left corner and pass rush, same as any other defense in the past 20 years. Look at the list of Super Bowl Champions. See any similarities?

Tical21":1j2qr55j said:

Left corner and pass rush, same as any other defense in the past 20 years. Look at the list of Super Bowl Champions. See any similarities?

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Queue the one guy who never stops talking about the gods that are quarterbacks.

I do find it pretty interesting that our entire defense minus the big guys in the middle are built like line backers.

Missionary.