Robert Saleh - Head Coach - Tennessee Titans

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Also, to piggy back on that. It's not to say that Fangio's defense didn't have complexity to it, it just wasn't unnecessarily complex. While he played a lot of 3 deep(usually a variant of either cover 3 or cover 6) the underneath coverage was rather complex. That's the "pattern matching" as mentioned. While, on paper, it can seem really simple, cover 3 or 6 almost all the time, it had a lot of layers to it that allowed it to adapt to the play at hand. Again, it comes down to execution. Instead of trying to have to keep straight if the cover 3 is spot drop, man-in-zone drop, or one of many pattern-match calls as well as the same through a littany of cover 1,2,4,and 6 as well as blitz packages and fire zones, the defense is focused on the pattern-match cover 3 or 6.

The flexibility offered by the pattern-match 3 "liz", "mable"(the 2 most common) or a couple others makes it really tough on a defense to use many of the concepts that would normally defeat it.

(snipped)

Well put, jd. There's a difference between complexity and volume. An execution type defense can have high complexity, but it won't have a high volume of playcalls compared to a scheming type of D. This allows the players to do a few things very well. It's similar to the old, 'master of one', or 'jack of all trades', comparison. Execution defense is the 'master of one', while a scheming defense is 'jack of all trades'.

Saleh/Lynch has talked about how they want violent players. That's what you alluded to above, "allowing them to attack downhill and making solid tackles with punishment. They'll give you 3 and 4 yard routes all day long, but you're going to have to take those all day long and try and run the ball against an 8 man front all day long".

The critical piece to all that is being able to jump the throw by reading the QB's dropback, shoulders, eyes, so that as soon as that catch is made, violent hit, no RAC. Do they have the players to do this? Gotta have athletes that are violent.

You gave me an idea for a film cut up session - the variants of Cover 3.

Good stuff. Thanks and keep it coming.

Originally posted by SmokeCrabtrees:
Or the Chiefs, hah. I don't think he goes,but I wouldn't be shocked.

I'm all for trading him.

MOAR DRAFT PIX!!!

Originally posted by NinerSickness:

Originally posted by SmokeCrabtrees:

Or the Chiefs, hah. I don't think he goes,but I wouldn't be shocked.

I'm all for trading him.

MOAR DRAFT PIX!!!

I wonder if Hali has anything left,dont think theyd trade Justin Houston though hes coming back from injury as well.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Also, to piggy back on that. It's not to say that Fangio's defense didn't have complexity to it, it just wasn't unnecessarily complex. While he played a lot of 3 deep(usually a variant of either cover 3 or cover 6) the underneath coverage was rather complex. That's the "pattern matching" as mentioned. While, on paper, it can seem really simple, cover 3 or 6 almost all the time, it had a lot of layers to it that allowed it to adapt to the play at hand. Again, it comes down to execution. Instead of trying to have to keep straight if the cover 3 is spot drop, man-in-zone drop, or one of many pattern-match calls as well as the same through a littany of cover 1,2,4,and 6 as well as blitz packages and fire zones, the defense is focused on the pattern-match cover 3 or 6.

The flexibility offered by the pattern-match 3 "liz", "mable"(the 2 most common) or a couple others makes it really tough on a defense to use many of the concepts that would normally defeat it.

The benefit is, you don't have to worry about so many different alignments. So, it reduces the amount of pre-snap information having to be processed and adjusted to. Instead of players thinking of 10 steps in 8 seconds they're only thinking of the personnel, alignment and then recalling what they've seen on film. Not, seeing the personnel and alignment and now you have d-lineman shifting, secondary shifting, turning to communicate, LB's trying to make calls and then do it all again if the offense shifts and remembering which zone you have and if you pattern-match or not and which gap you cover.

Like Thl noted, they get really good at executing it because you only have a few very complex plays. So, you master that defense and all its complexity.

With Saleh's defense, if it's like SEA's defense is going to focus on keeping everything in front of players and thus allowing them to attack downhill and making solid tackles with punishment. They'll give you 3 and 4 yard routes all day long, but you're going to have to take those all day long and try and run the ball against an 8 man front all day long. It's mostly a cover 3 "mable" pattern match defense. That means that the corner on the weak-side side will be in a press-man situation and the rest of the team in a cover 3-zone with an outside emphasis from the SS dropping into coverage and the "SAM" looking to jump the first underneath out breaking route. This protects against floods and speedo concepts that can usually eat up a cover 3 zone. The SS will read an outside flow for any intermediate route and squeaze inside routes to aid the M and FS who have those inside routes. The W then looks to cover the outside breaking routes in a man-in-zone fashion, transitioning to full man on any vertical outside route(think of a wheel route). The M has help on any in-breaking routes from the same receiver as the FS will then drive on any possible intermediate routes that threaten his zone as well(think mesh or drive concepts).

This also requires your deep 1/3 corner to look to cover post routes from the strong-side receiver that could threaten your deep middle in case of a FS driving on a "drive" concept(we did this against SEA last year and old BG whiffed the throw).

Because of the "Mable" call and the shift of the SS to an outside hook/curl read area, he then is able to cover any vertical trail concepts that are run off of a deep post.

All this gives this defense a lot of layers and complexity and make it very hard to defeat. The kicker is, you have to have high quality personnel to run this defense. They have to be able to see and react to this things well and having extra length helps as it will cut down the windows that will open up. Plus a lot of speed helps too.

This defense, like any zone, is susceptible to longer developing concepts. The reason Seattle is so good is that they have a nasty D-line that makes it near impossible to execute longer developing plays with any sort of consistency, no matter the situation.

Sounds a lot like Fangio's philosophy in terms of 'keeping everything in front of them'. Because that's what we did. Bowman and Willis were the perfect pieces to do just that. Give up those short completions all day long, in combination with pattern-matching. also good to see you again jonny

Originally posted by thl408:
Well put, jd. There's a difference between complexity and volume. An execution type defense can have high complexity, but it won't have a high volume of playcalls compared to a scheming type of D. This allows the players to do a few things very well. It's similar to the old, 'master of one', or 'jack of all trades', comparison. Execution defense is the 'master of one', while a scheming defense is 'jack of all trades'.

Saleh/Lynch has talked about how they want violent players. That's what you alluded to above, "allowing them to attack downhill and making solid tackles with punishment. They'll give you 3 and 4 yard routes all day long, but you're going to have to take those all day long and try and run the ball against an 8 man front all day long".

The critical piece to all that is being able to jump the throw by reading the QB's dropback, shoulders, eyes, so that as soon as that catch is made, violent hit, no RAC. Do they have the players to do this? Gotta have athletes that are violent.

You gave me an idea for a film cut up session - the variants of Cover 3.

I would be most interested to see that session.

Originally posted by defenderDX:

Originally posted by thl408:

Well put, jd. There's a difference between complexity and volume. An execution type defense can have high complexity, but it won't have a high volume of playcalls compared to a scheming type of D. This allows the players to do a few things very well. It's similar to the old, 'master of one', or 'jack of all trades', comparison. Execution defense is the 'master of one', while a scheming defense is 'jack of all trades'.

Saleh/Lynch has talked about how they want violent players. That's what you alluded to above, "allowing them to attack downhill and making solid tackles with punishment. They'll give you 3 and 4 yard routes all day long, but you're going to have to take those all day long and try and run the ball against an 8 man front all day long".

The critical piece to all that is being able to jump the throw by reading the QB's dropback, shoulders, eyes, so that as soon as that catch is made, violent hit, no RAC. Do they have the players to do this? Gotta have athletes that are violent.

You gave me an idea for a film cut up session - the variants of Cover 3.

I would be most interested to see that session.

I would too... and how it can be beat too (see Superbowl and Seattle/Atlanta playoff game). It seems like the short passing game with jitter bug receivers and lateral routes are most effective? TE's play a big part too? It's not surprising Kyle locked up Kerley and got Taylor and added several more TE's.

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by defenderDX:

Originally posted by thl408:
Well put, jd. There's a difference between complexity and volume. An execution type defense can have high complexity, but it won't have a high volume of playcalls compared to a scheming type of D. This allows the players to do a few things very well. It's similar to the old, 'master of one', or 'jack of all trades', comparison. Execution defense is the 'master of one', while a scheming defense is 'jack of all trades'.

Saleh/Lynch has talked about how they want violent players. That's what you alluded to above, "allowing them to attack downhill and making solid tackles with punishment. They'll give you 3 and 4 yard routes all day long, but you're going to have to take those all day long and try and run the ball against an 8 man front all day long".

The critical piece to all that is being able to jump the throw by reading the QB's dropback, shoulders, eyes, so that as soon as that catch is made, violent hit, no RAC. Do they have the players to do this? Gotta have athletes that are violent.

You gave me an idea for a film cut up session - the variants of Cover 3.

I would be most interested to see that session.

I would too... and how it can be beat too (see Superbowl and Seattle/Atlanta playoff game). It seems like the short passing game with jitter bug receivers and lateral routes are most effective? TE's play a big part too? It's not surprising Kyle locked up Kerley and got Taylor and added several more TE's.

A lot of it had to do with a stubborn run game and being able to isolate athletes in a mismatch on the zones. KS was able to isolate Julio in situations against LB's in zone coverage which, even though schematically he should've been covered, there's no way that those LB's could cover Julio. Situations like I had mentioned where you have players flowing out of their spot drop on a pattern match so no you would have a LB tasked with trailing or covering Julio in space. That forced Sea to try some man-coverage in places while doubling Julio or moving Sherman around and it created mismatches everywhere else for RB's and Gabriel.

All in all, KS put together a great gameplan against them.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by defenderDX:

Originally posted by thl408:

Well put, jd. There's a difference between complexity and volume. An execution type defense can have high complexity, but it won't have a high volume of playcalls compared to a scheming type of D. This allows the players to do a few things very well. It's similar to the old, 'master of one', or 'jack of all trades', comparison. Execution defense is the 'master of one', while a scheming defense is 'jack of all trades'.

Saleh/Lynch has talked about how they want violent players. That's what you alluded to above, "allowing them to attack downhill and making solid tackles with punishment. They'll give you 3 and 4 yard routes all day long, but you're going to have to take those all day long and try and run the ball against an 8 man front all day long".

The critical piece to all that is being able to jump the throw by reading the QB's dropback, shoulders, eyes, so that as soon as that catch is made, violent hit, no RAC. Do they have the players to do this? Gotta have athletes that are violent.

You gave me an idea for a film cut up session - the variants of Cover 3.

I would be most interested to see that session.

I would too... and how it can be beat too (see Superbowl and Seattle/Atlanta playoff game). It seems like the short passing game with jitter bug receivers and lateral routes are most effective? TE's play a big part too? It's not surprising Kyle locked up Kerley and got Taylor and added several more TE's.

A lot of it had to do with a stubborn run game and being able to isolate athletes in a mismatch on the zones. KS was able to isolate Julio in situations against LB's in zone coverage which, even though schematically he should've been covered, there's no way that those LB's could cover Julio. Situations like I had mentioned where you have players flowing out of their spot drop on a pattern match so no you would have a LB tasked with trailing or covering Julio in space. That forced Sea to try some man-coverage in places while doubling Julio or moving Sherman around and it created mismatches everywhere else for RB's and Gabriel.

All in all, KS put together a great gameplan against them.

Nice expansion of thoughts there JD.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by defenderDX:

What about Fangio's pattern-matching? is that considered to be apart of 'execution' type defense?

My definition of an "Execution" type defense is more so a philosophy, not so much a certain concept like pattern matching. Fangio pattern matched in every single game. That was a part of their identity as a defense. I'll go back to Mangini as a way to contrast. Mangini had some games where he was man coverage dominant and many games where he was zone dominant. There were games where a Mangini defense played a lot of 2 deep coverages, and some games where played single high safety. It changed week to week. Fangio did not change week to week. That's why I classified Fangio's D as an execution type defense.

Another example is SEA, an execution type defense. Cover3 and Cover1, that's what an offense will see when they play SEA. Offenses know what's coming, go ahead and try to move the ball.

Originally posted by thl408:

I feel as though Saleh's defense is a transition back to an 'execution' type of defense. An execution type of defense doesn't do many things, but what it does do, it's practiced everyday so that the execution of the plays are at a high level. Smaller playbook, let the athletes play.
The other end of the spectrum is a 'scheming' type of defense. This type of defense tries to do many things, and tries to be capable of changing week to week depending on the opponent. Large volume playbook, playcalling/gameplanning from the defensive coordinator is highlighted on gamedays.

To put it in 49er terms, Fangio was an execution type of defense. He didn't do a whole lot, especially with his front7/box players, which were rather static. He ran his stunts, but in terms of hybrid fronts and blitz packages, there wasn't much. He mixed up his coverages, but it didn't seem opponent specific. He had a way of playcalling and it was mostly the same week to week.

Mangini is a good example of a scheming defense. I am confident in saying Manigni had the largest playbook out of Fangio, JoN, and I'll go ahead and throw Saleh in there without ever having seen a single Saleh defensive game, since he hasn't called one. Lots of variety in fronts, blitz packages, and coverages. Mangini's defense changed week to week. He wanted to keep the opposition off guard, "What will the 49ers do this week?". In theory that sounds like a great idea, but practically, it's very difficult to pull off because there is so much more to practice in terms of volume. Considering how little the players actually get to practice nowadays compared to pre-CBA, this world view on defense makes less sense.

Just to mention JoN. I think he was in the middle. He was always Quarters based, not many single high coverages. Where JoN's system fails is in how he expected his box players (front 7) to perform all the postsnap read and react gap exchanging - "if the DL does X, then LBs do Y". He had a lot of variety in his fronts while his playcalls weren't opponent specific.

Going to an execution type defense will require high end athletes and that's exactly what the 49ers currently have on defense. There's a lot of Day 1 and 2 picks on the roster. I think Saleh is going to turn them loose and let them use their athletic ability instead of having them think too much about their assignments. No NFL scheme is simple. There are audibles and adjustments to make in all phases, but compared to what the 49ers were doing with Mangini/JoN, Saleh's defense will most likely be easier to grasp in terms of volume of assignments and playcalls.

In theory i like this idea. In practicality, i really like this idea. REalizing we have a lot of day 1 and day talent on D, I LOVE the idea. With mangini , it was tough to learn esp when it changed week to week. With Fangio, i liked the idea of good players being turned loose to see if they could beat a guy one on one. Also it was simple, and i like Saleh already , because he didn't hog the dang stage, wait for the audience's attention, and then state, "THis defense is SO hard, it take two yrs to learn it." And at end of yr we were almost dead last. Then last yr we made it to DEAD dead last against the run. Give me simple, then give me day 1 and day 2 guys to run it, and my guess is we do 10 x better than last yr....just on D Theory alone. The big deal is tho, that we have some real talent now, and our BIG 3 are going to be tough sledding for anyone and everyone. That is some real, dandy , talent.

This guy has to be better than O'Neil right?

Originally posted by Cisco0623:
This guy has to be better than O'Neil right?

Originally posted by defenderDX:

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Also, to piggy back on that. It's not to say that Fangio's defense didn't have complexity to it, it just wasn't unnecessarily complex. While he played a lot of 3 deep(usually a variant of either cover 3 or cover 6) the underneath coverage was rather complex. That's the "pattern matching" as mentioned. While, on paper, it can seem really simple, cover 3 or 6 almost all the time, it had a lot of layers to it that allowed it to adapt to the play at hand. Again, it comes down to execution. Instead of trying to have to keep straight if the cover 3 is spot drop, man-in-zone drop, or one of many pattern-match calls as well as the same through a littany of cover 1,2,4,and 6 as well as blitz packages and fire zones, the defense is focused on the pattern-match cover 3 or 6.

The flexibility offered by the pattern-match 3 "liz", "mable"(the 2 most common) or a couple others makes it really tough on a defense to use many of the concepts that would normally defeat it.

The benefit is, you don't have to worry about so many different alignments. So, it reduces the amount of pre-snap information having to be processed and adjusted to. Instead of players thinking of 10 steps in 8 seconds they're only thinking of the personnel, alignment and then recalling what they've seen on film. Not, seeing the personnel and alignment and now you have d-lineman shifting, secondary shifting, turning to communicate, LB's trying to make calls and then do it all again if the offense shifts and remembering which zone you have and if you pattern-match or not and which gap you cover.

Like Thl noted, they get really good at executing it because you only have a few very complex plays. So, you master that defense and all its complexity.

With Saleh's defense, if it's like SEA's defense is going to focus on keeping everything in front of players and thus allowing them to attack downhill and making solid tackles with punishment. They'll give you 3 and 4 yard routes all day long, but you're going to have to take those all day long and try and run the ball against an 8 man front all day long. It's mostly a cover 3 "mable" pattern match defense. That means that the corner on the weak-side side will be in a press-man situation and the rest of the team in a cover 3-zone with an outside emphasis from the SS dropping into coverage and the "SAM" looking to jump the first underneath out breaking route. This protects against floods and speedo concepts that can usually eat up a cover 3 zone. The SS will read an outside flow for any intermediate route and squeaze inside routes to aid the M and FS who have those inside routes. The W then looks to cover the outside breaking routes in a man-in-zone fashion, transitioning to full man on any vertical outside route(think of a wheel route). The M has help on any in-breaking routes from the same receiver as the FS will then drive on any possible intermediate routes that threaten his zone as well(think mesh or drive concepts).

This also requires your deep 1/3 corner to look to cover post routes from the strong-side receiver that could threaten your deep middle in case of a FS driving on a "drive" concept(we did this against SEA last year and old BG whiffed the throw).

Because of the "Mable" call and the shift of the SS to an outside hook/curl read area, he then is able to cover any vertical trail concepts that are run off of a deep post.

All this gives this defense a lot of layers and complexity and make it very hard to defeat. The kicker is, you have to have high quality personnel to run this defense. They have to be able to see and react to this things well and having extra length helps as it will cut down the windows that will open up. Plus a lot of speed helps too.

This defense, like any zone, is susceptible to longer developing concepts. The reason Seattle is so good is that they have a nasty D-line that makes it near impossible to execute longer developing plays with any sort of consistency, no matter the situation.

Sounds a lot like Fangio's philosophy in terms of 'keeping everything in front of them'. Because that's what we did. Bowman and Willis were the perfect pieces to do just that. Give up those short completions all day long, in combination with pattern-matching. also good to see you again jonny

I was also just thinking; with this defense Foster should transition in really, really well. It's basically the same defense - as far as coverages, that he ran at Alabama with Saban. Since Saban was the dude who came up with the defense in the first place when he was with Bellichick.

Tell me more good news like that, johnnydel.

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:

Tell me more good news like that, johnnydel.

What's your take on Smith,Ray-Ray and Brooks at SAM?