Simple multiplicity on defense

Imentioned in a previous post that the 4-3 is considered a stagnant defense. I disagree with that. I think there are several things that a defense can do, out of any scheme, to keep their defense dynamic. It is crucial that the defense is multiple so that the offense can not become comfortable and tee off on the defense.. I am a big supporter of the idea that the defense should dictate the tone of the game, not the offense. The defense should limit what the offense can do, not just absorb the punches. Multiplicity helps with this. While it is important to stay multiple, it is also important to not overload the kids. Keep things as simple as possible to allow your kids to play fast. Build your wrinkles, your tendency breakers, your multiplicity, into your base defense. 

On the defensive line, I love stemming. I think stemming is one of the greatest equalizers upfront. The biggest thing that I try to remember is I do not have to fool the OC for the other team. I just have to fool his athletes with my athletes. By stemming, the offenses' blocking rules change, which leads to confusion and missed assignments. Missed assignments mean TFLs and sacks, which is obviously good for the defense. The way a team stems should be simple and systematic, I do not want to overthink things and bog down my athletes. I want to make my stems a second nature part of my defense. One way that this could be done is having my kids lining up in a neutral front, like 2s and 4s, and then shift into the front I called. If I am caught in this front there is nothing to worry about because I am neutral, I can still run whatever I need to run. Moving from a 2 to a 2i or a 3 is a simple move that changes assignments for the offensive line. A small adjustment, big changes. Think about an offense's cover or uncovered rules, or their double rules, shifting one technique over could change all of that. O-linemen are creatures of thought and habit. They like to come to the line, figure out their blocking assignment, and then execute it. By shifting, I am able to throw off their thinking and catch them off guard. Not to mention that when I stem my line, if the o-line is undisciplined there is a fair chance that they jump off-sides. Just make sure the ref knows that is part of your defense! The only thing that can give stemming problems is a hurry-up, silent-count offense. Staying in a neutral front and then stemming from it alleviates some of the issues, but our defense does not hinge on this. It can be abandoned, there are other ways to stem around and keep the offense guessing!

To me, the linebackers are the wildcards of the defense. There are so many things that you can do with those guys. Of course, you can stem them. Bringing those guy up to the line and then dropping them or having them run-up to the line and drop back all through the QB's cadence is a great way to keep the offense on edge. The QB is seeing possible pressure, the back is seeing clogged gaps, the O-line is trying to figure out who is coming and who is not. All of this is really great to confuse the offense. One of my favorite things to do with the linebackers though is playing hybrid players. To me, a hybrid player is your "tweener" kid who is a hamburger from playing on the line but can still run. I like having that kid at end. The reason this relates to the linebackers is that I will take this tweener kid and drop him to the linebacker level to give a 3-4 look in passing downs. So we stem, like I mentioned before, probably from an over front into a 4-0-4 look with the end either flexing out into a ghost 9 look or dropping to the linebacker level. From here, you can do several things with your new backer. If you are in a Hailmary situation you can drop 8. Chances are though you are just looking to get pressure. You have an extra backer, now you can run your normal blitzes without worrying about missing one of your normal 4-3 quarters coverage zones. You could also now bring 2 backers for the normal price of one. You are still only bringing five, but it is a small change that could catch the offense off guard and give you an edge. I do not suggest doing this on run downs unless you have plenty of time to rep a normal 3-4. To me, the 3-4 is a passing pressure defense. With these same ideas in mind, it is easy to roll down your mike to make a 5-2 look in goal-line and short-yardage situations. The mike would be responsible for the weakside A, you can either stack your tackles and ends or move into a bear look, to me that depends on offensive tendencies. There is not much of a stem with this one, which may be for the best on the goal line. I would be worried about a silent count QB sneak. I definitely do not want to be caught in two 2s against a sneak. These small changes that fit into the 4-3 scheme already can add some dynamics to your LBs. 

The biggest complaint about 4-3 quarters is the stagnant secondary. I think there is a ton of things that you can do to switch things up. To me, quarters is a lot like man to man, especially if you are running match quarters. In a lot of versions of match quarters as soon as the receiver crosses LB depth the corner or safety locks on to that man. With this in mind, it should be super easy to run cover 0 out of your base quarters look. I call it the base quarters look just because that's where you would originally line your guys up. Start in a typical 2 high look and then roll your safeties down to give a cover 0 look. You could also run other coverages like cover 2 out of the same look as cover 4. You can roll down your strong and play cover 1. I think the most important thing is to keep yourself and your players away from locking themself into a preset scheme. Do not get your kids locked into thinking I am a safety and I will always be over the top. Make sure that they think and you think of them as fluid athletes, not just a single position. Much like every other position on the defense you can stem your DBs. You could give a press look and then bail, you could press, you can line up off man and then roll down before the snap. There are a ton of things you can do to mess with what I think are the headiest players (other than kickers) in football, the WRs. Mess with their release as much as you can. Keeping those guys moving in the secondary will keep the offense guessing, which leads to missed blocks, dropped balls, tackles, and turnovers. 

I am sure there are things that I missed in this post, maybe I will add some more down the road. One of the biggest things to me as a coach is that I need to make sure I am not overthinking things. I do not want to bog my kids down, the sum of my parts should not be greater than the whole. The defense is like a machine with a ton of different moving parts. The more parts you add, the greater the chance things go wrong. Make sure your scheme and wrinkles match your kids. If you have two 380 lb tackles, then maybe stemming is not for you. Pick things that will help your defense, not just because you think it looks cool or you saw it on Sunday. Challenge yourself to find the small things that help maximize your athlete's skill sets!