The formation is so built for stopping the run, that the DBs really need to be sharp. Good call!

Sure drove a lot of very knowledgeable fans NUTS — maybe they’ll feel a little better if they read this!

Nice work HT. As always, highly highly REC’d and hands down my favorite recurring feature!!!

..of having five DLs. There is little room for error in the passing game (much like the 46 defense of the Eagles and the old Bears), but it is a decent base formation.

Who better to act as a nickel-type pass defender at LB than a big, fast safety?

C;mon now; that’s going to far!

lol

Glad you’re here!

Well, the easy excuse is to tell the truth. I didn’t design or draw it. MHR is blessed to have kind folks who do some of our art work, and I’m a terrible artist so I’m just grateful to get a logo. Still, it is very cool and I’m not going to nitpick it. : )

The “cool” excuse is that I used to be a defensive coordinator, and I always enjoy seeing the wrong number of offensive players on the field. It makes my job easier.

That would also solve the illegal formation from having an uncovered tackle on the left side.

I had the same thought: if Denver is going with something closer to a 5-2, would it make more sense to have someone like Woodyard over Davis in passing or neutral situations? He’s a solid tackler, but much more mobile.

And I guess having someone like Barrett in on obvious passing situations would make sense. Maybe Davis or Larsen in short yardage.

Wow…going to be interesting!

1 – We should see a fair amount. This is why (seeing the drops into coverage) I think we’ll be running the zone blitz as our system. (Dropping into man coverage still qualifies as ZB.

2 – Yes; the conversion is easy. Also, a team can convert into a 4-3 over or 4-3 under if they drop back just one DE. It is very flexible. The draw back is that we are moving around DEs, who aren’t as versatile as OLBs would be.

3 – Agreed.

4 – RIght again; the DEs will need to play some contain assignments to hold the screens, and the SAFs will have to do their jobs. Pressure from the front five should help against the Raiders deep passes (since they should take awhile to develop).

5 – I disagree here. All five of our players have been defensive linemen (as well as the players in depth at “OLB”), which is one way of defining them. The other way (which I don’t go by so much) is that they are lining up on the line. Either way, I would have to call them linemen.

6 – Yes, but that’s a risk. There aren’t as many guys to zone in the backfield, so any zones (by the CBs) will leave glaring holes.

7 – I agree in part. Davis can still help to ensure that we stop the run on obvious run downs, and if we face 3 or more receivers I don’t like the 5-2. But I also have a personal preference for speed at LB, and with the 5-2 (which has little room for error), it is nice to have speed at LB. Speed is a trait that can make up for mistakes. (The counter is – anything that gets past the front five is a danger to go all the way, so you want a big body in there. But I’m with you on this one).

8 – I don’t know. I’m kind of thinking that our personnel on defense were so screwed up that the 5-2 helps to compensate. For example, if we don’t have many good DLs, we put more on the field; we have one or two elite LBs, we don’t need more. But that’s just a guess of course.

The even nicer news is that Oakland is having serious problems with their offensive line, which makes their preferred vertical passing even more problematic. Look for Doom to have a monster game.

However, he plays “off” the receiver (starts further back than most CBs), and this can look like zone.

The best CBs play man coverage. It takes more skill to play in man. If you have a CB that can’t keep up with a receiver, you generaly play him in zone. In otherwords, playing an elite CB like Champ in zone would be considered a waste of talent. (Note how teams that don’t spend big money on elite CBs play systems like cover 2).

I don’t think I missed it.

The 5-2 is a base formation, and should never be called if the opposing team brings in two more receivers. We should be in dime (or at least nickel) for 4 receiver sets. You wouldn’t want a 4-3 or 3-4 against 4 receivers either.

In the NFL, you RARELY ever want to be in man coverage, except in special circumstances. WR’s are all taller, stronger and in some cases, faster than DBs in the league, and will get beat when isolated. Zone coverage allows ball-hawks to read the QB, watch the play develop and break on the ball without worring about getting beat deep.

Added pressure against the QB leads to hurry ups. This can lead to botched handoffs, sacks that fumble, and hurried passes (INTs). The best way to get turnovers is to get people into the offense’s backfield. Penetration is the key, and the 5-2 provides this.

Second, the rule of thumb is that the first player tackles, the second player tries to strip the ball. This is made easier in the 5-2, where the LBs have all the protection in the world to become the second defensive player to the ball carrier.

You are correct that zones are used to “jump routes” for INTs. In our case, the INTs are being forced on the passer’s side of the ball, not the receivers. (Just a different approach).

Doom played weak side. When Ayers was in, he played strong side and I imagine that’s where he’ll be starting sooner rather than later. I saw real growth in his game last week. As HT noted, Ayers is on the strong side because he will probably be better against the run than Doom, although I think I have more love for Ayers’ pass-rush ability than HT seems to ;)

Which is great. You can throw to Bailey (never a good idea), or to Goodman (he played VERY well, and I think he’ll be a steal). And if you aren’t careful, you can get clobbered by Weapon X. I’m hoping the defense leaves no good options for opposing offenses.

: )

Thanks for the observations!

First, just as with the 3-4 and the 4-3, you don’t leave this package on the field when four receivers come onto the field. You change personnel and put up a dime or nickel.

As to the other point, I respectfuly disagree. If you are going to define formations by stances, I would conceed that you have a point. I am only familiar with defining formations by alignment, and then either by “strict” alignment or by “personnel” alignment. I mentioned in the article that I prefer the latter. But in either case, it would appear to be a 5-2 to me. Just my opinion.

In highschool we played a 5-2 base defense. We never had our DE’s play with a hand in the dirt. Just because they are standing up doesn;t mean they are not D Linemen. They are D Linemen because they line up on defense on the line of scrimmage.

O linemen on 3rd and long often are not in a 3 point stance either, yet their positions don’t change because of this. What defines a “lineman” (on either side of the ball) is not their stance.

Sometimes we came out in 4-3, and sometimes we dropped a DE back for a 4-3 look. Good observation!

Some quartebacks stay down after our DE, OLB, MLB, S, CB, DT…. CRUSH them. I’d love for Rivers to be on the opposing end of a few of them.

D looks improved, all you can ask for really.

Good thoughts peeps. Refreshing to see actual football intelect as opposed to Yahoo commentors or D-post haters.

There are times when offensive tackles will start in a two-point stance, but we don’t think of them as being anything other than linemen.

If you’re on the line, you’re part of the line (CBs excepted).

Ted defines the position in the classical sense. He looks strictly at where the players line up, and most coaches do this. It is easier to argue the point that we are a 5-2 based on Ted’s context.

In my background with coaching, we used a different (but still valid) approach. If we moved a player to another position we still wanted to define the player to make his attributes clear when designing plays. It is a less common approach, but is still widely used. Under my definition, the outermost guys on our 5-2 front are DEs (guys like Doom, Crowder, etc), so the formation can’t be argued to be a 3-4 even under my definition.

The nice thing is, both of us have different backgrounds with Xs and Os and even define things differently, but come to the same conclusion. That in itself is telling. If it looks like a duck….

I think the Bears game showed us how well this can/is going to work for us. Remember we had 3 3 & outs against the Bears first team O. And, although Cutler was making throws on the long touchdown drive to end the half, if Doom doesn’t decide he needs to give Crybaby an extra shove and give them 15 yards for unnecessary roughness, it is entirely plausible that Cutler’s unit doesn’t get a touchdown against us. I feel like we had a helluva defensive day against the Bears, and nobody is grasping that.

Disclaimer: those thoughts were not necessarily directed at you Bideshi, just adding on ;)

He used to be a defensive assistant, and was also a DBs coach. He knows his defense.

I’m not sure the DBs are a problem though. Dawkins and Goodman both looked great in game 3 (I thought).

…is defined as “the defense a team uses most commonly when the opponent has two or less receviers on the field”.

You are also correct that the defense will (should) switch out of the 5-2 if the opponent brings in more receivers.

In that situation, hopefully whichever DE is on the weak side plays contain, as HT mentioned in the original post, and tries to force the RB back inside to the rest of the D-line and the 2 LB’s. If that doesn’t work, the linebackers still pursue across and then we have to rely on the 2 safeties. Definitely a cause for concern though, hopefully we’re good and disciplined in those situations and DJ can be his “guided-laser-missile” self and blow that RB up!

The classical method (which staffer TedBartlett uses, as do most coaches) is to define the formation strictly by where players line up. In our case, there are 5 guys on the line and 2 in the second level. By his standard, this is a 5-2.

The neo-modernist kind of method (which I use, as do many coaches but not a majority) is to define the position in the same manner, but to take into account each players primary skill set. In my book, I see what appears to be a 5-2, but I ALSO see that the two outermost players on the line play at DE naturaly. By my standard, the formation is a 5-2.

Member Atwater27 mentions that we could also define the position by stances, and by his standard, this would be a 3-4. This is a fair point, but I’m not familiar with defining formations by stance.

There are a lot of good counters to the 5-2 (as with any defense), including the two you bring up. Two things aid the 5-2 in the plays you mention though…

1 – One danger of the 5-2 is that the defense can drop one or both DEs back, changing into either a 3-4 or 4-3 (over or under). On any pay the offense runs, they don’t know if this will happen. Now you might be running the back door play or something out of the wildcat at a 4-3 or 3-4 (and the accompanying play run out of those formations).

2 – When the team keeps the 5-2 look, there is some compensation in that the two LBs have major protection from the DL, allowing easier lateral movement.

Good stuff Lake!

I think our starting lineup will be (starting from left to right) Ayers (LDE), McBean (LDG), Fields (NT), Peterson (RDG), Doom (RDE). Will be interested to see your line-up, HT!

I wouldn’t mind seeing Baker take over for McBean at LDG at some point in the season, that would add some serious heft/pressure up front.

I don’t know much about that, except that 29 radioisotopes of protactinium have been characterized, with the most stable being 231-Pa with a half life of 32760 years, 233-Pa with a half-life of 26.967 days, and 230-Pa with a half-life of 17.4 days. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lifes that are less than 1.6 days, and the majority of these have half lifes that are less than 1.8 seconds. This element also has 2 meta states, 217m-Pa (t½ 1.15 milliseconds) and 234m-Pa (t½ 1.17 minutes).

The primary decay mode for isotopes of Pa lighter than (and including) the most stable isotope 231-Pa (ie, 212Pa to 231Pa) is alpha decay and the primary mode for the heavier isotopes (ie, 232Pa to 240Pa) is beta minus (β−) decay. The primary decay products of isotopes of Pa lighter than (and including) 231-Pa are element Ac (actinium) isotopes and the primary decay products for the heavier isotopes of Pa are element U (uranium) isotopes.

But hey, electical responses in sub 0 Nitrogen cooled Germanium Crystal? We don’t cover that in MHR-U!

lol

It is to be hoped that the perceived weakness against the pass is accounted for with an elite secondary and an extreme pass rush.

Keep up the great work!

I have an actual sized map of the United States. At the botom, it says “1 mile equals 1 mile”.

Last summer I folded it…

Good to hear from you Darin. Hope all is going well!

As the players progress, they’ll need to learn how to make the 5-2 adaptable (ameoba like) so that they can morph the formation into 3-4s and 4-3s.

If playing a a team with a strong pass-catching tight end, I would love to see a formation variant from the base 5-2 with Barrett stepping in for one of our Defensive ends to cover him.

I’ll definately call it a 3-4. It would also help if we played actual OLBs at the OLB position. But I do agree that we are still playing vanilla.

Thanks for the good observation!

Remember, even if the pass rush is not successful, you still have one CB on the receiver (as with other formations), and perhaps one safety to help over the top (as with other formations). The only difference between the 4-3 or 3-4 and the 5-2 is that you have the extra rusher. The downfield area and alignments are the same.

Really, the pass weakness of the 5-2 is the mid range passes towards the outside. Deep passes and passes to the center of the field are actualy fairly safe for the defense.

I also agree we’re playing with the hand we were dealt. Next year may see a true 3-4 or something else. But the 5-2 seems a good fit for now.

The biggest things I’ve noticed in the pre-season (first team) -

Much less missed tackles,

Much less over pursuit,

Much more effort.

And a comment. I’ve never seen DJ so involved and fired up as this year. He’s all over the field making plays!

The catch is, despite a player’s responsibility based on his given assignment, there comes a critical point during a play where a player says to himself “I know I’m supposed to break weak, but the ball has clearly gone to the other side”. No he may have been fooled, or he may be right, but at that critical moment, the player must decide how sure he is, and make a decision.

The only assignment that a player should “never” break from is a contain assignment (in such a position, you are on one side of the ball carrier, and out of position if he goes the other way anyway. For instance, you contain a few yards to the left of the QB, but the play runs to the right). DJ will be either in blitz, man, or zone, so he’ll face quite a few of these decisions.

The best thing for a LB to do in your situation is to let the other LB (the one with the nearest zone assignment or the man) to take the ball carrier, and if you’ve been convinced that your assignment is “over”, to start taking an angle down field to cover for that “lesser” LB.

Coaches preach “keep your assignment”, but the truth is, there comes a point where a player keeps his assignment when the ball is clearly moving downfield, and now the player is at fault for not using common sense. Of course, if the player picks wrong, he’ll catch heck for being fooled. At the HS level, we put a bigger premium on “trust the coach, not your eyes” because it is easier to trick young players (with a reverse for example). Pro players get more autonomy, because they’ve seen it all hundreds of times (which is why the reverse is such a low percentage play at the pro-level, but has moderate success in HS).

Just a minute ago (but about 30 minutes after your comment) I commented that there is a good chance we morph into something different next year. I think we’ll have to watch next year’s draft for our answer. If we go after OLBs, we might see a true 3-4. I don’t see Nolan moving to a 4-3 without a lot of overhaul.

Depending on the development of our DEs (that are being called “hybrid OLBs”), we may see more “ameoba” like morphing from the 5-2 into 3-4s and 4-3s during plays (by moving around the DEs). This could lead to more of a true 3-4 by season’s end if the DEs can get up to speed on playing like OLBs.

Very sharp question!

FIrst, you’ve descibed the Ameoba philosophy perfectly. Second, from an Xs and Os standpoint, the Patriots are much more known for an Ameoba DEFENSE than an Ameoba offense.

As a D coordinator, I’ve always been facinated at the adjustments the defense makes from game to game. They played a smash mouth style to stop the Rams (Greatest Show on Turf), then became more exotic to beat the Panthers. From game to game, the Patriots have always made incredible adjustments that just boggle my mind. When the “camera gate” fiasco happened, I opined that perhaps the Patriots are able to magicaly adjust because they just cheat. But in truth, they just run an amazingly adaptive system. (And amazing is an understatement).

I’m not taking anything from the Patriots offense, Its just that, from a purely Xs and Os standpoint, the Patriots defense is like watching the Harlem Globetrotters. The adjustments are so profound, they’re surreal.

awesome!

isn’t the right word… I have no doubt that many coaches are qualified to run and install these sytems, but perhaps the system says more about consistency and willingness to be adaptable, not to get caught up in rationalizing your own skills? (Think the shanny system of exerting his offensive will on his opponents, regardless of how fruitful that endeavor is in any given situation.)

I might not be popular for this but I would charcterize McD for being “intellectually honest,” that is he doesn’t lie to himself about what the team needs to do and when they need to do it, and he doesn’t subscribe to the notion of “humans as insects”. Insects are of course highly specialized, and while certain economic models benefit humans greatly in the realm of specialization, there is something profound to be said for those who spread themselves out over many passions and disciplines. It is a risky way of going about things, but the rewards are multiple.

…I want to hold of on “brilliant” yet. While some folks are making the mistake of condemning the man before he has even hit the regular season, I’m not going to make the same mistake on the other side.

RIght now I have Denver at about 8-8. I also believe that we’ll be playing better ball (both in the wins and losses) than we did over the last two years. I’ll reserve judgment until sometime during the 2010 season, when he’ll have a chance to show what he can do with his own players and system more fully in place. But I like what I’ve seen so far.

: )

Can you give me details on Game Rewind? Like, everything? ;)

Dawkins at FS didn’t have TE coverage on the weakside.

Good stuff Pilot!

Holy awesome!

Is it streaming or can you dl the whole thing? And thats every game all year?

Thanks for the info…

…and welcome to the MHR family!

Do you feel comfortable with, let’s say Dumervil, on man coverage? I love Dumervil, but just have a hard time with him playing as a covering LB.

…looking to MHR-U to get an edge on Denver. but I appreciate the thought!

LOL