Stand back and be touched by the whoopin’ stick of greatness: Chris Brown of Smart Football has foolishly agreed to take one user-submitted question a week and give it the full Smart Football treatment for your general football edification. This week’s topic comes from R is for Ramius, who wanted to hear the detailed schpiel about common man and zone blitz schemes. You got it.
Question from R is for Ramius:
Common man-coverage blitz schemes vs zone-coverage blitz schemes…advantages, disadvantages, offensive plays to counter them, etc?
This is one of those simple questions that get to the very core of how defense is played. The blitz — which I’ll define here as any defense that rushes five or more defenders — is where the action is in modern football. Defenses can’t sit back and wait, because offenses are too good, whether it is a run-first spread, a true triple-option squad, or a pass-happy spread (or even, you know, a a pro-style offense).
Moreover, coverage can really only be man-to-man or zone. And teams that focus on one tend not to be so good at the other. So how do they work and what should teams focus on?
Man up. The man-to-man blitz is one of the oldest defenses in football. The defense keeps nobody deep, assigns five-guys in man coverage to the offense’s five eligible receivers, and blitzes the rest. If any of the eligible receivers stay in to block, the defender assigned to them goes ahead and rushes the QB.
Now, the defense isn’t just going to always announce that this is what it is doing. (more…)
Football is like life: it has a playbook, and when it breaks down, people get hurt. The first installment of this series appeared here as “Football Analogizing;” it appears here under a slimmer title.
Reads are important on this play, which we’ll call CAREER JET BANDIT X FLY D-BO OVER 2. We’re expecting good protection through a solid zone scheme of a middle class upbringing and lack of obvious physical or mental defect. We’re running four routes on the play. You’ll note the slot receiver is not accounted for in the playbook; this is by design, since you need one career option to forget, and then mourn as your lost ideal once it’s too late to choose it in the progression.
Let’s go through the reads, son.
First read: ASTRONAUT. The quarterback (you) takes the ball in the shotgun and surveys the defense. On this play, your first option is the X receiver, on this play known as ASTRONAUT.
ASTRONAUT is double covered by LACK OF MATH SKILLS AND DISCIPLINE. (Also, you find out you don’t like enclosed places when you go to Mammoth Cave as a nine year old.) It’s important to recognize this early and not force this ball prematurely, as you may end up in the military not flying jets, but instead handing out fresh underwear for hours at a time to new recruits as a logistics man. (more…)
Normally when we see the image of an animal advertising for a place serving cooked pieces of that animal, a bit of cognitive dissonance kicks in and spoils the whole show for us. A pig advertising for a barbecue place is the worst, since the pig usually looks so happy to be the asshole porcine Quisling selling out his brethren for better slop.
For some reason, this Texas tailgating necessity escapes that quease, probably becase a.) it rocks balls, and b.) the cow looks appropriately confused, as in “What’s that smell? OH GOD IS THAT—NOOOOOO!!!!!”
When our alien carnivore overlords make these in human shapes, have the courage to laugh before you’re thrown on the grill, earthling.
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