Jim Schwartz and Jim Washburn (now with Miami) are the co-creators of the defense. Essentially, it's a 4-3 that uses 3-4 principles by playing the DEs out very wide in what Schwartz calls a "Wide-9" and a "Wide-5" technique (essentially a 7-technique). He used it in Buffalo in 2014 as defensive coordinator and during his tenure as DC in Tennessee and as HC in Detroit. Teryl Austin made some tweaks to the Lions system when he arrived in 2014 and it was lethal. The Lions absolutely MASHED everyone against the run and got a lot of pressure simply by turning their DEs loose.

Essentially, in a base personnel group, it'll look like this:



Detroit, under Teryl Austin, started bringing a safety (James Ihedigbo, then Isa Abdul-Quddus) down into the box, as the S has to play the C gap in the defense. The LBs are more run-and-hit LBs who play off of the D-line rather than maintaining strict gap discipline. In short, the noticeable difference along the D-line is instead of having a 5-1-3-7 technique alignment, as we saw in Miami under Kevin Coyle, you're going to see more of a Wide-5, 2i, 3T, and Wide-9 technique across the front, in a 4-3 Over wide-9 (the picture above is the opposite and is a 4-3 Under Wide-9 front). My guess is that Mario Williams could play either DE spot, but had a tremendous year in 2014 (14.5 sacks) playing the wide-9 (usually LDE) spot. Jason Jones can also play the wide-9 spot, but can play both sides and can play DT in passing situations. I think we'll see Williams and a mixture of Jones and Wake playing the good majority of snaps.

One thing to note is that in Detroit in 2014, the year they were a top 3 defense (3rd in points allowed, 1st against the run), they had 11 D-linemen on their 53 man roster and used a heavy rotation for everyone other than Ndamukong Suh who played like 85% of the total snaps. On their roster that year were:

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

They also drafted Kyle Van Noy, who was on short-term IR that year to give them some flexibility as a blitzing LB. Without getting into too much detail, if Dion Jordan comes back, he's got better hope as a DE in this system than he does as a LB. Just based on Detroit's depth on the D-line that year, I'd expect Miami to rotate guys quite a bit just to help keep them fresh, but you've also got Wake coming off an Achilles, Jason Jones probably playing a portion of snaps inside in passing-situations, etc. I'd imagine guys like Andre Branch (still don't get the fit entirely), Terrence Fede, Chris McCain, etc. if they make the roster could carve out a small role the way Darryl Tapp did for the Lions as a 5th DE in 2014.

I'm going to work on a defensive preview as I've done in the past this weekend. Hope to have it posted Sunday night or early next week.

 

Ro's on the case..

what is the philosophy/objective/purpose of the wide 9?

How would a good run team not gash you?

 

It's a shame that the Jim Schwartz Coaching-Clinic video was taken down. In short, from what I remember Schwartz saying about the Wide-9:

- It evolved from the Titans playing a standard 4-3 Over into the Wide-9 in order to stop the Indianapolis Colts stretch-zone run plays with Edgerrin James. At the time Jim Schwartz was a defensive assistant and Jim Washburn was their D-line coach. Miami's current LB coach, Matt Burke, was a coaching intern on those same Titans teams so there's some familiarity with Washburn and Burke both being on Miami's staff now. Vance Joseph's background is in the 3-4, and the Wide-9 is the 4-3 scheme that plays like a 3-4.
- Saw that the Patriots, a 3-4 team, played their OLBs very wide and always stopped the Colts stretch run plays. Washburn asked Schwartz to draw up how that defense would look if played by a 4-3 personnel grouping, hence the wide DEs.
- The purpose is to force teams to run inside where your 2i, 3T and MLB can wreak havoc due to the penetrating style of the defense to muck up your run blocking.
- The DEs attack off the edge to force runs back inside and to get the QB off his spot.
- Washburn developed a method of DEs rushing to a particular spot, based off studying opposing QBs and where they liked to throw from, so even if they weren't getting a sack, the QB was still having to throw in heavy traffic or step up in the pocket and have his timing thrown off by the quickness of the rush.
- The Wide-9 is susceptible against certain runs, mainly power plays if well blocked, counters, and inside zone runs if you have a good one-cut RB like an Edgerrin James or Adrian Peterson.
- Food for thought, the 2014 Lions only let two opponents rush over 100 yards that season. They were the only team to hold Dallas under 100 yards (73 total) that year. Two of the four starters on that D-line are now in Miami with Suh and Jason Jones.
- Defense relies in LBs to play run-and-hit style in space and play off of what the D-line does. Schwartz cited that Albert Hanyesworth had terrible gap discipline, much like Jordan Phillips last year, but when all you tasked Haynesworth with was attacking an A gap, no guard could cross his face and no center was strong enough to block him at that angle, so he could muck up the play and force it to bounce outside right into the DEs that were charging up the field.
- The safety in the box is responsible for the C gap in run defense; must be a good tackler and not afraid to come up and hit. Reshad Jones and IAQ are both good fits here.
- You can play varied coverages behind the front. Teryl Austin brought a bunch of the Ravens' zone stuff. Vance Joseph will probably play a lot of press out of a 2-deep look or press with a single-high safety.

 

awesome..thank you.

Phiilps.Suh..Kiko form a nice little triangle with Jones cleaning up.

 

Yes, I think if Phillips steps up that triangle in the middle should do well.

From what I've seen, the main causes of run defense breaking down in this scheme other than just whiffing on tackles is when DEs get too far upfield against a counter and don't retrace well; when you're 2i or 3T get blown off the ball immediately; your safety takes a bad angle in the C gap or overruns the play and a RB cuts back.

There was a thread on Reddit that showed a Vikings-Lions game from 2012 or 2013, can't remember but Louis Delmas was still with Detroit. Adrian Peterson makes an other-worldly jump-cut through a hole and Delmas or the other safety overran the gap and AP went 75 yards to the house on the first play of the game. Detroit smoked him the rest of the way holding him to something like 35-40 yards on 17 carries.

For me, the main thing with this defense, at least in terms of playing the run, is going to be the health of the LBs. Jenkins and Misi both missed games and have missed games for consecutive season in a row. Alonso's two years removed from an ACL and was reduced to being a nickel sub in Philly's defense, so he's not faced the brunt of full snaps since 2013. So, health is a question mark. Depth-wise, I think Neville Hewitt might do well in this defense. Zach Vigil doesn't strike me as athletic enough. Spencer Paysinger had some good snaps in goal line defense last year, but he's a special-teamer otherwise. I don't think Mike Hull fits. Akil Blount and James Burgess both seem like they're athletic enough, based on test numbers, but they're both rookies.

That said, Matt Burke made good using Ashlee Palmer, a converted safety, and a relatively unknown Tahir Whitehead in 2014 after Stephen Tulloch went down. He did a lot of nice things with the Bengals' LBs last year, Vontaze Burfict in particular. Tahir Whitehead's a starter and Detroit re-signed him this offseason.

 

Cam wake retraces very well:wink2:

 

Surprisingly, that's Andre Branch's best attribute, IMO.

 

I'll have my usual, lengthy preview up this weekend or next week. Stay tuned.

 

not better than wake.

 

can you give me a cliff notes version :)

go reds !

 

I'd say they're about even retracing against the run. Mario Williams, when he wants it, and Jason Jones are both better at it, IMO. As it relates to Jones, I think that's one of the reasons he went from being a DT in Tennesee/Seattle to a DE in Detroit; he developed that part of his game very well.

 

Ro is a defense scheme Golden God.

 

it's bad vs the run, at least when philly used the wide 9 for a few years they just got gashed in the run game. in short your de's line up a few yards wider and rush up the field. which means your lb'ers will have to read fast to plug a gap if it's run play or else it's a free OL 5 yards down the field.

 

No, it's when Suh bends over and spreads his buttcheeks.

 

The real keys to the W9, is LBs who are good at diagnosing plays and have the wheels to get where they need to be, and at the very least, 1 two gap style DT.

It's not all that different from the D that JJ brought in from college, then eventually here.

 

Beautiful insights Ronin. Thank you.

 

I'll see if I can't track down that Jim Schwartz video. I've seen it on Reddit before, and someone posted it a while back but the link is no longer working. I think it's cool as Schwartz does provide some history of the defense; why they wanted to use it and how it fit with the Titans personnel back then. They were very good with it for a good stretch with Jevon Kearse, Kyle Vanden Bosch, Albert Haynesworth, Keith Bulluck, etc. Buffalo had a tremendous year with it in 2014. Rex Ryan opted not to keep Schwartz and installed his defense and the Bills defense dipped considerably.

Teryl Austin I think ran the best version of it in 2014 with Detroit. He had Jim Washburn and Matt Burke on staff, both of who are now on the Dolphins' staff, so I'm guessing we see that version of the defense shine through a bit more under Vance Joseph. I think the main difference will be is that Vance Joseph will run more 2-deep looks with press coverage on the perimeter where as Teryl Austin used a lot of the zone concepts he learned while with the Ravens and added stubbie coverage to that mix (Arizona runs this a lot and has had the most success with it of the NFL teams I've seen running it). The Lions that year didn't have a great secondary, so I think that's why their pass defense numbers weren't as great as their run defense, total defense, points allowed, 3rd down defense, etc.

If I can find it the video, I'll put it in my preview.

 

I think it's got the potential to be much improved from last year's defense. I still think Miami's talent at LB isn't good enough as a whole yet, and they have injury histories there as well. That's going to be the key to success for the whole defense, how well the LBs are able to play off the D-line, and how long they can stay healthy.

 

I think it's also a possibility that they're using a Wide-9 style defense as a transitional step to a Wade Phillips-style 3-4.

It seems like a bit of a wild idea on the face of it, but there are a lot of similarities in terms of principle and philosophy- they're both aggressive 1-gap defenses, and despite switching a linebacker for a linemen there are a fair amount of similar alignments. A wide-9 shares a lot of similarities with Phillips Nickel packages too, and I think that could be one of the main reasons- you're not implementing a totally different base package, you're just subbing a SAM for a Nickel back with a lot of the same principles.

The real outstanding big-ticket item that would prevent them from running a Phillips 3-4 is a 5-technique, IMO- and it seems like they sniffed around them this offseason. I know they had pre-draft contact with Deforest Buckner, and I believe Joey Bosa as well.

 

Jason Jones has played 5-Technique and could do that again. Mario Williams probably "could" too in that he's physically suited for it, but he'd likely hate it and I don't think it would be a good idea to try that with him.

 

didn't Jason Jones play the wide 9 tech in detroit?

 

He was a 5-technique with Seattle for a year.

I mean, technically there's the "wide-5" this in this defense but that's another bit of bad football terminology.

 

Either DE spot can shift to the wide-5 or wide-9; I've not seen Detroit or Buffalo dedicate a DE to playing wider regardless of being left or right.

 

Would have been nice to grab a MLB and kick Alonso to the outside to utilize his athleticism.
I don't see one on the roster.

 

Hewitt is pretty damn close...He played really well in the finale.

It's going to be fun watching Kiko at MLB. We haven't had a guy with his instincts in a while.

 

he's got Mike Instincts but his body says no..small frame..hope he holds up in the middle.

 

didn't he play MLB for the bills? of course he got hurt , but

 

Hewett played well that game, but the Pats also ran on about every play too.