Originally posted by communist:I thought they were running spot dropping a lot? Is is the same?Originally posted by thl408:Tampa 2 has little to do with being 4-3 or 3-4. It's a coverage call, not a base personnel package. 49ers called it a handful of times in weeks 1-3 last season and got burned because they had a poor pass rush. Then they called it much less throughout the rest of the season.
Spot drop zone is a way to play zone. Tampa 2 is a zone coverage. So the 49ers were doing both - playing tampa2 and spot dropping. With the inabilty to generate pressure with a 4 man rush, zones will begin to stretch and holes are found in the coverage.
Tampa Bay pulled it off as a coverage to build their entire scheme around because they had Simeom Rice and Warren Sapp wreaking havoc.