Just to let everyone know right off the bat, I might come off as a total idiot in this post. But its 4am, I’m at work and just thinkin’ out loud here.
Does it seem odd to anyone else that all defenses in the NFL are set up in exactly the same way? I know the schemes are slightly different, but I’m talking about positions here. Every defense has 4 lineman, 3 linebackers(or vice versa), 2 corners and 2 safeties. All of these guys have very defined roles that we’ve all known since we were in grade school. How come nobody shakes it up a little? There could be a better way to play defense out there. Is everyone really that scared to try something new? Why are all professional sports coaches so slavishly devoted to tradition?
Does anyone remember when Gunther Cunningham invented a new position for Derrick Thomas? It was called Falcon, and it basically gave him free reign to put himself in position to make plays. This was about 10 years ago, but I remember thinking at the time that it was a great idea. Essentially Cunningham switched from a 4-3 to a 3-3 and let Thomas roam. If memory serves we had a pretty awesome defense that year. I’ve heard Cunningaham talk recently about bringing back some concepts from his previous Chiefs defenses, and I hope he’s talking about the Falcon. Derrick Johnson seems like he’d be a pretty good fit for that. Making your best defender(not that Johnson is that great yet) conform to a system seems like a waste of talent. Why not just let him put himself where the action is so we can get maximum use out of his talents?
I’d actually take it a step further. I’d like to see someone experiment with a defense that has 3 down lineman, 2 linebackers and 3 defensive backs. This would essentially be a skeleton crew to man the traditional defensive system, leaving us 3 players to use in unorthodox/innovative ways. Again, I’m just thinking out loud here. But I don’t think its such a terrible idea. We could have one guy who just follows the running back. The Broncos did that to LJ last year and it really frustrated him, to the point where he complained about it after the game. We could do that to every running back. It wouldn’t even have to be our best player, just a fast, mean linebacker/safety type dedicated entirely to stymieing the opposing team’s primary weapon. We could even train a guy to specialize in that role. Pollard seems like he could be good for this. He doesn’t seem to be able to hack it in the secondary but he’s definitely athletic enough and had a reputation in college for delivering big hits. Imagine seeing Pollard harass a tailback all game long, just in his grill from start to finish. That would be fun to watch.
I’ve already said I think Derrick Johnson would make a great Falcon. The guy has crazy skills, I’d like to see him get a chance to turn himself loose. Imagine the havoc he could wreak. Hell, imagine the havoc 2 falcons could wreak. Demorrio Willliams is supposed to be pretty fast and has been getting to the QB a lot recently practice. Donnie Edwards is a crafty vet. I gotta think he could do a lot more good reading an offense and putting himself in a position to block what they’re trying to do, regardless of where that leads him. I’ve just got this vision in my head of our defense being much more flexible and having guys adjust and flow to block whatever they see coming. Of course, this would depend a lot on said players knowing where to put themselves for maximum effect. That might be the fatal weakness of my plan actually.
Obviously I don’t really have the specifics figured out. The fact is my plan probably wouldn’t work, but a little innovation never hurt anyone. I just think coaches are naive to assume the best way to defend has already been discovered. Eventually someone is going to invent a new way to do things that is going to take the league by storm. Why can’t that someone be us? It would be nice to be ahead of the game for once.
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on the one hand, you seem to have a good point. LaVar Arrington could have been incredible, or almost was, but in the end he was suffocated by his coachs’ rigid system. on the other hand, as frequent poster chan gailey will certainly agree, if you don’t “buy in” to the system you’re just not going to be successful.
i’m sure you’ve heard about the time we installed a Falcon position in FrownBall to feature Unkle Croker’s erraticism. that worked out pretty well.
You could say that the Falcon giveth and the Falcon taketh away.
Besides having a bunch of bad mamma jammas on D for so many years, isn’t that what the Ravens have been doing to a lesser extent. Freeing up certain linebackers or do they just have “exotic” blitz packages a la Pittsburgh?
Let’s take it to the next level. Of course, it would require some serious smarts on the part of the linebackers (Nap can maybe sit this one out). I’m sure it would lead to some huge plays for the opposing team but what the hell.
I always thought the Chiefs did with Derrick Thomas the same thing the Giants did with Lawrence Taylor. Am I wrong here? They were similar in their abilities and wrecked havoc from their LB/DE spot. In fact, there is a book written by Michael Lewis called, “The Blind Side”, which expounds on the idea that Lawrence Taylor is the reason left tackles are one of the highest paid players in the NFL.
Sesame Cake, you are correct that the Ravens run some funky D’s at times. I think they can do it because they have studs at all positions on that D. In addition, the Patriots run funky D’s because they have enough cerebral players to make it work.
In general, unorthodox defenses are not a terrible idea once every 2 or 3 series. The issue, in my opinion, is that players would have a difficult time adjusting to their new responsibilities. This may come as a shock to some, but some professional players are not the sharpest knives in drawer. As bighatt mentioned, players play the same position the majority of their playing careers. I do like the idea of Pollard roaming, though. Maybe I am wearing rose colored glasses, but I think I could see him as a Palamalu, Bob Sanders, or Rodney Harrison type.
I’ll tell you what…watching Chiefs games this season might not be as bad as I thought. Sure they’ll lose a lot but I do believe that the games will be exciting. I saw a lot of flash from our young D last night that I enjoyed. Turk, Tank, Flowers, DJ, Patterson and Dorsey all made some big plays last night and showed some flash. They’ll give up plenty of big plays this year but I do believe there’ll be more big plays on D than we’ve seen since the 90’s.
The offensive line looked dominating and the running game was impressive. I did not see that coming. However, that made the spotlight on Croyle that much brighter. I know a lot of us sound like Whitlock parrots sometimes (he wrote an article about this today) but if I came away with anything from last night it’s that Croyle has zero poise. There were some plays where he had plenty of time to survey the field and just dumped it off like a puss. He overthrew somebody on a great fly route that would have gone for 6 and he just looked bad baby. What’s gonna stink is the fact that if the Chiefs youngsters keep showing flashes, I’m going to start clamoring for Huard.
Also, piano man, your boy Cox was impressive.
we all know croyle is going to be bad. the only question is how bad? there’s a chance our conservative style will keep him from being ‘clown’ bad. either way, i’ve already begun to press “huard 08″ t-shirts.