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The 46 defense
Over the course of last Tuesday, two good friends of mine (both accomplished Division I defensive football coaches... one from the PAC-10 the other in the Big-10) along with myself, got together to discus the state of the Bills defense, the feasibility of the 46 defense on the whole, and possible “quick fix” solutions to the Bills defensive problems. My friends and I had been batting around this idea for a while, and since I was always a bit more versed on talent evaluation and the offensive side of the ball I was rather interested in what their trained eyes were able to see with the Bills defense. I was not disappointed, as I learned a lot about the way the 46 was developed, the philosophy behind many aspects of the defense, and what makes it work. I was also surprised about a few of the things that they saw, as they were able to cut to the point about things it has taken the whole season for me to grasp. Now, without further ado I bring you our conclusions.
The 46 defense
There are several base alignments for the 46 defense; we will look at the most common base alignment run by the Buffalo Bills.
The 6 man line
This is the Primary alignment the Bills use in the 46 defense, it consists of both WLB and SLB lining up on the line, and the SS and MLB lining up behind the line (with the MLB on the strong side). This formation is used primarily against opposing teams in base (not spread) offenses by the Bills coaching staff, on downs where it’s an even chance they’ll run the ball (1st-10, 2nd-6ish, 3rd-short). It basically looks like this (I hope this comes out right)
DE UT NT DE WLB SLB
LT LG C RG RT TE
*The MLB lines up over top the strong side DE and WLB, and the SS lines up over top the weak side DE and DT.
**The gaps are assigned like this…
“C”gap-LT-“B”gap-LG-“A”gap-C-“A”gap-RG-“B”gap-RT-“C”gap-TE-“D”gap
The general purpose of this package is for the SLB to provide an up-field rush to either pressure the QB, or force the run inside. The WLB jams the TE and usually has coverage, and holds the point of attack to keep the run inside, and the TE off the middle LB. The strong side DE has the “C” gap on a strong side (SS) outside run, and the “B” gap on an inside/weak side (WS) run. The strong side DT basically plays the NT position of the 3-4 defense, lining up over the center, or maybe slightly shading toward the SS Guard. He has to be capable of pushing the pocket in passing situations, and taking up both the SS (or WS on WS runs) Guard and Center in running situations (in other words he has both “A” gap assignments), and if the NT cannot demand a double team then a lot of bad things can happen for the front 8. The WS DT or under tackle (UT) has back side pursuit assignments, and is heavily relied upon to collapse the pocket, since he is often left one on one with the weak side guard, and hold the point of attack on the inside run. The WSDE has backside pursuit assignments, and must be able to hold the point of attack on WS runs, he tends to lineup wide on the outside shoulder of the LT to allow for a strong “containing” up field pass rush.
In plane English, this defense is designed to contain the running plays by forcing everything back “inside” toward the backside pursuit. Against the pass, the whole defense needs a pocket collapsing inside rush, a strong “jam” on the TE, and a blazingly quick outside rush to keep the QB in the pocket where he will “hopefully” get trapped by the DTs. The CBs stay 10yards off the WRs in man to man coverage. The reason for this is that they can look into the backfield, and pounce on quick timing routs, and hot blitz reads… with the end result of either a lot of INTs or sacks. The FS has to provide (depending on the defense called) both deep zone protection and man coverage on either the TE or RB. In addition the FS has the wide cutback lane responsibility on both WS and SS runs. The MLB has two responsibilities in the run game, the first is a soft or false “backside” support role which is uncommon for most MLBs in which the general idea is that the MLB has to cheat up-field, and cut under the lead blocking to get pursuit tackles, the second is to force strong outside runs back inside toward the Strong Safety, who plays a similar role to the MLB in this alignment. The odd defensive alignment in general is designed to create such a strong WS alignment, that the offense stays to SS running plays. Then the SS players jobs are to get so far outside and up-field that the RB is forced back inside, toward the backside pursuit.
So the question of the day is what has gone wrong. To answer that question I’ll go over the problems in order of importance, and then give a brief synopsis of our conclusions about the solutions to the problems.
1) The SLB and WLB do not hold the point of attack well, getting shoved out of position consistently. It is Newman’s job to shed his block and force the RB back inside with a strong up-field move, something he has not done often or well all year, as the RBs are rarely being forced back inside. It is Robinson’s job to hold up the TE, and to hold the point of attack, forcing the ball carrier back toward the SS and pursuing DL, this is another thing which is done very poorly, as E.R. is often being moved backwards and out of the way by the TE.
2) Poor pass rush from the DTs, is absolutely killing our pass D. For the 46 to function in pass coverage the pocket has to be collapsed up the middle, often the outside rush is there to sack the QB, however the QB has the room to step up as there is no inside pressure.
3) Chidi Ahanotu is not good enough with his up-field, outside moves to collapse the hole consistently on the RB, and he is not quick enough to warrant special attention by the OL in his pass rushing, which means that Newman will often be blocked by a RT when he pass rushes.
4) Edwards and Schobel both are consistently moved out of their lanes on WS and SS runs, making the job of both the backside pursuit and either the SS or MLB virtually impossible.
5) Fletcher, while good with his backside support on WS runs, consistently overpressures the SS runs, taking himself out of the play when the RB cuts back. It is his job to either make the tackle on the RB or force the run further inside if he gets blocked, unfortunately he rarely forces the RB back inside when blocked, keeping the backside pressure from making the play. In essence he still plays the position like it should be played in a standard 4-3.
6) Prioleau is often too late to properly analysis run-pass, making him late in the running game and too gullible to the play action in the passing game, as he is often the biggest liability in the secondary.
We proceeded on the basic assumption that the 46 would not be permanently scrapped. Other than that we just kibitzed on what we thought could be done in both FA and in personnel/coaching. The general consensus was the following…
1)Replace Edwards and Ahanotu (Schobel is very good with the speed rush, and the odds that we’ll find a better player for his cost is unlikely) with better players. Edwards needs to be replaced since he is inadequate in both run stopping and pass rushing. It is the lack of pass rush from the DTs that really is sabotaging this team right now, and this needs to be fixed before we can consider seriously competing with this unit. Ahanotu is actually rather good for this system, and with the signing of Jones it looks like the Bills have started to address the weakness that Chidi brings to the line. My buddy from SoCal felt rather strongly that Chidi could fulfill the UT role better than Edwards, and I’d have to agree as the only weakness I see right now is he is unwilling to bring his rush up-field, preferring to take the “B” gap with such gusto that at times it seems like he forgets he is playing a two-gap system.
2)E.Robinson is too slow and weak to play in the NFL right now. It was the general agreement that it is time for D.Polk to start, he might not be a good cover guy, but at least he wouldn’t be pushed around as much as Robinson is. In the off-season the Bills will have to look to bringing in a FA or drafting a new WLB.
3)K.Newman is another LB who should be shown the door at the end of the season, as he is fairly poor at shedding blockers and rarely provides the contain that defense needs. I really love his speed, however he does such a poor job translating that into good pressure that we should look elsewhere. This was one of the conclusions that surprised me, as I thought most of his bad play was the result of Robinson and over-pursuit by Fletcher, however it was pointed out to me that he really makes his own bed, and makes himself look bad without anyone’s help.
4)Prioleau needs to be replaced, and while he can be a help in the run defense he is such a problem in pass defense that he more than hurts this team.
5)The coaching staff probably could try to fix some of the problems by sticking with the 46 more. Right now they’re play very conservatively, and are only using the 46 when the opposing offense sticks to a conventional (non-spread) formation. From our look it appeared as if the Bills 46 performed far better against both the pass and run than their nickel, which is seriously undermined by the lack of a serious pass rush. At least the Bills create pressure and force the opposing team into more short patterns when they crowd the line. Right now the opposing offenses are dictating to Jerry Grey what defense he will play, and when the offense has that type of psychological advantage, they will move the ball at will. Until Grey can find something the Bills do well enough to force the offense to change in response to them, opposing teams will continue to dictate our own defensive strategy to us (which is what is happening now). My buddy from Ohio made it clear to me that the mentality of Grey right now is similar to that of a shell-shocked mental patient. He is so afraid of giving up a big play, he has gone too conservative. The 46 is the wrong defense to play conservative, and this is one of the reasons that the Bills aren’t getting turnovers; they are too conservative and are not creating any real chaos in the opposing backfield. If they would play this base defense against the spread offenses, and brought some real heavy blitzes we might force the opposing offenses to change strategy, because right now, no-one sees any need to change strategies against us.
The 46 defense
There are several base alignments for the 46 defense; we will look at the most common base alignment run by the Buffalo Bills.
The 6 man line
This is the Primary alignment the Bills use in the 46 defense, it consists of both WLB and SLB lining up on the line, and the SS and MLB lining up behind the line (with the MLB on the strong side). This formation is used primarily against opposing teams in base (not spread) offenses by the Bills coaching staff, on downs where it’s an even chance they’ll run the ball (1st-10, 2nd-6ish, 3rd-short). It basically looks like this (I hope this comes out right)
DE UT NT DE WLB SLB
LT LG C RG RT TE
*The MLB lines up over top the strong side DE and WLB, and the SS lines up over top the weak side DE and DT.
**The gaps are assigned like this…
“C”gap-LT-“B”gap-LG-“A”gap-C-“A”gap-RG-“B”gap-RT-“C”gap-TE-“D”gap
The general purpose of this package is for the SLB to provide an up-field rush to either pressure the QB, or force the run inside. The WLB jams the TE and usually has coverage, and holds the point of attack to keep the run inside, and the TE off the middle LB. The strong side DE has the “C” gap on a strong side (SS) outside run, and the “B” gap on an inside/weak side (WS) run. The strong side DT basically plays the NT position of the 3-4 defense, lining up over the center, or maybe slightly shading toward the SS Guard. He has to be capable of pushing the pocket in passing situations, and taking up both the SS (or WS on WS runs) Guard and Center in running situations (in other words he has both “A” gap assignments), and if the NT cannot demand a double team then a lot of bad things can happen for the front 8. The WS DT or under tackle (UT) has back side pursuit assignments, and is heavily relied upon to collapse the pocket, since he is often left one on one with the weak side guard, and hold the point of attack on the inside run. The WSDE has backside pursuit assignments, and must be able to hold the point of attack on WS runs, he tends to lineup wide on the outside shoulder of the LT to allow for a strong “containing” up field pass rush.
In plane English, this defense is designed to contain the running plays by forcing everything back “inside” toward the backside pursuit. Against the pass, the whole defense needs a pocket collapsing inside rush, a strong “jam” on the TE, and a blazingly quick outside rush to keep the QB in the pocket where he will “hopefully” get trapped by the DTs. The CBs stay 10yards off the WRs in man to man coverage. The reason for this is that they can look into the backfield, and pounce on quick timing routs, and hot blitz reads… with the end result of either a lot of INTs or sacks. The FS has to provide (depending on the defense called) both deep zone protection and man coverage on either the TE or RB. In addition the FS has the wide cutback lane responsibility on both WS and SS runs. The MLB has two responsibilities in the run game, the first is a soft or false “backside” support role which is uncommon for most MLBs in which the general idea is that the MLB has to cheat up-field, and cut under the lead blocking to get pursuit tackles, the second is to force strong outside runs back inside toward the Strong Safety, who plays a similar role to the MLB in this alignment. The odd defensive alignment in general is designed to create such a strong WS alignment, that the offense stays to SS running plays. Then the SS players jobs are to get so far outside and up-field that the RB is forced back inside, toward the backside pursuit.
So the question of the day is what has gone wrong. To answer that question I’ll go over the problems in order of importance, and then give a brief synopsis of our conclusions about the solutions to the problems.
1) The SLB and WLB do not hold the point of attack well, getting shoved out of position consistently. It is Newman’s job to shed his block and force the RB back inside with a strong up-field move, something he has not done often or well all year, as the RBs are rarely being forced back inside. It is Robinson’s job to hold up the TE, and to hold the point of attack, forcing the ball carrier back toward the SS and pursuing DL, this is another thing which is done very poorly, as E.R. is often being moved backwards and out of the way by the TE.
2) Poor pass rush from the DTs, is absolutely killing our pass D. For the 46 to function in pass coverage the pocket has to be collapsed up the middle, often the outside rush is there to sack the QB, however the QB has the room to step up as there is no inside pressure.
3) Chidi Ahanotu is not good enough with his up-field, outside moves to collapse the hole consistently on the RB, and he is not quick enough to warrant special attention by the OL in his pass rushing, which means that Newman will often be blocked by a RT when he pass rushes.
4) Edwards and Schobel both are consistently moved out of their lanes on WS and SS runs, making the job of both the backside pursuit and either the SS or MLB virtually impossible.
5) Fletcher, while good with his backside support on WS runs, consistently overpressures the SS runs, taking himself out of the play when the RB cuts back. It is his job to either make the tackle on the RB or force the run further inside if he gets blocked, unfortunately he rarely forces the RB back inside when blocked, keeping the backside pressure from making the play. In essence he still plays the position like it should be played in a standard 4-3.
6) Prioleau is often too late to properly analysis run-pass, making him late in the running game and too gullible to the play action in the passing game, as he is often the biggest liability in the secondary.
We proceeded on the basic assumption that the 46 would not be permanently scrapped. Other than that we just kibitzed on what we thought could be done in both FA and in personnel/coaching. The general consensus was the following…
1)Replace Edwards and Ahanotu (Schobel is very good with the speed rush, and the odds that we’ll find a better player for his cost is unlikely) with better players. Edwards needs to be replaced since he is inadequate in both run stopping and pass rushing. It is the lack of pass rush from the DTs that really is sabotaging this team right now, and this needs to be fixed before we can consider seriously competing with this unit. Ahanotu is actually rather good for this system, and with the signing of Jones it looks like the Bills have started to address the weakness that Chidi brings to the line. My buddy from SoCal felt rather strongly that Chidi could fulfill the UT role better than Edwards, and I’d have to agree as the only weakness I see right now is he is unwilling to bring his rush up-field, preferring to take the “B” gap with such gusto that at times it seems like he forgets he is playing a two-gap system.
2)E.Robinson is too slow and weak to play in the NFL right now. It was the general agreement that it is time for D.Polk to start, he might not be a good cover guy, but at least he wouldn’t be pushed around as much as Robinson is. In the off-season the Bills will have to look to bringing in a FA or drafting a new WLB.
3)K.Newman is another LB who should be shown the door at the end of the season, as he is fairly poor at shedding blockers and rarely provides the contain that defense needs. I really love his speed, however he does such a poor job translating that into good pressure that we should look elsewhere. This was one of the conclusions that surprised me, as I thought most of his bad play was the result of Robinson and over-pursuit by Fletcher, however it was pointed out to me that he really makes his own bed, and makes himself look bad without anyone’s help.
4)Prioleau needs to be replaced, and while he can be a help in the run defense he is such a problem in pass defense that he more than hurts this team.
5)The coaching staff probably could try to fix some of the problems by sticking with the 46 more. Right now they’re play very conservatively, and are only using the 46 when the opposing offense sticks to a conventional (non-spread) formation. From our look it appeared as if the Bills 46 performed far better against both the pass and run than their nickel, which is seriously undermined by the lack of a serious pass rush. At least the Bills create pressure and force the opposing team into more short patterns when they crowd the line. Right now the opposing offenses are dictating to Jerry Grey what defense he will play, and when the offense has that type of psychological advantage, they will move the ball at will. Until Grey can find something the Bills do well enough to force the offense to change in response to them, opposing teams will continue to dictate our own defensive strategy to us (which is what is happening now). My buddy from Ohio made it clear to me that the mentality of Grey right now is similar to that of a shell-shocked mental patient. He is so afraid of giving up a big play, he has gone too conservative. The 46 is the wrong defense to play conservative, and this is one of the reasons that the Bills aren’t getting turnovers; they are too conservative and are not creating any real chaos in the opposing backfield. If they would play this base defense against the spread offenses, and brought some real heavy blitzes we might force the opposing offenses to change strategy, because right now, no-one sees any need to change strategies against us.
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