When and where has the wide nine ever been successful?

Jim Schwartz

 

The "Orange Crush" Denver defenses of the '80's. Detroit. The Giants of the last 10 years or so. Philly. Nebraska in the '90's. FSU in the '90's...

I believe all of these teams had success with the wide 9

 

The question should have been, "When has the wide 9 been successful with 2nd and 3rd string linebackers?" Then the answer would have been nowhere.

 

If it has been proven to be unsuccessful with **** LBs...then the real question is "why is VJ using this scheme?" That leads to another question,"is VJ over his head?"

 

Well you can't really change the entire defensive scheme based on a few injuries. This isn't Madden football. It's slightly more complicated than just choosing to run a different scheme. These things take a lot of time to implement.

 

The real question is why didn't Tannenbaum do more to upgrade the LB position in the off season. Xavien Howard, Kenyan Drake and Leonte Carroo are all fine players in their own rights but I wish we had drafted a LB at one of those spots.

 

With the way offenses run these days, I think all of defenses are out of the nickel 30-40% of the time anyway (in which, now it's just coverage).

ANY scheme gets beat. But philosophically, it's a strong scheme. The players seem to like it. The big ask is on the D-line; specifically getting to the QB.

If you notice when the line gets to the QB, Miami wins. The losses seem to be when Miami cannot apply pressure. That's why there's some crazy stat where Cam Wake gets a sack, Miami is 9-0 or 8-1.

Against Balt, the field made it really tough on the line to get to Flacco. He had time to throw, and you get what you get. Vance took away the outside stuff pretty well that game thinking he could get enough pressure against an O-line that had some issues. Miami's D line was pretty lights out at the time. If you get pressure, esp up the middle with Suh and Phillips, Flacco can't make those over the middle throws as much.

If you notice, early in the game, pressure was applied, Flacco rolled out and threw a pick. That's what this D is about; creating turnovers.

I'm not defending Vance to the death, I have just seen some things that make me think we got something going here. And with the injuries have really been a killer here, no matter what scheme you run.

 

On defense it's more important to build around a scheme than individual talents. The idea is that each offseason you acquire more players who fit your scheme either via the draft of free agency.

If you don't run your scheme how do you know how well your guys play in it? How do you know who absolutely needs to be replaced? If you trust your scheme on defense you run it period.

Now this isnt to say I think VJ is some sort of mastermind. My opinion is its way to early to tell.

 

This may be my favorite response of the week.

 

Yeah that's not an excuse. It's a fact.

As a DC, you simply can not walk in Monday morning and say "alright guys, forget all the schemes and verbiage that we've worked on since training camp because starting today we're going to run a brand new defense."

If you are under the impression that changing scheme is as easy as simply calling different defensive sets then you're dead wrong. This stuff takes years to implement.

 

Again, all a Wide-9 does plain and simple is switch the gaps that defenders are responsible for:


Your base defense is responsible for filling 8 gaps in the offensive formation. It's your front-7 plus a DB, or you start 2-gapping guys.

All a Wide-9 front really does is switch the gap assignments of the DE and Safety on the strong side. Instead of a DE filling the "C" gap and the Safety being responsible for outside runs, the DE defends the outside runs and the Safety fills the C-gap.

 

I always thought that a "Wide-9" just meant you took your DE and used them as a pass rusher around the edge.. There was no defending the run...or at least not a responsibility for them unless they recognize it before they start their pass rush.

 

Yeah, the problem with this D is you need too much to make it run properly, 1st, you need at least one space eater, a mountain that can't be moved even with 2X, you need very good passrushing DEs, you need very good LB play, and you need a great MLB, and two 2 way S's, so they can either fill or cover.

It's the kind of D you don't run until you have at least most of these things in place, and even then an injury or 2 can set you back quite a bit, because you need so many high caliber players just to run it effectively.

Imo it's an "overthought" D.

 

This thread is at least entertaining in the absence of Moore threads since Sundays game.

 

Good stuff. On behalf of all, thank you for that.

Well, that's necessary now, isn't it?

 

I don't think you get to call it stupid when you clearly don't understand it.

Again, as for your basic premise- it's very clearly had success. It's not a difficult thing to look up

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/SchwJi0.htm

And again, it doesn't really address that lining up wider alignments on base downs isn't a new or novel thing- it was pretty common during the Tampa-2 boom of the 2000's. What'd you think the Colts did with Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis?

 

I could be wrong, but perhaps Gase wanted an offense heavy draft because it takes more time for players to understand the nuances of his system. I think this season we just sort of scratched the surface. Of course, Howard being the exception, but we had no choice and had to go CB there.

 

Yeah, sorry, not necessary, but really, it's the truth.

People went from complaining about Tannehill to complaining about Vance, who's made freaking lemon merengue pie out of rotten lemons this season.

 

Yeah as really think the players like him and vice versa as well as really trying to get to the next level. That is the key to it all. They could be a force to reckon with for years.

 

Again, NOT what he said. He took partial blame
PARTIAL. You understand what that means, right?

 

Yet, nowhere in the article did Vance take "full responsibility."

If you think a coach, who has HC aspirations, is going to come out a couple days before a playoff game, and demean his backups who've been forced into starting roles, then you're truly crazy.

 

Lol, VJ finally thinks something is wrong with the scheme. Only took being in the bottom of the league defensively and 17 weeks. Denver, please do us a favor and higher VJ!

 

Wrong about what? You won't find any quotes from me pumping the wide 9 defense. I really don't have any knowledge of football theory. I've only disagreed with your extreme misrepresentation of what is in the article.

I'm not gonna do this in two threads, so I won't pay anymore about this in this thread.

 

Maybe the better question is what scheme would better fit this personnel? Strong pass rush, poor lb, below-average safeties, average CB....basically he's been playing a form of bend-don't-break, relying on sacks and turnovers to stall drives, and barring that, hold them to field goals when it becomes a short field. Hard to argue with that basic premise given the injuries and LB corp...I've heard some criticism of his lack of press coverage. But if you press that opens you up to the deep ball, esp. given average-to-poor safeties as well. Plus as far as i can tell he mixes coverages quite a bit, again to mask the personnel weaknesses and increase the risk of a turnover.

 

This stuff sounds so easy. Wonder why the guy doing one of 32 jobs couldn't figure it out.

 

Again, I'm not defending the wide 9, not sure why you keep acting like I am. I'm simply pointing out how extreme you're being.

 

The most recent successes in the NFL have come from the 2014 Detroit Lions, 2014 Buffalo Bills and this year's Philadelphia Eagles, with Detroit's 2014 season being the best of the bunch.

Detroit was 3rd in the NFL in points allowed that season with a 17.6 ppg average. They were first in run defense giving up 69.3 ypg. The next best defense that year against the run, Denver, was a full 10 yards more at 79.8 ypg. Their pass defense was 12th in the league and they finished 8th in the NFL with 42 sacks that year.

IMO, the main difference between them and Miami is that Detroit's LBs that year - Deandre Levy, Stephen Tulloch, Tahir Whitehead, and Ashlee Palmer (took over at SLB when Whitehead moved to MLB to replace Tulloch after Tulloch tore his ACL mid-season) are much better than any trio Miami can/has put out this year. The other thing that made Detroit ultra-effective was that they were DEEP on the D-line and rotated a lot of guys. Miami's rotation hasn't really worked out or been entirely healthy all season. Just for fun, Detroit had 11 D-linemen on their 53 man roster that year:

DE Ezekiel Ansah
DE Jason Jones
DE George Johnson
DE Devin Taylor
DE Darryl Tapp
DE Larry Webster II
DT Ndamukong Suh
DT Nick Fairley
DT C.J. Mosley
DT Andre Fluellen
DT Caraun Reid

*Edit - also of note for that Detroit defense. They surrendered more than 100 yards rushing as a team only twice (Jets, Packers). They were also the only team that year to hold Dallas and DeMarco Murray under 100; they held them to 73 total rushing yards. It should also be noted that they held opponents under 70 yards rushing 9 times that season. This defense can damn well stop the run if you have the right parts.

Jason Jones and Mario Williams have been disappointments in Miami, which is a bit of surprise considering they both had career years in the wide-9. The LBs as we know, haven't been up to par save for Kiko Alonso and Neville Hewitt (in some situations only). It's also Vance Joseph's first time as a coordinator within the wide-9. I think it is worth noting that while Miami's run defense has been porous they've managed to hold top-tier backs in check most of the year other than LeSean McCoy in week 16:

Le'Veon Bell - 53 yards
Melvin Gordon - 70 yards
Todd Gurley - 76 yards - 1TD
David Johnson - 80 yards

Missed tackles have been a killer as well. Matt Forte rushed for 92 yards and a TD in the first Dolphins vs. Jets game. 63 of those 92 yards came on two runs where Miami missed tackles. Le'Veon Bell had 33 yards on 3 carries that saw missed tackles by Wake, Williams and Jenkins. We also haven't had Reshad Jones since week 6.

In my opinion, I think a full offseason of restocking the front 7 will go a long way. While I love Vance Joseph, my guess is he ends up Denver's head coach and Miami's already leaked it out there that Matt Burke, our LBs coach, would be promoted. That may actually turn out to be a positive move. Other than Jim Schwartz and Jim Washburn, the co-creators of the NFL wide-9, Burke's probably got as much experience in the NFL in that system. He was an administrative assistant and assistant coach for the Tennessee Titans under Schwartz from 2004-08. He was brought to Detroit in 2009 and stayed there under Schwartz until 2013. If in fact Joseph leaves and Burke moves up, I think you'll see Miami play their defense next year much more in the Jim Schwartz manner. And to me, I think that means Miami will focus on acquiring some bigger, stronger/longer players at DE (Taco Charlton, for instance) and a lot more speed at OLB (or a thumper like a Brandon Spikes at MLB and you can move Alonso outside).

As sort of a catchall summary of what Jim Schwartz does, I'd hold up this as required reading: http://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/n...-Defense/72122296-c9e4-47e6-8eb5-cf5b0f65c1eb

To sum up my thoughts, I think this defense can be very good for Miami. They've just had personnel deficiencies that need fixed:

1) Acquiring/drafting 2 starting-caliber LBs to team with Kiko Alonso.
2) Re-stocking the front seven enough to have a rotation without guys like Chris Jones, Nick Williams, Mario Williams, etc.
3) Getting Reshad Jones back to full health. Remember him? C-gap defender.

Despite all these things the wide-9 defense has seen Miami finish 17th in points allowed, an improvement over last year's defense; and 15th against the pass. That, to me, is impressive given the personnel deficiencies.

 

Seems that there was once an offensive scheme that was new, that only like one guy ran, that was roundly criticized...and now it's widely used. Coaches like to stick with traditional things, because it's safer, because new offenses and defenses take time to learn, and often coaches don't get enough time to establish new things without losing their jobs because of losing.

 

This is a good post that echoes what a majority of everyone is saying regarding the personnel.

The axe that some are grinding must be down to a stump at this point.