If you’ve had a chance to check out the Patscast podcast one of the regular guests is Jay Shields. Jay is a Patriots-centric Mike Mayock on the show, and shares his insights on the Patriots schemes from an educated football background. In my unending quest to become a more knowledgeable football fan I’ve found Jay’s commentary to be fascinating. Below is a post that Jay made on the popular PatsFans.com messageboard, providing a little more insight into what the Jets do on defense and how you beat it. Enjoy (and I suggest you grab a pen and paper to illustrate Jay’s description.:
Let’s start with the two most basic concepts behind Ryan’s fundamental attack. His scheme relies upon attacking the blocking scheme of the offense and forcing a quick ball release. This is achieved through disguising the Mike backer, overloading a gap, and pressing receivers off of the line. In order to understand how this attacks blocking schemes, it is necessary to first understand the fundamentals of a pass blocking scheme.
Typically, the first call made after the offense breaks the huddle is the identification of the Mike linebacker. This is sometimes made by both the QB and center, othertimes just by the center. Think of the Mike backer as the strength of the defensive formation. Just as you would hear defenses call out “strong left”, offenses will call out “52 is Mike”. Almost everything in defensive football boiled down it it’s most basic, fundamental level flows through the Mike linebacker. This is in large part because of the premium on the middle of the field. Look at how defenses are built. Nose, Mike and Will, SS. Everything from flow to the football to coverage to blitzing runs through the Mike. From 2-gap 34 to Ryan 34 to Johnson 43 to Tampa-2, it all places a premium on the alignment and responsibility of the mike. If he’s not there to blitz or eat a blocker he is there to compensate for a weakened area. In the context of the passing game, he is your best key in the anticipation of a blitz or coverage. Take this read away and the offense is already in an anticipation disadvantage.
The next part of what makes Ryan’s scheme effective is the overload blitz. This is again an attack on the pass protection concept. As a very general rule, most protections rely upon the blocker to defend a zone of closeness. Take the man closest to your face, and put a premium on defending the most direct line to the football. This is in response to stunts and loops that are designed to confuse man blocking scheme. For example; the offense is set in a singleback set with the TE aligned to the right of the formation. The defense is in a basic 43 call. In a very basic call the tackle is responsible for the weakside end, and the guard is responsible for the 3-technique. When the ball is snapped the 3-tech drives across the face of the guard, drawing him inwards. The defensive end accelerates towards the outside shoulder of the tackle, pulling him outwards in his drop steps. There is now a large rushing lane opened in the B-gap. The Will backer attacks the B-gap and the back steps up to block the Will. Tackle has outside responsibility, guard has inside responsibility, back has blitzer. Same thing would have happened if the 3-tech shot the B-Gap, and the Mike came through the A gap. Now, let’s add a walked up free safety coming through the B-Gap off of the azz of the Will. No matter what the o-line does, someone is going to come free. This example isn’t perfect nor absolute but it does a good job of illustrating my point.
You can read the rest of Jay’s post here…