Rex is a great defensive coach but gets a little too much credit in this article as it's almost written like he developed the idea to attack Lazor's offense. Also, it seems like it's the first time Mando has ever seen such a thing. Which considering he's a Dolphin beat writer is extremely odd.
Why is that odd?
The original concepts of the Zone Blitz were created by none other than the defensive guru under Don Shula and the coordinator of the No-Name Defense, Bill Arnsparger. At the time the Dolphins ran a 4-3 and used LB Bob Matheson at the DE position. Arnsparger used Matheson's athleticism to either rush the passer or drop back in coverage. After Matheson, DL Kim Bokamper was converted to take over the same duties. The birth of the 3-4 defense, hybrid defensive players and the Zone Blitz.
The modern Zone Blitz as we know it today was developed almost 20 years ago by Dick LeBeau. It was developed by LeBeau when he was a defensive asst with Cincinnati in the 80's as a response to the precision passing offense created by Bill Walsh (the West Coast). To be exact, it was SB XXIII with the 49ers victory over the Bengals (20-16) that spurred LeBeau to experiment with this scheme. It's a controlled chaos concept run out of the 3-4 that shows aggression and causes disruption by disguising who will rush the passer and who will drop back to defend the pass, but is generally conservative with the simple rule of "safe pressure". Rush 5, drop 6. And Mando, for future reference, technically speaking it's not a Zone "Blitz" when only bringing four pass rushers; no matter what part of the field or position the rush might be coming from.
Anyways, the other crucial half of the Zone Blitz that is being completely ignored here is the coverage. Originally (before '85 or so), when a defense rushed four they played zone and when they blitzed they played man-to-man. The modern Zone Blitz allows for different zone drops in which those zones can be covered by a multitude of different defenders depending on who is coming (blitzing) and who is going (coverage).
Essentially the Zone Blitz can defined as: the "Zone" is designed to confuse the QB along with the receivers in their reads & routes, while the "Blitz" is designed to confuse the offensive line's pass protection (and why it was so effective vs our re-shuffled lineup). A two-headed monster.
So how did offense's respond? The Run-n-Shoot and.... Spread concepts.
Philbin and Lazor have a counter. I have no doubt. Although we only scored 16 vs the Jets, we left another 10 out on he field (we do avg 25.9 pts/gm) and the Jets did an excellent job of playing keep away with the TOP. It will simply come down to execution as we will see much of the same this Sunday vs the Ravens as they have a very deep LB core to deploy but are weak in their secondary play.
Interestingly enough, as football has always been the ultimate chess match, the counter in which defenses sought to fix problems with simple zone drops, exploited by Run-n-Shoot & Spread Concepts, was the development of Pattern-Match. Pattern-Match is a coverage where defenders initially play zone until the receivers show their routes and then defenders take up their man-to-man responsibilities usually 5-7 yards beyond the LOS.
Now does anyone know who created Pattern-Match principles? That's right, Nick Saban and our division leading nemesis, Bill Belichick. And now the Zone Blitz had come full circle. What began as a way to blitz without playing man coverage and play zone had started incorporating man coverage all over again, this time in an entirely new way. It doesn't end there and brings us to some of the newer ways offenses have begun to counter to that: the HUNH and package plays. But that's another lesson that we need not worry about til next week. For the meantime, let's just go out and kick some Raven ass. Class dismissed.
Fins Up!
:bdh:
*P.S. I didn't even curse and only took a dig at one person (Sorry Mando). My wife would be so proud. :)
