Foundations of a Pete Carroll Defense

Since we all shall praise the almighty Seahawks and every other DC in the league right now, let's take a look at some of his older work shall we:


Around the 5:30 mark, the defensive fun begins. There's a fumble recovery for TD at 7:30 and an INT at 11:10.....

Look at the aggressiveness of the D and the pursuit of the defenders.....first the corner blitz, then swarming of players to the ball. It does seem to resemble what we now see with the current Seahawk defense.

I happened to be browsing old Niner videos and was watching this when Madden reminded me Carroll was our DC in '95......@ 12:30 mark. Praising him for a good call on the zone blitz to get the pick.

So when Hawks fans get almighty about what Mike Holmgren started and Pete Carroll finished.......a reminder where those two got their feet wet a long time ago!

ps - Make sure to catch the opening score around 2 minute mark or so.....this was such an epic game. A game we supposedly had no business winning with a backup QB and some hurt players! One of my favorite 49er regular season wins of all time.

I'm not ready to give Carroll all the credit for that defense (the hawks)

One thing that their secondary plays with is fire, and you can't coach/teach that.
You can tell by the looks on their faces, if they give up a play it pisses them off beyond measure and I almost am willing to bet that they go back and watch tape to see exactly what happened to fix it for the future.

I don't see that in any of our starting secondary (Reid being an exception)
You can design plays and create the best defense imaginable, but if you can't get players to buy in to the system it simply won't work. We need to start going after those tough guys again, the Dashon Gholdson's or Navarro Bowman's of the league.
I've always thought it starts with the players first, Sherman is a perfect example.

Originally posted by Quest4six:
I'm not ready to give Carroll all the credit for that defense (the hawks)

One thing that their secondary plays with is fire, and you can't coach/teach that.
You can tell by the looks on their faces, if they give up a play it pisses them off beyond measure and I almost am willing to bet that they go back and watch tape to see exactly what happened to fix it for the future.

I don't see that in any of our starting secondary (Reid being an exception)
You can design plays and create the best defense imaginable, but if you can't get players to buy in to the system it simply won't work. We need to start going after those tough guys again, the Dashon Gholdson's or Navarro Bowman's of the league.
I've always thought it starts with the players first, Sherman is a perfect example.

Yeah but the coach does have a huge hand in who gets drafted and who gets that starting job. You're right it's the players out there, it's their attitude, it's their desire off the field that excels then when they study tape and practice outside of practice. Carroll took a huge risk to start Wilson, but he saw in him what others outside did not. I'm sure the same applies to a lot of the Seahawks secondary.

Originally posted by Quest4six:
I'm not ready to give Carroll all the credit for that defense (the hawks)

One thing that their secondary plays with is fire, and you can't coach/teach that.
You can tell by the looks on their faces, if they give up a play it pisses them off beyond measure and I almost am willing to bet that they go back and watch tape to see exactly what happened to fix it for the future.

I don't see that in any of our starting secondary (Reid being an exception)
You can design plays and create the best defense imaginable, but if you can't get players to buy in to the system it simply won't work. We need to start going after those tough guys again, the Dashon Gholdson's or Navarro Bowman's of the league.
I've always thought it starts with the players first, Sherman is a perfect example.

I think that is something that can definitely be coached and taught. The player themselves have to show it but there's no doubt that it's something they learned from someone else.

Loathe the Seahawks, but I have always been a big fan of the 4-3 Under scheme. I had often wanted us to run it. We could pull it off now for sure.

Here's a quick summary of who does what in this scheme: http://www.battleredblog.com/2009/7/23/958892/a-very-brief-introduction-the-4-3

Really good article on Carroll and the Seahawks Cover 3 defense:

http://grantland.com/features/whos-laughing-now/

I always liked how our defense played under Carroll back in the day. I kinda wish they promoted him to head coach instead of Mooch.

Originally posted by Mr.Mcgibblets:
Loathe the Seahawks, but I have always been a big fan of the 4-3 Under scheme. I had often wanted us to run it. We could pull it off now for sure.

Here's a quick summary of who does what in this scheme: http://www.battleredblog.com/2009/7/23/958892/a-very-brief-introduction-the-4-3

I've tried loading this page a thousand times to no avail.....

Is there another link for this?

EDIT: Finally loaded, it's all good.

Originally posted by JTsBiggestFan:
I've tried loading this page a thousand times to no avail.....

Is there another link for this?

That's strange. Loads right up for me every time.

Try to google "battle red blog texans 4-3 under"

That should put it close to the top of your links page, easy. (does for me)

edit - and I should add that the safeties would be very interchangeable, so no need pondering why I have Ward and Reid where they are.

Originally posted by Mr.Mcgibblets:
That's strange. Loads right up for me every time.

Try to google "battle red blog texans 4-3 under"

That should put it close to the top of your links page, easy. (does for me)

edit - and I should add that the safeties would be very interchangeable, so no need pondering why I have Ward and Reid where they are.

Thanks, got it to work.

I should have noted that I have dial up or less than dial up speeds at the moment in Diego Garcia, so occasionally some pages take forever to load.

Originally posted by fortyninerglory:
I always liked how our defense played under Carroll back in the day. I kinda wish they promoted him to head coach instead of Mooch.

Previous to coming to SF he was 6-10 as head coach of the Jets. Immediately after leaving the 49ers he took an 11 win Patriot team and then proceeded to win 10, 9, and 8 games in that order then was fired. At the time he was considered to be way more suited as a college coach as the pros.

I think a lot of it has to do with finding guys that are exceptional tacklers in late rounds. Carroll built that unit in basically 2 years and seems to have a library of guys he wanted to recruit at SC but never had the chance. It is the one thing that stands out to me about the Hags.

Originally posted by BobS:

Originally posted by fortyninerglory:
I always liked how our defense played under Carroll back in the day. I kinda wish they promoted him to head coach instead of Mooch.

Previous to coming to SF he was 6-10 as head coach of the Jets. Immediately after leaving the 49ers he took an 11 win Patriot team and then proceeded to win 10, 9, and 8 games in that order then was fired. At the time he was considered to be way more suited as a college coach as the pros.

Yea... His being a successful HC now I think is because so much of the college game is coming to the NFL.

Originally posted by Rathmanator:

I think a lot of it has to do with finding guys that are exceptional tacklers in late rounds. Carroll built that unit in basically 2 years and seems to have a library of guys he wanted to recruit at SC but never had the chance. It is the one thing that stands out to me about the Hags.

G point.

Also, they've, Carroll & their GM, drafted well and got good FA & had a definite plan while doing so.

Plan the work - work the plan.

Never liked Carroll but he's doing a solid job up there.

Originally posted by LasVegasWally:

G point.

Also, they've, Carroll & their GM, drafted well and got good FA & had a definite plan while doing so.

Plan the work - work the plan.

Never liked Carroll but he's doing a solid job up there.

Exactly. I wanted to say it was just lucky, but those guys are playing rooks every damn year.