You’re actually spinning allowing 76 plays as a good game for a defense? That’s classic Tampa 2, and the classic Tampa 2 excuse is that they were “too tired”. I know it, I’ve been using it for years. The bend but don’t break philosophy and soft zone “keep it on front of you and tackle” scheme just begs offenses to dink and dunk their way down the field and rank up a handful of 8-10 play drives. Tampa 2s traditionally have a hell of a time on third down and without turnovers tend to have outcomes like the one you witnessed.
As a Tampa fan I’d think you noticed this, or do you just not remember watching Tampa 2s without Warren Sapp?
Turner did not miss “a significant portion of the game”. He missed most of the fourth quarter, but they were behind and throwing so he wouldn’t have been on the field anyway. All that aside, he was held to under 3 yards per carry through three quarters anyway.
Matt Ryan missed a significant portion of the game because he was knocked out of the game by the defense. Considering that Ryan has thrown for over 300 yards just once all season, and posted a 100+ passer rating just twice, I seriously doubt he would have outperformed Redman. Not to mention that he’s already thrown more picks in 10 1/4 games this season than he threw in 16 as a rookie.
Anyway, it’s Week 12 of the NFL season. I doubt there’s a team in the league that wasn’t missing at least two starters on offense this week.
They didn’t “allow” 76 plays. They held the Falcons to 31% on third down.
The problem was that the offense managed just 13 first downs, and 8 of them on one first-half drive.
ETA: I don’t know what your Tampa 2 does, but ours has never had a problem giving up dink-and-dunk drives. Try that against the Buccaneers until last year and you were liable to throw three picks. The problem has always been stopping the run with the MLB 20 yards downfield.
Rodgers vss Favre seems to be working out well for both teams, if you ask me. The Packers have top tier QB for the next 10-12 years and the Vikings have a QB who can take them to the Super Bowl right now, when the talent is pretty favorable. Keep oin mind that if the Packers had kept Favre there is a good chance they would have lost Rodgers and finding a good QB is not easy.
They did. Check the stats. And say what you want, that 31% had a lot to do with Chris Redman and a gimpy Turner. He might have played much of the game but he wasn’t anywhere close to his usual self with the sprained ankle.
That’s one problem, but the bigger issue is that the defense got dinked and dunked all game long by a QB who’s not a threat to throw downfield. They gave up a pair of 15 play drives to a crummy injured offense. Sure, if they’d have been better on offense and scored more they’d have won, but isn’t that always the case? If you think this game is a sign of the resurgence of the Tampa 2 in Tampa you’re going to be comically disappointed.
Oh yeah, that run defense is a fun little treat too. You’re suffering from confirmation bias I’m afraid. I went through it too, there were games where the Bears would chalk up 3 picks and a couple defensive scores too. It took us to a Super Bowl even. But on balance that defense gives up yards too damned easily and isn’t very good at exerting itself in the clutch unless you have a handful of key players who are uniquely dominant. Some defenses lend themselves to sustained effectiveness through personnel changes and injury, the Tampa 2 is especially bad at it.
What defenses are those? Note that under Monte Kiffin the Buccaneers ranked in the top 10 in overall defense 11 times in 13 seasons. Ronde Barber was on the roster for 12 of those seasons. Derrick Brooks, 13. Sapp, 9, and Lynch 8. No other player was around for more than 5 seasons, except Dwight Smith, who moved from nickelback to safety and only started three seasons.
6 sacks - 3 of them before anyone was knocked out, I might add- 3.9 yards per play, 20 points.
The Falcons average 24.7 points per game and 5.2 yards per play, were at home, and got better play from their backup quarterback than they have from Matt Ryan in weeks.
If 5 of the sacks were against Redman, your statement is false. It’s probable that Redman’s suckitude was complicit in some of the sacks, the OL in others.
…against a decimated Falcons offense.
…with Matt Ryan at the helm behind a healthier OL.
You’re missing the point. The Bucs were lucky to have the guys you mentioned, lucky they were so good and lucky they were so healthy. They had to spend a shit load of money to keep them that long and to add or keep the guys I mentioned. They spent high picks on defense more often than anyone except maybe the Bears. The Tampa 2 desperately needs elite talent to make it work. The Bears dumped tons of money into their defense and had some success. Both teams surrendered a lot on the offensive side of the ball for the sake of the defense because the types of players that the Tampa 2 needs at it’s key positions are so rare and hard to get. When those key guys get hurt or retire the system crumbles, you can’t just plug in another guy.
The Colts tried it and had very little success because 1) they didn’t spend the money or picks to land elite guys in the middle and 2) they few elite guys they had, Bob Sanders notably, couldn’t stay healthy and couldn’t be replaced. Freeney is one of the best in the game but in the Tampa 2 he’s not in a critical position and you can see that he’s not made the Colts defense reliably good.
The Lions tried it and didn’t have the key positions, never could find them and it was a disaster. Ditto the Chiefs and Bills.
The Tampa 2 is a very simple scheme that relies on elite players. That puts a huge onus on the scouting department and personnel directors. A few key players are doubly important. The Bears and Bucs had great players and when those guys left/broke the scheme fell apart. Others were never able to find those players at all and failed from teh get go. As a scheme the Tampa 2 is basically the prevent defense with LBs acting as Dime defenders, it lacks any real nuance or creativity. The worst part about the Tampa 2 is that when you don’t have the players to run it you compensate by blitzing too much and make that defense really easy to pick apart.
Defenses that rely more on scheme and matchups, various flavors of the 3-4 and Zone defenses or Jim Johnson’s flavor of the 4-3, are better value propositions since players can be more interchangeable.
The Colts are 4th in scoring defense this year, were 7th last year, and 1st in 2007. They’ve got two elite players, and one of them is hardly ever on the field.
Jim Johnson’s flavor of the 4-3 doesn’t rely on elite players? The Eagles had Brian Dawkins, Troy Vincent, Bobby Taylor in the defensive backfield in 2001. In 2002 they let Vincent and Taylor go and had first- and second-round picks Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown ready. Oh, and Al Harris. He’s not bad.
The Detroit experiment was always going to fail because they didn’t try to build via the draft. They just signed Buccaneer retreads, some of whom were still good players, but most of whom were career backups or has-beens.
Every defense relies on great players. Tampa 2 defenses rely on unique ones. The appealing thing to the schemes the Eagles, Steelers, Patriots and a few others is the ability to reload those players with fairly common replacements. No player is bigger than the system, in the Tampa 2 its the opposite.
The Tampa 2 can be a scary defense as has been proven, but the margin of error is too small if you aren’t really, really good at scouting and drafting for replacements.
Some random 3rd down stats for the Vikings that show how far they can spread the ball on third down. Their 3rd receiver and backup running back are are 4th and 6th overall in the NFL in 3rd down receptions. How’s that for quality depth?
Rubbish. There are only two positions which require unusual skills in the Tampa 2 - middle linebacker and under tackle.
Finding under tackles is really not that hard. The Bears have an excellent one; the Buccaneers could have had three, but steadfastly refuse to draft interior defensive linemen in the first three rounds.
Finding a middle linebacker who can fill the middle of the field in the Tampa 2 seems like it would be really hard, but it really isn’t. The Buccaneers have suited up a half-dozen middle linebackers during the Tampa-2 era, and only one was an elite player (Hardy Nickerson). The rest ranged from good (Barrett Ruud, Shelton Quarles) to mediocre (Jamie Duncan, Al Singleton, Ian Gold, Nate Webster). It didn’t make much difference.
Those two get most of the hype, but the defensive ends also need to be first tier. A Tampa 2 that can’t get penetration and pressure from the front 4 without blitzing is dead meat. Fundamentally the Tampa 2 is a strict zone and it allows you to draft CBs and Safeties that lack elite speed and one-on-one coverage skills. It makes it especially difficult to exploit coverage matchups since both WRs are effectively double covered leaving the LBs to patrol the middle. But when there’s no pressure the deep middle opens up. When you are forced to blitz to create pressure it forces your DBs into man-to-man situations which they are especially vulnerable at by design.
Defensive schemes which are built around blitzing and man-to-man coverage schemes aren’t as out of their element as a Tampa 2 is. The Bears defense was great when they never had to bring more than 5 guys. When they started bringing 6 and 7 after the DTs and DEs stopped playing like Pro Bowlers the house of cards came tumbling down.
Please name me the elite 3-technique tackles in the league right now. Tommie Harris is probably still in the top 3 and he fucking sucks right now. It’s easily the rarest position in football. Colleges are churning out 2-gap NTs these days almost exclusively.
ETA: The Bears signed Cato June today to a 1-year contract. I fear this means Lance Briggs knee injury is serious.
I’ve enjoyed the supposed contraversy over a potential breach of contract in Tennessee. Most of the coverage seems to squash the argument that Bud Adams breached Jeff Fisher’s contract by forcing Vince Young into the starting role, but part of me hopes that this is just good PR control. Granted Vince performing well and the Titans winning streak go a long ways towards smoothing over any potential rift, but the prospect of Fisher being available is too juicy to pass up.
He’d be the perfect coach for the Bears and would be a country mile ahead of everyone else. He’s a former Bear and coached here with the Super Bowl Bears in '85. He’s a Buddy Ryan guy and has the perfect mentality for the organization. He’s even got the perfect 'stache for Chicago! I can even dovetail this fantasy with my growing hard-on for a Heimerdinger-Cutler marriage since Fisher might bring him with.
Probably never happen, especially with the Titans winning streak and having a much stronger roster than the Bears right now, but maybe…just maybe, his patience with Bud Adams is over with and he’d come to Chicago for a fat raise and chance at a heroic legacy.
Fisher is horribly overrated. He’s been to a Super Bowl, but he’s also turned out some awful teams. Frankly, I don’t see how he’s any different than Lovie.
