Mike Dussault

I was up well into the wee hours of the morning last night researching the defense that the Patriots showed against the Jaguars in their first preseason, and I’ve uncovered a lot of interesting information. Now I don’t claim that this is the defense that they fully intend on running during the regular season. Whatever they plan on doing this was just a basic vanilla version of it. But based on what we saw last night it looks like the Patriots are moving from a 3-4 to a 4-3 Under defense.

The 4-3 Under is an interesting defense, and having dedicated that past few years getting to know the Fairbanks-Bullough 3-4 I’m kind of excited to tackle a new system.

The 4-3 Under has it roots with Monte Kiffin at Nebraska in the 70’s where he won a National Championship with it. It’s also the defense that Pete Carroll has run for his entire career after learning it from Kiffin. So for pre-Super Bowl band wagon Patriots fans, you’ve seen this before in the late-90’s.

The 4-3 Under is known to be possibly the best pass rushing base defense, but also to be stout against the run. It can be run from one-gap or two gap principals, and knowing the Patriots their version is likely to be a mixture of both. It is perfect in it’s simplicity and allows players to play fast and aggressive without over-thinking.

Let’s take a look at some diagrams:

Now you’ll notice some slight tweaks to what the Pats are doing above compared to the 4-3 under diagram, notably that they interior gap responsibilities have been flipped and they’re a little more spread out due to the fact that the Jags are in a 3-WR set, but otherwise the Patriots ran the 4-3 Under exclusively on early downs.

The most obvious advantage of this defense is that there are really only two traditional defensive lineman, and five athletic linebacker-types. This formation also has a straight up pass rusher on every down from the RDE spot.

Let’s discuss how specific players will fit into the roles in this defense.

• This defense will make it hard to double team both Albert Haynesworth* and Vince Wilfork, assuring at least one of them has a one on one match-up every down. Me likey.
• As we’ve said before Jerod Mayo will be completely protected at the WLB spot (where we saw Guyton last night). He should make another buttload of tackles.
• Jermaine Cunningham is really one of the biggest keys now to the defense. Being the strong side defensive end he will have to line up head on against a tackle, but also face a constant threat of a down block from the tight end. That’s why you saw Cunningham in a four point stance, he’ll have to stay low and battle. The Strong DE is the key to stopping the run, and Cunningham will have to be extremely stout at the point of attack. He won’t be pass rushing as a lot of people might’ve expected after last season, and that’s probably why he hasn’t flashed a lot in training camp thus far. But the good news is that when the offense does go strong to the other side he’s a solid enough pass rush guy they’ll be able to bring pressure with him. Clearly the Pats chose him over Ty Warren for that spot for the pass rush he can bring.
• At the other side will be the Weak Defensive End and his job is to rush the passer almost exclusively. The only thing that can’t happen is for him to get hooked and lose contain.
• We all saw what Dane Fletcher did from the MLB spot last night. Now imagine what Brandon Spikes will do there. Wow. However the 4-3 Under is susceptible to pass in the middle zone, Spikes being able to instantly read play action and drop into coverage in the middle flat will be a huge developmental step that he will need to take.
• If Gary Guyton is going to be the Strong Side Linebacker in this defense we’ll need a huge year out of him. He will be playing on the line where you see Ninkovich above. This is a hugely important position as he’ll be pretty much taking on the tight end every down. I wonder if Ninkovich is still in contention for this spot as well.
• Patrick Chung will make a ton of tackles in this defense as well. He is another one of the key people for this system to run correctly.
• It will also take advantage of stout, physical corners like McCourty, Bodden and Dowling.

If you had to generalize why the Patriots are moving to this defense (assuming this is really what they’re moving to) the simple explanation is that they want to get more athletes, more speed and more pass rush on the field for all downs.

The biggest question will be whether or not they can stop the run consistently from this formation. They are clearly giving something up in the run defense department as we saw last night, though I expect Wilfork and Haynesworth* to be hugely effective in causing havoc on the interior line.

My early feeling is that against a run heavy team they’d remain in the 4-3 Under but go with bigger stouter defensive ends. That will depend on how well Jermaine Cunningham can win at the point of attack.

I know BB thinks it’s a media fabrication about him changing defensive fronts but it’s obvious that changes have been made to the base defense, and the evolution of BB D 2.0 has clearly taken a new turn.