My Favorite Safety Blitz

I like to blitz. I like to blitz a lot. When I call blitzes, I like it when they get results. One blitz that I've consistently gotten results with has been a Safety/ILB blitz that I call "Sabre". I like to run Sabre to the wide side of the field and to the closed side of the formation and I'll do it on just about any down. I'll also run it from the short side of the field on passing downs, but at those moments I'm more likely to run something else instead.

Below: Sabre X (ILB to B, Safety to A)

The rules for Sabre are as follows:

DEs—Slant to C gap
NT—Slant to A gap away from blitz side. I.e. Sabre Field = Slant to short side of field
OLBs—Follow usual alignment rules, play SCF.
ILBs—Blitz side LB = A gap, Off side LB = 3^rd Receiver Hook
Safeties—Blitz side Safety = B Gap on the move, Off side Safety = Middle 1/3^rd
Corners—Deep 1/3^rd.

Additional Tag for Sabre:

X—Crosses the ILB and Safety's blitz.

I got locked out of my team's HUDL accout upon being dismissed, but I'll try to go back and post film of this blitz when I can.

On Coaching Your Assistants

Very recently I was fired from my position as Defensive Coordinator/DB coach, which has led to me reflecting a great deal on the various things that happened this season that I either didn't like or could have done better. One of the big things was that I needed to coach and manage my assistants much better than I had previously. At my prior gig, just about every one that I was coaching with were people that I had known for a long time and were a great support system for me in a lot of ways. This job was a patchwork group of guys coming together for the first time and it definitely showed at times.

Support Them, Don't Enable Them

Something that I did a great job of was support my assistants and give them a great deal of autonomy within their individual time and their coaching styles. Everyone has to be their own person and has to coach in their given style. One of the reasons why I left my previous position was because the head coach wanted me to coach in a way that I wasn't comfortable with. You have to coach to your personality or you're going to miss on making a genuine relationship with your athletes.

Another thing that you will see repeatedly in management books, classes, etc, is that you need to train or provide the opportunity for advancement within your team/organization. Not everyone needs to be learning to be a DC some day and, frankly, if everyone thinks that they should be wearing your hat, you've got some bigger issues. But you should be preparing someone as if they will replace you or as if they are moving on to another job at some point.

I think this is a healthy practice for a number of reasons. 1-It gives motivated assistants a reason to work hard and to immerse themselves in improvement. 2-It shows that you are a long term thinker. 3-It spreads coaching families, which benefits everyone greatly in a profession that is very transient by nature. 4-It attracts talent in the way that ambitious young coaches will want to be a part of your program if you consistently produce coaches who move on to success.

However, you must avoid a mistake I made this season: I enabled my assistants too much. I was so gun shy about being demanding and harsh with them that I allowed things to happen that I wasn't OK with. I got run down by my last boss like I was a player and I didn't want to do that to those that I was responsible for guiding/directing. I let too many bad habits, bad coaching practices go without addressing it head on. I was passive and not direct with them.

Listen to Them, HEAR Them

I was accused on multiple occasions of ignoring the input of my assistants. In my defense, I wasn't ignoring their input, I simply wasn't acting on it. It is one thing to offer suggestions, tweaks, etc, to what you're doing. I was getting input like "Switch to a slanting 4-4 and tell the LBs just to fill a gap". While this was horrible advice for our situation, the bigger issue is the feeling that input is being ignored.

The best organizations make assistants feel wanted, necessary, and a part of the decision making process. This is true from Disney to Taylor's Hot Dog Stand (Real place, great chili dogs!) and everywhere in between. The people who are not in charge need to feel as though they matter. It may be only a question of degree, but without that feeling of meaning, of purpose, assistants will burn out or lose interest. Help them to feel a part of what is going on.

But Be Yourself…

At the end of the day, you have to be yourself and do what you think is best. I did my best to coach our boys to the best of my ability and in the best way that I know how. I changed a bit too much for my own liking, but I did it all my way. I was, for the most part, true to what I believe in and what I stand for. Because of that fact, I sleep well at night and with a clean conscience.

However, I had assistants doing things that I did not approve of, coaching in a way that I did not care for, and offering input that was not solicited. I needed to be more firm, to be more strict with my expectations, to be more clear with what their roles were in things. My staff was not a good reflection of myself, my philosophies, and my defense. It was a bad situation, but I did not handle it was I should have or needed to. As funny as it is to say, I basically needed to throw around more "Because I F***ing want it that way" and a lot more "STFU and be as assistant" because I was so focused on being a positive leader. Just like with players, it's always a question of can't or won't. If they can't, help them get there. If they won't, find someone who will. I needed more can't, I had too much won't.

New posts in the future, for real!

Thanks to those who are still following me, more content to come soon!

Holy F**** This Killed Me...

I was laughing hard enough that I couldn't breathe...

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6474942/Even-More-Problems-With-Jeggings

The end kind of ruined it for me, but hilarious nonetheless.

More posts incoming in the future!

Off-Season: Clinics

Where I've Been...

Around this part of CA, there's only two or three big 'clinics' to hit up: the Burlingame All-Sports Clinic, the San Jose Glazier, and the Nike COY in Concord. The Burlingame clinic had an absolutely TERRIBLE lineup, literally none of the coaches that I interact with in my personal life (Vass and the rest of our semi-pro staff, the crew at my alma mater, NO ONE) were interested in anything being talked about.

The San Jose Glazier had a few good speakers that interested me: Nick Rapone from U of Delaware and Pete Kwiatowski (I think that's right...) from Boise. Unfortunately, the Boise guy, who was primed to talk a bunch of 3-4 that I was jazzed to hear, had to cancel. However I did get to see Rapone talk for about 4-5 hours over two days and that man is a stud. Hands down one of the best clinic speakers I've seen, ever. Vass almost proposed marriage.

The Nike COY was too far and too much of a labor to get to, given that there wasn't a ton that I wanted to hear.

What's coming up...

I'm trying to set up some staff visits with the following colleges: Menlo College in Menlo, CA, Berkeley, and Stanford (I think they're still running a 3-4, right?). Menlo's DC is a man named Mike Church that's been around a long time and has coached at pretty much every single level possible, I'm very interested in making contact and meeting him. Clancy Pendergast, DC at Berkeley, has been to the Super Bowl with the Cardinals. Stanford Co-DCs Jason Tarver and Derek Mason have both been in 3-4 schemes recently. All in all, if I can make some in-roads with those schools, I'll be a happy camper.

Toughness: I Can Has It?

    Meme-induced title aside, one of the biggest issues I hear coaches talking about is how to build toughness. I don't think there's a single coach in America who would describe his players as 'a little too tough'. Physicality cannot be replaced on the football field and it's an unbelievably consistent thing for the more physical, but less talented team to persevere and win. But toughness is not just physicality, it's something more than that.

    So… What is it, then?

    As I've seen it amongst coaches, toughness is frequently thought of as a physical characteristic. A kid who plays through pain is 'tough', whereas the kid who cannot work off a sprained toe is 'weak' or 'has no heart'. We harp on this issue constantly, trying to get kids to recognize the difference between being hurt and being injured, to let go of the apron strings, to toughen up and be a man, all that nonsensical jingoistic/rhetorical BS. In my mind, toughness is a mindset and a way of being, not a physical ability.

    The kid who plays with a broken finger, he's tough, no doubt about it. But it's not because he's playing hurt, I actually think playing hurt is a foolish and dangerous and counter-productive notion. It's because he's refusing to let up, despite obstacles that are arising. The kid who gets pancaked EVERY SINGLE PLAY for the entire game and keeps getting up, he's a tough SOB. He may not be able to play the double team very well, but he sure as hell qualifies as 'tough' because he isn't folding. I think that being tough is more about how you mentally respond to situations and moments that go against you than how you block out or ignore pain or inconvenience. It's more of an accomplishment, in my opinion, to fully acknowledge the negatives of a situation and deal with it than to ignore them and pretend like everything is OK. It takes more mental strength, more discipline, more accountability to yourself.

    How Do We Build It?

    This a part where I'm going to more or less outsource my philosophy to an author: The New Toughness Training by James Loehr. Loehr basically boils it down to a few things: emotional flexibility, responsiveness and strength. You need to be emotionally flexibile, you need to learn to respond with the appropriate attitude and mindset, and you need to be emotionally strong enough to take it.

    Emotional flexibility is basically the ability to not get stuck into a certain emotional position. Being emotionally rigid increases your chances of breaking when things don't go your way, a sure-fire sign of 'weakness' to many classical types. By having the appropriate mental state and recognizing that things will occasionally go against you, flexibility is gained. Much like the Buddhist concept of impermanence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence), recognizing that nothing is permanent, nothing is fixed, nothing is certain gives you a certain freedom to respond when things don't go as you'd like.

    Responsiveness is an interesting concept and I truly believe it is about building a mindset within yourself or your charges. A popular internet meme sensation are the courage wolf pictures (Courage Wolf, Frequently NSFW, Always Fun), which I actually think are kind of awesome examples of emotional responsiveness. A few favorites that I think might show the kind of responsiveness that I like: "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional", "Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it", "Someone dislikes you for no reason, give them a reason", and my personal favorite "The cops are here, sucks to be them". There's no room for sulking or passivity or weakness in that kind of an attitude, it's very, very alpha and it's very, very strong.

    Strength is strength. Much like physical strength, which requires stress and then rest to build to new levels, emotional strength requires more of the same. How we incorporate that into what we're doing is somewhat of a personal choice, but the football analogy I think might be best would be playing a progressively difficult pre-season. Not only that, but a progressively difficult pre-season versus schools that mirror more difficult programs down the road. Playing a Wing-T in the late part of your league schedule? Schedule a Wing-T team in the pre-season. Stress, then recover.

    Ah, I see.

    Do you though? Do you? Almost everyone wants to have a tough, physical program, even spread guys. Except Kurt Bryan. But being tough isn't necessarily about the drills you do or your kids' backgrounds, it's about how we train them to be emotionally strong, responsive, and flexible. Not unlike our physical training that we do, we have to have a measure of mental and emotional training as well.

Installing the 3-4: Choosing Your Coverages

But Yer Doin' It Wrong!

Traditional defensive wisdom goes something like this: Choose your front that you're going to stop the run with. From there, choose the coverage that you're going to run. Once you've done that, you can start to think more about techniques. I honestly think this is a very sound and responsible way to approach things and it really does work for the majority of defensive fronts/systems out there. If you're going to be a 4-4 or 3-3 team, you're limited in your coverage options because of how you've committed your players strictly by alignment. Such teams can run Cover 3, Man-Free, and 2-Robber relatively easily, again by alignment. If you're going to be a 4-3 team, you can run 2, 3, 4, man-free, 2 deep man under, you're almost unlimited in your possibilities. However, if you're running a 4-3 and you want to run Cover 3, then you have to work some stuff out, such as cloud or sky coverage, roll strong/weak, etc. This is slightly complex at times. If you're a 46 defense, you'd better be running Man-Free or some variation of Cover 3, such as 3 deep 3 under fire zone.

This works because of how we have set up our understandings of force and contain, pursuit and coverage. If you're playing defense, you need to have players assigned to forcing everything back inside, period. That said, who can perform those roles depends greatly on where they're aligned. A Free Safety cannot align at 12yds deep in the Strong A gap and be responsible for weak force, unless he also wears a cape and has a big red "S" on his chest. I hope I don't need to make more examples of this.

Because we choose our front first, we are dedicating a certain number of people to certain alignments, thereby limiting the number of possible assignments. If we commit 8 players to the box with our front, we cannot have 2 safeties. If we only have 7 in the box, then we must have 2 safeties. Recognizing this allows us to have a better understanding of how coverages fit into defensive structures.

And Here's Where I Contradict Myself…

I really, truly believe that for a person implementing a 3-4 scheme, choosing the coverage first is crucial. The 3-4 has a lot of moving parts, more so than just about any other defense, and often has changing responsibilities with regards to force, contain, spill, all those terms we love to use to define good defense. The difference between the 3-4 and other defenses, in my experience, is that the 3-4 has the interesting feature that the front and the coverage are intertwined. If you want to run a certain coverage, you need to do certain things with your front. There is a minor assumption that is working behind all of this: you want to rush at least 4. If you don't mind rushing 3 and dropping 8, well, no biggie. But if you're going to rush 4 in the 3-4, you need to marry the front and the coverage. You have to make a conscious decision about what you're doing.

Huh?

The 3-4 is a seven man front to start. The actual front alignment varies quite a bit, with some teams preferring a 4-0-4 head up approach with slanting and stunting, and others preferring an 'under' front variation (9-5-1-3-5), and yet others running a 3-0-3 double eagle front. That's fairly irrelevant at this exact moment. What is important is how you're going to run your coverage, specifically what your base is. It comes down to this: are you going to be an even coverage base or an odd coverage base? Are you going to run Cover 3, Cover 1 (Man Free) and Cover 9 (3x3 fire zone) or are you going to run Cover 2, 4, and 6 (¼ ¼ ½)? Answering this question is the biggest step towards developing a common sense, fundamentally sound 3-4 scheme.

If you're going to run Cover 3, then you need to blitz someone (an LB most likely) and probably replace them with a DB. Who the someone is doesn't matter, you need to blitz someone to send 4 and drop 7. If you blitz an OLB, then the safety on that side should replace him in coverage, presumably with the Curl/Flat responsibility. If you blitz an ILB, probably same solution, except now it's Hook/Curl. You can just straight up send a safety and everyone else drops, if you really want.

If you're going to run Cover 2, then you need to blitz someone away from the passing strength or wide side of the field. Now you don't want to blitz your corners in C.2, they have a pretty important responsibility, so that's out. Similarly, you want to keep your safeties deep, so they can't blitz. Therefore, it's one of your ILBs. The reason why I say away from passing strength is that the three interior drops in Cover 2 usually go Hook/Curl, Middle Hole, Hook/Curl. Because of that, you generally want more people dropping to the passing strength because you want to have numbers to the passing strength.

I don't think I get it…

No worries, it's a complicated concept and one that is unusual. The 3-4 is a complicated and unusual defense these days and I really believe that if you sit down and marinate on what I'm talking about, you'll notice there's a certain logic within that makes it sort of an 'Ah-ha!' realization. I stumbled on the importance of this while implementing our 3-4 two years ago. I was reading a thread on Huey where someone mentioned the approach mentioned in my intro and I realized that it didn't work that way for the 3-4. After that, I began to think on it more and more and I feel like I've got a good grip on the mechanics of it all.

For more reading, I really recommend hitting up my scribd account and looking at some of the playbooks there. There's a neat synergy between the front and the coverage and how it all just… works.