Gunzlingr
03-12-2003, 11:05 PM
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
While fatherhood of the zone-blitz defense has been claimed by dozens of surrogate wannabes over the past two decades, the consensus now is that it was Dick LeBeau who first introduced the scheme that was prevalent in the 1990s, and which battered and boggled opposition quarterbacks.
Don't try telling that, however, to former quarterback Bobby Hebert.
LeBeau may have conceptualized the defense in the mid-80's, to take full advantage of the wondrous skills of Cincinnati Bengals monster-sized safety David Fulcher, but the first time that Hebert remembers seeing the exotic defense was in the USFL. Even after games, he would still see the scheme in his nightmares.
Dom Capers was using zone-blitzing in the USFL before it was popularized in the NFL.
"Every time you played the (Philadelphia) Stars, they would be running that zone-blitz stuff at you, and it was tough," said Hebert, who began his pro career with the Michigan Panthers of the USFL. "People hadn't seen it that much before and the linemen would get confused. You'd end up getting just hammered. They had (Dom) Capers on their staff and he'd just send people at you all day and from weird angles. Rushers would be coming free and getting clean hits on you. It was like a bad dream."
about 2/3 of the way down, they have a few quotes by Jim Kelly..
MORE (http://espn.go.com/nfl/columns/pasquarelli_len/1518471.html)
ESPN.com
While fatherhood of the zone-blitz defense has been claimed by dozens of surrogate wannabes over the past two decades, the consensus now is that it was Dick LeBeau who first introduced the scheme that was prevalent in the 1990s, and which battered and boggled opposition quarterbacks.
Don't try telling that, however, to former quarterback Bobby Hebert.
LeBeau may have conceptualized the defense in the mid-80's, to take full advantage of the wondrous skills of Cincinnati Bengals monster-sized safety David Fulcher, but the first time that Hebert remembers seeing the exotic defense was in the USFL. Even after games, he would still see the scheme in his nightmares.
Dom Capers was using zone-blitzing in the USFL before it was popularized in the NFL.
"Every time you played the (Philadelphia) Stars, they would be running that zone-blitz stuff at you, and it was tough," said Hebert, who began his pro career with the Michigan Panthers of the USFL. "People hadn't seen it that much before and the linemen would get confused. You'd end up getting just hammered. They had (Dom) Capers on their staff and he'd just send people at you all day and from weird angles. Rushers would be coming free and getting clean hits on you. It was like a bad dream."
about 2/3 of the way down, they have a few quotes by Jim Kelly..
MORE (http://espn.go.com/nfl/columns/pasquarelli_len/1518471.html)