RSS Feed
PDF NOW DISCOUNTED 50%. FIND OUT WHAT YOU MISSED BEFORE THE SEASON.
Click here to buy PDF version
.Click here to buy print version.
STILL AVAILABLE
Click here to buy PDF version
.Click here to buy print version.
16 Jan 2009
The Death Of The Tampa-2
National Football Post writer/ex-NFL player Matt Bowen theorizes that the Tampa-2's being phased out of the league.
I'll leave it up to you guys as to whether that's true or not, but one issue I have with the article:
Plus, Detroit just hired Jim Schwartz from the Tennessee Titans as their new head coach. Last time I checked, the Titans’ defense went after people, so you can forget about playing Tampa 2 in Detroit. In fact, you may never see it again.
Huh? Sure, the Titans don't play a Tampa-2, but they go after the quarterback...with four defensive linemen. It's very possible that Schwartz could retain a lot of the Tampa-2 dynamics with the players he has.
39 comments, Last at 20 Jan 2009, 5:03pm by bravehoptoad
Most Recent FO Features
» 2011 Defeats
Who had the most Defeats in 2012? Well, nearly setting the all-time sack record puts you in a pretty good position to claim that crown.
Comments
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Yeah, Chicago and Minnesota are definitely losing because of their defenses.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
I would argue that the Bears are losing because of the defense right now.
All the money is on one side of the ball, and look where they ended up in the defensive WDvoa of 8th. 8th is respectable unless you consider the salaries of some of the players on our defense (Brain Urlacher where are you?). Yes the offense is horrible, but it is paid to be horrible.
Cover Two gives teams too much time to throw unless you have superb ends as well as superb tackles. Look at the top 5 defenses, only Minnesota even runs a 4-3 and look at Minnesota's line, money everywhere.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Chicago no longer plays predominantly Cover-2.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
The Titans(5) and Eagles(3) also run a 4-3.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Right now the blitz happy attack works (assuming you have the elite personnel most of these teams have). But someone is going to start running an offense to beat the blitzs.... and then someone else is going to run the tampa two again to beat those offenses (Which would likely be about flat passes and deep balls.)
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
How do you run an offense to beat the blitz? Easier said than done, it seems to me. You need good pass blocking to slow down the blitz, receivers who run crisp routes and can catch in traffic, and a QB who can make quick reads and accurate throws. In short, you need good players.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
You turn into the 2001-2005 patriots: Screens of death.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
"Going to start" running offenses to beat the blitz? Yes, because hot reads, short drops, and the like are unheard of today. Maybe somebody will "start" trying to run the ball and mix up plays to keep the defense on their heels, too,
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
In principle I agree that the Tampa-2 may be on its way out because the NFL is a copycat league (just look at the proliferation of the Wildcat this season), and this year's successful teams aren't running it. Add to that, one of the more significant factors is left until the last paragraph ... Monte Kiffin is off to the college ranks and Tony Dungy is retiring; they 'invented' the Tampa-2.
That said ... "that rage is blitz-happy defenses with corners who can play man to man and get in the face of highly paid wide receivers. They dictate not only the tone of the game, but they alter the game plans of opposing offenses. They tell the offense what they can and can’t do with their pressure." Isn't this what the Oakland Raiders have been doing for the past 40+ years, and are continuing to do as they rack up their sixth consecutive 11-loss season. Hardly the defense of champions ...
Ultimately successful schemes depend on the players. Good coaches create schemes that utilise the talents of the players they have. Are there enough good coaches out there to recognise whether they have players for a Tampa-2?
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
I would think twice before laying blame for the Raiders' woes on their defense. Their pass defense has been ranked 5th, 8th and 11th in DVOA in the last three years. Their run defense has been a bit more problematic at times, but they would be a much better team if they had an offense for which any High School State Championship defense wouldn't present a challenge.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
These things go in cycles. Each scheme requires its own particular types of players; once enough teams start competing for the same players, a team running a different scheme is an advantage by signing players with different skill sets. No one scheme is better than the other, but depending on what's currently in vogue, some are definitely cheaper and easier to implement.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Exactly. It's the real lesson of Moneyball, not the stat revolution. Moneyball was about finding an undervalued class of players and using that to build a team.
I think it's also what ended up doing in Shanahan, the Alex Gibbs zone blocking model started permeating the league and there was no longer a cheap supply of linemen who could make it work well.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Umm...except that Denver's offense has been doing fine, even despite a massacre among their starting tailbacks.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Of course it's cyclical. After all, the Steel Curtain was based on "Tampa 2" principles.
The defense was REALLY effective for Tampa when they were the only team that ran it, just as the downturn in 3-4 usage a few years ago let New England scoop up guys like Vrabel for cheap. With the imitators and offshoots comes dilution.
I definitely get the feeling though, with the success of the Giants and Eagles, that the Jim Johnson defense (blitz heavy with tight man coverage) is going to be in vogue for a while.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
tight man coverage in vogue?
That comment pretty much proves the "limited number of players in the league for the scheme" idea has some merit, doesn't it?
Sounds kind of like the "have a pro-bowl QB" strategy.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
The best defense is whatever defense no one else is using.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Well, you've certainly convinced me. If I were a defensive coordinator, I'd line my CBs across from center, my DTs across from the WRs, and only rush one player on any given play. It would be the best defense in the league!
There's a lot more to good defense than simply running something that no one else is running. I mean, there's a reason why the 4-3 and the WCO have been so dominant for the last 30 years- they're schematically better than most everything else on the market, whether there's more competition for the players or not.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Or, you could line up Warren Sapp as a 3-4 NT, Shaun Rodgers as a 3-technique, isolate Jason David in man coverage, and put Jonathan Vilma in the middle of a 3-4. I mean, a good player is a good player regardless of scheme, right?
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Well, the "blitz-happy" Steelers don't come after people with more than 4 all that often. When you're in a 3-4 and you send one linebacker, he's technically "blitzing" but in fact you are rushing 4. When you send two of your 4 linebackers, but drop a lineman into a short zone, you are "zone blitzing" but in reality you are still sending only 4.
I'm glad to see the Tampa-2 accredited to the Steelers, and want to correctly give the credit to Bud Carson who was its progenitor. Who was Dungy's first DC in the NFL? Why, none other than Bud Carson!
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
According to the divisional round number-crunching, the Steelers were only one of three teams to rush more than 4 more than 30 percent of the time -- the other two were SD and DAL. That breakdown suggested that the 4th and 5th most blitz-heavy team were ARI and PHI, which would seem to indicate that the blitz-heavy teams were doing pretty well in the postseason this year at least.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Stop me before I blitz again!
/TMQ
Whoops.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
I definitely get the feeling though, with the success of the Giants and Eagles, that the Jim Johnson defense (blitz heavy with tight man coverage) is going to be in vogue for a while.
This may be true, but I doubt it will ever become as prevalent as the Tampa 2 because it requires guys with elite man-to-man coverage ability at CB. Those guys are a lot more difficult to find than Tampa 2 style corners.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
I definitely get the feeling though, with the success of the Giants and Eagles, that the Jim Johnson defense (blitz heavy with tight man coverage) is going to be in vogue for a while.
This may be true, but I doubt it will ever become as prevalent as the Tampa 2 because it requires guys with elite man-to-man coverage ability at CB. Those guys are a lot more difficult to find than Tampa 2 style corners.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Yeah but Tampa-2 requires elite pass rushing from your front four which is also hard to find.
Coverage vs blitz
I am a little confused by the article. Tampa-2 is a zone coverage defense, so first point of the article is well taken: the more frequent mode seems to be aggressiveness w/blitz. But the question is what do you play when you do not blitz? the article grudgingly addresses the issue by saying that cover-2 does appear sometimes in this case. Obviously, if you play the same kind of coverage (there are only so many "wrinkles" on T2) all the time, even Alex Smith will pick you apart. (just as it's silly to be always blitzing the middle linebacker).
Bottom line, the article seems to make one obvious point (one cannot play same kind of defense all the time) after another (you gotta have good corners to play man coverage behind a blitz). All teams will vary their play, and their 'predominant' defensive style will be based on strengths/weaknesses of their players (and coaches). Good line/weak corners = zone coverages, good corners/weak line = blitzes. The best teams can do everything well, and Rod Marinelli's in-laws will mess up any defensive system.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Always enjoyed his columns in the Wash Times and Examiner back in DC. Good to see he's putting that journalism interest to use. I think that Tampa-2 will continue to be a look, or disguised coverage, just to mix things up.
I agree that high pressure, blitzing D will be 'in' for the next several years. Until someone drafts/signs personnel for something else and goes far.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Generally speaking, I think the cyclical personnel scarcity theory is correct. I also think that defensive success is driven more by player quality than by scheme.
If we're seeing a rise in the blitzing, attacking, cover 1/0 defense, what is the next trend? What sorts of players are left out of that kind of defense?
These questions offer two ways to predict the dominant defenses of the future. First, which teams are pursuing a scheme that lets them use talented players that simply aren't a good fit for the majority of teams? The second question is less useful: which teams are likely to have the best set of defensive personnel?
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
In addition to the cyclical personnel scarcity, count rarity as another factor behind success of a particular scheme.
The best example I can give is how effective the Dolphins were with the Wildcat in its inital weeks. Defenders had never seen anything like it, they didn't know to react to it. Likewise when the Bucs were the only team playing Tampa-2, opposing QBs weren't practiced in knowing the reads they'd need to make to find open receivers etc.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
I like your point about offensive adaptation. It's another element of the game. It's a cliche, but these things really do go in cycles. Defenses get big and strong, so offenses go for speed, then the defenses have to get fast, so then the offenses go for power, and so on.
Every defense gives and takes. For the Indy Tampa 2, they were soft against the run, but potent against the pass when protecting a lead. The blitzing defenses leave fewer personnel in coverage. Very few teams will be able to replicate the combination of pass rushing talent and cover corners that the Eagles have. Defenses have schemes, but great defenses always have great players.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
"For the Indy Tampa 2, they were soft against the run, but potent against the pass when protecting a lead."
This is a point that is very frequently missed in discussion of defensive schemes - the defensive scheme and the offensive strategy go hand in hand. The Indy Tampa 2 was potent against the pass when protecting a lead - and their offense frequently had a lead. Put that defense with a league-average offense, and they're not getting 11+ wins for years in a row, because they're getting gashed in the running game too frequently.
A similar point was made in the Post-Gazette recently about the Steelers (I believe it was made by a Steelers' player, but could have been one of the columnists) - the Steelers defense needs a ball-control, possession-maintaining offense, because the defense flies around so much they need time off to recover. Put the Steelers' defense with a quick-strike offense like Arizona and they'd be far less effective. I suspect the same applies for Baltimore.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Um, wasn't Walsh's West Coast Offense based on short, quick, well-timed routes to spread out the D and open up passing and running lanes? That sounds like it was made to counteract the blitz-happy D.
Or we can just look at whatever the Colts did against the Ravens this season, because they tore them up even though they were still in their offensive cold spell.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Indy torched the Ravens D by going deep. You may remember Marvin Harrison having two long touchdown catches after getting behind Chris McAllister.
Not a WCO thing there.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Matt Bowen just retired from football after playing his final season in a Tampa-2 (with Buffalo). He got injured and later released.
Reading that article and, more importantly, some of the comments he makes afterwards, I get the strong sense this anti-Cover 2 attitude of his is sour grapes.
Not to completely discount whatever good points he makes.....
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
For RBurgh: Nice to see someone giving some love to the late Bud Carson. I go all the way back to his Ga. Tech days with Bud and I think he is the best D coordinator who ever lived. Unless Dick LeBeau is?
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
Dungy got his background in defense in Pittsburgh both as a player and as a coach under Bud Carson. At the time he was in Pittsburgh, they ran a 4-3 because they had four exceptionally talented defensive lineman. In the years hence they switched to a 3-4 because linebackers are a dime a dozen. Great linebackers can be created from slightly undersized, athletically gifted defensive lineman. The Steelers have done this routinely since the beginning of the Bill Cowher era. There is no magic formula, just supply and demand at work here. The Steelers adjusted their defensive scheme to the talent they had and could easily acquire or develop.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
And adaptability really is something that doesn't get enough attention, imo. Everybody wants to talk about creating these great systems out of thin air, when in reality maximizing the talent you have at that moment is what gets you going as a team. Sure, every coach has preferences and works towards building teams that play like they prefer, but if you show up and ignore the skills of the guys you have, you'll likely be fired before you can get your preferred scheme to work. Unless there's an avalanche of shutdown corners coming from somewhere, I doubt you'll see a mass migration to playing tight man.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
The point about using which kind of players more readily available is a good one. So, what kind of players are being under-utilized currently? The one that jumps out at me is a true free-safety, those safeties that have great range that play center field. Even with the plethora of teams using base cover-2, tampa-2 schemes, the trend in safeties has been to get players who play well up in the box (notably Polomalu, Reed, ect.) or are big hitters. I truly can't think of one rangy safety in the league right now.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
the trend in safeties has been to get players who play well up in the box (notably Polomalu, Reed, ect.) or are big hitters. I truly can't think of one rangy safety in the league right now.
I'm not sure what games you're watching, but Reed normally does play sideline to sideline mid and deep coverage. He rarely plays up. The Run stops he does make are like ranging into a flat route or a screen pass.
Landry (and then Leonhard) are responsible for runs, but Reed is normally looking for pass first. Reed makes a few big plays on runs each game, which might be giving you an incorrect image of him playing run. Nearly all of those runs are outside, slow developing plays where he can completely cede his coverage responsibilities because it's clear a RB has the ball. On runs to the inside, Reed is only seen when the RB is 10 yards downfield. Moreover, teams don't scheme to block Reed on runs; it doesn't make sense to go after him downfield and give any of the LBers (or Ngata or Price) a free rush. Hence, when Reed does diagnose run and go after it, he's coming in with a 10-15 yard head start and he isn't accounted for.
Last year, and to a lesser extent this year, Reed has had to play help for the CBs. McCallister and Rolle were out most of last year, and the CB injuries have been only slightly less problematic this year. Some people have wondered why Reed completely disappeared in the AFC championship game. The simple answer is: Rolle was out. There are so many complaints about Rolle giving up 10 yard passes with his 15 yard cushion, but that has allowed Reed to roam. He doesn't have to worry about deep down one sideline. In the AFC championship, his corners were Walker, Washington, and Ivy. Ivy is more like a small linebacker than a corner, and putting him straight up on Holmes, Washington, or Ward would be a huge mismatch. Everyone knew a Safety was helping on Ivy's side on every down he was on the field. Reed couldn't hide his responsibilities for pre-snap reads, and couldn't gamble as much. Given one solid cover corner (or deep protected vet) and 1-2 average cover corners, and Reed is free to be Reed. Given 2 average CBs and a CB known mostly for blitzing and holding penalties, and Reed has to stay at home.
If you want to see Reed in full fledged range mode, watch the Ravens-Pats game last year or the Colts-Ravens playoff game from 2 years ago.
Re: The Death Of The Tampa-2
I hope less teams run it next year. Makes players for the Colts more plentiful and less expensive.
Post new comment