Bear Front Defenses

While many of you are aware of the Bear Front defenses in you defensive playbooks, the majority don't use it because of your lack of understanding of the scheme behind it.Every defensive package should have some sort of Bear Front in its package it is set up. The 4-2-5 and 3-3-5 have a version based off the 46 (pronounced “forty-six” not “Four-Six)Defense that was designed in the early 1980s by Buddy Ryan with the Chicago Bears. Most folks know that – and hence, the nickname, “Bear” Defense. It was the defense of the dominant 1985 Bears team. This is also the front used in Arizona’s “Desert Swarm defense back in the day and the same defense that Army is using today (A mixture of the 3-4 and 3-3-5).

The defense has its basis in the old 5-2 Double Eagle front and is easy to stem in and out of from your base defenses. It is an 8-man, run-stopping front that works well with man coverages and with Cover 3.


Alignment



The alignment of the Bear Defense revolves around the 3-0-3 alignment in the middle. This means we have a Defensive Lineman aligned on the outside shoulder of each of the Guards, and a head up Nose Guard. The biggest advantage of this front is its almost impossible to create double teams, especially on your Nose Guard.

The weak side Defensive End stays in a 5-Technique. On the strong side, one Linebacker/SS is going to walk up on the inside foot of the Tight End while another Linebacker or Safety is going to walk up on the outside foot of the Tight End. Whoever is doing this is going to be based on the Defensive playbook, so don’t get caught up in the letters.

Run Fits

There’s no better front for stopping the run than the Bear. The 3-0-3 techniques are great for stuffing runs up the middle and forces your opponent to take runs to the outside. This, by design, the contain players on the perimeter will make or break if this defense works for you or not. If they don't keep a proper contain on the perimeter you’re going to be open to the outside run play all day, so you definately have to be careful with your play selection.

There are all sorts of Run fits in these playbooks. Cover 1 Plug from the 46 Bear, Storm Read from the 3-3-5 Bear, and the MLB Blitz from the 4-2-5 Bear.

Coverages

As mentioned, the coverage for the Bear Front Defense is mostly going to be Cover 0, Cover 1 or Cover 3 – which should be the case with any 8-man front defense, unless you’re running the 3-3-5 Bear version which is the only Bear Front that offers a Cover 2 “Robber” (which you already know Im a fan of) in the Spy 2 Blitz play and my personal opinion is that it should be in every bear front scheme. )That’s going to be the basic look.

You can get creative with your coverages in any defensive front, but the reality is, you are limited in coverages with the 46 Defense. Bear defense coverages are pretty well limited to Cover 0, Cover 1, and Cover 3.

Cover 1

The primary Bear Defense coverage is the Cover 1, with man coverage and one safety helping over the top. This allows a 4 to 5 man rush on the QB.

4-2-5 offers 3 versions of Cover 1. One that I like to play with is QB contain. Sometimes I decide to make adjustments to this play (IE Canceling out the contain) but I usually get a good amount of pressure with it on verses a user that knows how to use the option playbooks.

CB Fire 1 is a great play to use on passing downs when the ball is on the hash. I personally like to send corner blitzes on from the boundary (short) side of the field. Many people think they are useless plays and twice as many never expect them.

Cover 0

The next coverage for the Bear Defense is a Cover 0, Man Coverage with no help over top and a 6 man rush. All 6 players lined up on the line will rush, with the Free Safety taking the Tight End or the Halfback. If you've shown a lot of Zone plays from the Bear, try mixing in some Cover 0

4-2-5 plays:
MLB Blitz and Strong Safety Fire

3-3-5 plays:
Monster Green, Fire Green and Middle Plug

Cover 3

Finally, the Cover 3 is the natural fit for zone coverage in the Bear Defense.

The Free Safety and the two Corners handle the deep 1/3′s, which is pretty standard in Cover 3.

You have the option of making this a 4 under, 3 deep coverage with a 4 man rush or a 3 under, 3 deep coverage more closely associated with Fire Zone blitzes and 5 man pressure. How you want to create the 3 under, 3 deep (or any zone coverage out of the Bear Defense) is going to depend on your personnel. You may not have an End who can drop off, so you’d need to adapt.

Thoughts on Coverages
The Bear Defense is an attack-style defense. It is for causing havoc in the backfield. Man coverage is best for quick throws, because your guys are playing closer to the receivers.

If you’re going to run the Bear Defense, you need to be forcing quick throws with heavy pressure from the guys on the defensive front.

Strengthening Your Bear Front

I suggest building a stronger line for something like this by Formation Subbing. Making sure that your largest and best tackle is at Nose and, depending on what base defense your using, that your 3tech players are Tackles too. I also experimented with adding a 4-4 and 3-5-3 personnel to these packages in these playbook and had pretty good results. The fact that the Bear coverage scheme is mostly Man coverage, the only plays you have to be careful of is Cover 2 Man when using the same formation subs.

(H/t to DrB at http://www.shakinthesouthland.com/ and Coach Joe Danienl at http://www.football-defense.com/)

Spread Offense Manual from 09

Been going through this recently. Very well thought out and the principles still hold true...

Spread Option Manual v 1.1

Employing TCU's Bullets Thunder 0 Cop Blitz

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the 4-2-5/4-4 defense, defenses in general. I recently ran across a post over at Blitzolgy about TCU’s Bullets Thunder 0 Cop Concept. Oneback has already described in his guide the basic calls TCU uses on defense out of their 4-2-5:

BULLETS - linebackers (Mike / Sam) blitzes
SMOKES - Safeties (Strong/Weak) edge blitzes
DOGS - Safeties & linebacker blitzes



The Bullets call, that involves the blitzing of both inside LBs through they're respective gaps, A of the Sam backer and B for the Mac backer. You can also send them into different gaps if you see fit. I.E.: The call “BULLETS A” would call for the Linebackers to blitz their respective “A” Gaps.



The next call is Thunder which tells the the Safety to the TE side that he’ll be blitzing from the outside. The next part of the call is 0 Cop. 0 is for the coverage, meaning all out man coverage with no safety help and the Cop Tag is a call used to tell the DE that he’ll have the TE in man to man coveage. TCU has very athletic DEs that allow them to be this creative on their blitzes. If you dont have athletic DEs I suggest using the LB Pass Rush package.




You can create this concept out of a number of looks from the 4-2-5, 4-3 and 4-4. I like to use for this concept out of Nickel Strong - Under Smoke.

Its been a long time.

I'll have some new stuff coming in the next couple of days. A large one dealing with Cover 1 "ROBBER" out of a number of different formations. BEST COVERAGE IN FOOTBALL.


Stay tuned,
Tez

Gap Control from the 3-3-5

With the reintroduction of Formation Subs into the next installment of the NCAA football series. I’ve been recently intrigued with the 3-5-3 defense. Its been the only thing I’ve been researching lately, seeing how I’ve exhausted every outlet trying to find something on the 4-4 “G” defense.

The 3-5 (or 3-3 Stack) is like the 3-4 on steroids. It gives you the ability to leave your opponent clueless on where the pass rush is coming from with 3 down linemen. You s necessarily need a “Jack” Linebacker, as the 3-4 employs. I like to employ a the first string SS and the other a OLB/SS hybrid, or a larger Safety type. Same theory as the “Jack” linebacker that is a DE/OLB thats a pure pass rusher that can play either standing up or with a hand in the dirt.

When I used the 3-3-5 in 10 the hardest thing for me was to stop the run. Luckily I found some good run fits verses people who try to bring the power run game to try to rip the 3-man line.

Gaining and Maintaining Gap Control

Typically, a 3-front defense is a two gap type of scheme. What that means is you're required to read and react to close the gap to the playside. You have keys in the offense, most notably the offensive linemen in front of you. If a guard pulls, he's going to bring you to the football the majority of the time. If the offensive lineman pass sets, you're probably going to rush the QB (unless a blitz is on, then responsibility CAN change to an occupier role). The truth is, they have to make a read and react. The nose, for example, will attack the center and slide into a gap as a play develops. Some of the best noses don't have to engage and react, they can react at the snap because they see what's going on. They are responsible for both A Gaps technically. In the game the key to improving your gap control is using slant stunts with you Defensive Linemen mixed in with blitzing Linebacker or two.

One Zone Blitz/Run Fit that I love to run is the Crash 3 Play from the Stack alignment.
The adjustment for this play is simple. Only thing you need to do is slant the line to towards the TE and user the blitzing linebacker.

Linebacker Pressures

Gap Pressures: Your LB’s must press the Open Gaps, You must know which gap is going to be vulnerable and blitz that gap with a LB, You can manipulate this by successfully manually blitzing, once your opponent decides to start shifting the line to the side that you’re blitzing from pulling a bait and switch and throwing in some F@G defense into the game should throw them off a bit. You also have to know which gap will be open for the LB. Recruiting wise for this defense your Mike LB is the anchor of your defense and needs to be a Ball Hawk. The defensive line movements and stunts are also important when it comes to the 3-3/3-5’s gap pressures and control. There are only 4 basic DL movements are available: Spread, Pinch, Crash right and Crash left. Adding a blitzing LB will also do wonders for your gap control on your run fits.

In sum, to play great run defense you must attack your assigned gap, shed blockers, pursue the ballcarrier, and make the tackle.This breakdown of gap pressures in the 3-3-5 should help you with understanding the plays that your calling and make you a better play caller.

Defending the Option

A lot of people are having problems defending the Option; be it the I-Form and Flexbone ‘s Triples and Load options, Shotgun ‘s Speed Options and the most dangerous shotgun running play of all, Air Force’s Shotgun Load Option. When NCAA 11 comes out things are not going to get easier (or so we suspect) with the Real Assignment AI blocking, will offer us “Optioneers” a chance to run these plays like they’re run in real life by optioning off the end man on the line of scrimmage or EMLOS. This becomes even more dangerous when plays like the Zone Read and Read Option are actually useful.
There are multiple ways to combat this. The most famous way is playing assignment football
TV analysts often refer to assignment football as a basic need for defenses playing the option. This refers to assigning defenders to each prong of the option. One (or more) defender(s) is assigned to the dive, the QB and the pitch.
Part of the assignment football philosophy is to switch these assignments among defenders in order to put pressure on blocking schemes.

Some common combinations of assignments:
Dive: defensive line
QB: MLB
Pitch: OLB
________________________________________
Dive: MLB and DT
QB: OLB and DE
Pitch: safety
________________________________________
Dive: MLB and defensive line
QB: safety
Pitch: OLB

Besides varying from play-to-play, these assignments will often change from the strong side to the weak side of the offensive formation.
When using this philosophy, prefer the second set up. The D-Line will take the dive with support from the ILBs. The OLBs will take the QB with the Safety taking the Pitch. To build this, I use my base play out of my “G” defense, 4-4 – 2 Deep


With the Option responsibilities show in the pictures below.



Adjustments
- Set Option Defense to Aggressive to a take the QB*
- Shift the D-line to the Field and Pinch them to handle the dive
- Hot Route OLBs to QB Spy
This play gives you coverage deep coverage, in case of a Option Pass, and puts the OLBs in the “Pitch Alley” You’ll have to user the FS to the play side to cover run support and the FS assignment on the Pitchman. If you played from the Flexbone, you may have seen a lot of your opponents take a Safety and run into the Pitch Alley to disrupt the pitch. Hot routing OLBs to QB Spy will allow them to follow the shadow the QB as he moves behind the line of scrimmage.

Another play I want to tell you about is a 4-2-5 Normal - SS Double Spy


Adjustments
- None
This play is good vs. your Flexbone - Quick Option/Ace Big – Speed Option types. User the FS to clean up the “pitch alley”. It’s a Cover 0 play, So I wouldn’t use it unless somebody is killing you over and over again with the Ace Big – Speed Option.

Another way to play the Option is letting the D-Line take the dive with support from the ILB farthest from the play side. If there is no dive the PSLB will play the QB and the OLB/Secondary will take the Pitchman. To build this I use the Nickel Strong – QB Contain play. (This play is also found in all the 4-3 alignments, but is global in the Nickel playbooks.)


Adjustments:
- Show blitz to walk a safety down into the box
- Spread the line
- Crash line in

I prefer this set up verse shotgun option teams but it works verses under center option too. What this does is gives you a “Scrape Exchange” a real life technique that teams use verses teams that like to use variations of the Zone Read to go along with your Assignment Philosophy. With this defensive adjustment, the defensive end always crashes for the running back, while the linebacker “scrapes” over to take the quarterback. If the quarterback doesn’t see this, he will pull the ball, thinking he will have an easy lane on the backside, and instead runs straight into the linebacker.



SCRAPE EXCHANGE: PistolxCoach, at the utopia boards is the inspiration for this post as he is the one that gave me the set it up.

I would come out in 3-3-5 Split*, go All Out Blitz, pinch DL crash them in, spread LB's and contain the ILBs... leave the SS's alone that are blitzing, and user the FS... coach tight zone as well...

if that doesn’t help and he is getting outside... then run the same thing, but hot route the SS's to contain, and user the FS but spread the DL and crash them OUT...

either way should give him some fits to get started, and if you are expecting pass, use R1/RT and hot route LB's to hook zones/yellow... and hot route ONE of the SS's to hook as well so you’re still sending 5, dropping 6... I would do the zone audible to the FIELD just to be safe... meaning that if he is on the left hash, then hot route the SS on the right side of your screen, and you can even buzz zone him if he’s going flat... I would still coach tight zones...

...................................F.............. ....................................
.................................................. .....................................
.................................................. .....................................
.....C.......................LB...........LB....................................C.
...................$.............................. ...$................................
.........................B......E........T......E....................................
....................................... ().................................................

B = Line Backer
$ = SS

for added measure, if you’re good at hot routing, I would do what I described ABOVE... and if you have time, R1/RT and Right Stick LEFT to reblitz the LB playing DE so that his angle goes STRAIGHT UP field...

Great set ups, and hopefully with these tools you can stop the option.

4-4 "G" Write Up

Over at Utopia, I've posted my 4-4 "G" write up. While its not quite complete I do plan on the addition of videos and possibly updating the blitz packages and coverages before I put it into .PDF format.