how many good teams play man to man (1 Viewer)

The general undersized nature of the Tampa-2, and in particular the defensive line, means yes, running right at it is often successful. The key for a Tampa-2 team to stop the run is a penetrating DT who can disrupt the run and the handoff and get it going east-west from the start. Which puts the LBs in pursuit which they excel at. Tampa with Warren Sapp was a great example of this.

Hence the reason Deuce has had a career against Tampa. Good post, Spam.
 
Green Bay play man to man a press coverage BUT you saw what happened to them during the NFCCG this year.
 
It'll probably be easier to just address this broadly.

First of all, again, Cover-2 is just a coverage. Tampa-2 is an actual philosophy :) "Cover-2" just means "2 men deep". It can be, actually, just about anything. 2 safeties deep, the rest man (Cover-2 man). The two CBs deep and the safeties dropping into an undernear zone (a Robber coverage). You might blitz a CB and roll the safeties over the top to that side. etc etc

So "Cover-2" is, technically, worthless to say on it's own. However I understand nowdays it's become "shorthand" for "Tampa-2", but it's still important to keep this in mind.


Let's tackle the Tampa-2.

First of all the Tampa-2 is a little different then a strictly normal Cover-2 zone. The MLB drifts a little deeper on a passing play, almost into a sort of Cover-3. The Safeties as a result slide a little to the sidelines, and the OLBs end up with more ground to cover.

Running this a lot requires some specific personal, and the Tampa-2 turns from just a "coverage" into a "philosophy".

Most importantly, you're only rushing 4. So your front-4, first and foremost, has to independently generate a pass rush. They mostly play 1-gap, the focus is on penetrating and getting up field as quick as possible. Your ends in particular tend to be undersized, don't worry about the run one lick, and just get up field on the LT. A great 3-tech DT is also a huge, huge help as Warren Sapp demonstrated because if your ends are constantly going wide you need to collapse the pocket from inside.

Interestingly Dwight Freeney's infamous "spin move" allows him to get in closer to the LT and basically avoid getting pushed real deep in his rush. Which helps out the interior linemen because there's not as big a "pocket" formed. Freeney often beats the QB to the spot of his drop back.


Anyways, the result of this is you end up with linebackers who are basically having to read-react to any run plays. Along side that is also the space they have to cover in coverage. Consequently they also tend to be focused on "speed" and consequently, often times, undersized (Cato June, Derrick Brooks, etc). However, since the CBs are playing an underneath zone facing the QB, they serve almost like safeties and can help the LBs in run support. Consequently you need bigger CBs who can by physical, but can afford to get guys who maybe don't have the "hips" and can't turn and run in man coverage as well.

Lastly you need Safeties who can cover a lot of ground quickly. One of the core focuses of the Tampa-2 is "no big plays". It's happy to give up an 11 play drive because it's at it's best in the redzone (when the zones tighten up because the field is shorter) and thrives on forcing "mistakes" (because everyone faces up the QB it produces a lot of INTs, plus the pressure from a good Tampa-2 line). You can just about always move the ball on a Tampa-2 defense but you have to be mistake free. That's taxing mentally and very difficult to pull off.


One of the things you should notice is how "atypical" the players are for a lot of those positions. It was one of the core ideas behind it when Dungy first installed it in Tampa. He could go after guys most other teams considered tweeners (like Derrick Brooks who was "too small"). He could draft 4th round CBs and have them work out just fine (because the key attribute of a man CB, his "hips" is a relative non-issue). You can use those 250lb undersized DEs. etc

Of course, some of the Tampa-2 "philosophy" has since leaked into the rest of the NFL, even if they don't adopt it wholesale. Consequently you don't have the personal advantage that Tampa had at the end of the 90s.


All of that put together. The most important thing we lack for any "Tampa-2" philosophy are undersized rush ends. And McCray isn't an answer there either. We'd have to draft someone like Ghoulston to even consider it. So you can probably toss that out the window. As far as attacking it goes. The general undersized nature of the Tampa-2, and in particular the defensive line, means yes, running right at it is often successful. The key for a Tampa-2 team to stop the run is a penetrating DT who can disrupt the run and the handoff and get it going east-west from the start. Which puts the LBs in pursuit which they excel at. Tampa with Warren Sapp was a great example of this.

Nice post and very good description of the Tampa 2.
 
Thanks Spam...

It is also interesting to note how often the Colts have gone through defensive tackles trying to find the next Warren Sapp.
 
:9:good post Spam....i'm glad you changed the avatar also....they crazy little guy scares the hell out of me, i'm within missile range of N.Korea
 
Not saying we should switch to Tampa-2, but I think we should play a little more zone. I understand we had to blitz last season b/c there was no pressure. The only way I'd agree to playing a base man-to-man defense is if we play it like the Eagles do. Very aggresively.
 
Not saying we should switch to Tampa-2, but I think we should play a little more zone. I understand we had to blitz last season b/c there was no pressure. The only way I'd agree to playing a base man-to-man defense is if we play it like the Eagles do. Very aggresively.

This is key. Pressure is essential to not getting burned if a team plays a lot of man coverage.

However, the personnel you have is just as important.. Philly needs fast CBs. Indy doesn't.

As most everyone knows, this is the big problem with Jason David. He's a terrible fit for what the Saints want to do on defense, which is closer to Philly than Indy.
 
just saw NFLN talking about the Raiders, and rod woodson said they play man to man defense and that it is hard to win in the NFL league while playing man to man defense. I'm sure teams can win while playing man to man (Packers I believe) but do the more successful teams generally stay away from overall man to man? wondering if Saints are hurting themselves by playing man to man to begin with.

Teams with Sense dont run man to man. Because players like Chad Johnson, Randy Moss, Andre Johnson, Galloway, and much more will have a field day.

Thats one thing we need to change! Thats why we gave up over 30 points a game last year
 
O.K., for those who are so in love with the zone defense, be sure to keep your blood pressure in check when Saints corners allow receivers to catch the ball in front of them and receivers appear to be wide open when they sit in the dead spots in the zone.

Kooldak and Spam have it right... NFL teams run a variety of defenses that change based on the opponent and they also change the coverages from down to down.

Your personnel dictates your coverage schemes. MM is a good, physical man-press defender. Fred Thomas, Jason Craft, etc. are better suited to zone coverages, but their physical skills have declined to the point that they are nickel/dime guys at best now.

In Thomas' prime, he could be just as scrappy and physical as anyone -as were corners like Fred Weary, Kevin Mathis, etc.

HOWEVER, what Payton and company found out pretty quickly was that Bullocks lacked the instincts to play zone effectively, and KK lacked the speed to cover the field as a centerfielder (in small areas, he did quite well).

And finally, as has been repeated ad nauseum here, the absence of a significant pass rush made the secondary look a lot worse than it really was.

It's not the scheme or schemes that were wrong, it was a lack of players who could run the schemes effectively... bringing in more pass rushers, solidfying the linebacking corps and bringing in a younger corner who is instictive to replace your aging nickel/dime guys (and can start if he has to) is a good start.

I feel there is still a good weakside linebacker in FA (Boss Bailey or Ian Gold) and possibly a corner (Andre Dyson -not as a starter but someone to throw in the mix), but the draft will be key to get a couple of young defensive tackles and groom some corners.

Thank you very much. This staff has proven that they can get the most out of these guys. We expect awesome results now, but when Payton took over, we only had 3 solid players on defense-- Smith, Grant, and McKenzie. Up until Saturday, it was pretty much the same besides Fujita. Even Fujita bounced around before coming here. We went into the season expecting to have one of the worst LB corps and defense in the league and managed a top 10 effort. I believe this was so becuase a bunch of average players played inspired football, bought into a philosophy, and did their best to be in the right place the right time.

The fact is that we have had a serious lack of talent on defense. And the best chance they had to not be exposed on every level was to play the scheme we have been in. Now that the talent level has gone up, we will be able to execute it better and be more flexible concerning what type of 43 scheme we run.
 
Also shows exactly how a dominant DT was THE centerpeice and cataylists for an entire defense and philosophy.
 
Teams with Sense dont run man to man. Because players like Chad Johnson, Randy Moss, Andre Johnson, Galloway, and much more will have a field day.

Thats one thing we need to change! Thats why we gave up over 30 points a game last year
If by "sense" you mean the right personnel, then I agree with you. If you meant something other than that, you might need to re-read LSSpam's post again. To run primarily zone (and by zone, I really mean Tampa-2/Cover-2) you need the right players, including (but not limited to) a penetrating 3-tech who can push the pocket from the middle. Right now the Saints don't have the right mix of personnel to pull it off.
 

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