Least important position on defense?

[MKnight82]

39 minutes ago, Uncle Buck said:

If I could have a (4-3) defense with 10 great players and one mediocre player, I would probably go with a 3-technique DT as the weak link.  If the guys on either side of him are both elite, it would probably be easiest to make up for his weaknesses. 

Problem with that is with no push up the middle the qb can just step up in the pocket and avoid the edge rushers.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

12 minutes ago, MKnight82 said:

Problem with that is with no push up the middle the qb can just step up in the pocket and avoid the edge rushers.

Not if your other DT is a beast.

[MKnight82]

17 minutes ago, Darth Pees said:

Not if your other DT is a beast.

Usually the 3 tech in 4-3 is the pass rusher though.

[Uncle Buck]

1 hour ago, MKnight82 said:

Problem with that is with no push up the middle the qb can just step up in the pocket and avoid the edge rushers.

Yeah, but if the other DT is a beast, he can maybe get a pretty good push himself a lot of the time.  You have to be weak somewhere, and I thought that was the best case scenario. 

[vikingsrule]

4 hours ago, gopherwrestler said:

I mean... Harrison Smith is probably the Vikings most important player.....

The Vikes don't use Smith in a traditional Free/Strong alignment. Smith plays the closed side of the field and lines up deep, at the LOS and plays in all kinds of coverages. 

[Thaiphoon]

One way to do this is to look at the franchise tag #'s for each position. Since they are he average of the top 5 contracts, it can give you some insight into what positions that teams around the league value more than others.

With that in mind, its Safeties

[Thaiphoon]

4 minutes ago, Thaiphoon said:

One way to do this is to look at the franchise tag #'s for each position. Since they are he average of the top 5 contracts, it can give you some insight into what positions that teams around the league value more than others.

With that in mind, its Safeties

NVM - @cddolphinand @MKnight82 beat me to it

[cddolphin]

3 hours ago, Tugboat said:

Yeah.  I think the original question more or less leads into this pretty simple answer.  The nickel is becoming more involved and more important...the trade-off is whoever is coming off the field in order to get that nickel on the field more often.  Every position is still important, and you'd rather not have a sub-par player anywhere that you have to hide...but it's probably "easiest" to "hide" someone who is going to be coming off the field more often anyway.

Well in that case, since most (if not all?) NFL teams now run 5 DBs a majority of the time, shouldn't that be considered the 'base' defense? If that were the case, we should exclude the 3rd LB in a 4-3 and the 3rd DL in a 3-4 from the conversation.

[BleedTheClock]

5 hours ago, Darth Pees said:

I'll give you a chance to rescind this comment before I post game tape of what happened when the Seahawks tried this exact same thing with Steven Terrell at FS.

So there's no tape of the worst NT getting blown off the ball consistently that exists somewhere? Or a team that gets destroyed on Power runs with a down block from the TE because the SAM linebacker is a piece of dook?

This is a dumb argument. The FS might give up more blatantly obvious plays, but having a terrible NT or linebacker is going to result in a slow death. I'd rather force a team to throw than run down my throat for 5-6 yards a pop. When a FS screws up everyone knows. When a front 7 player screws up it's very difficult to tell without the use of film study. But I assure you if you talked to DC's they would tell you they'll take a bad FS over a bad front 7 player all day. Guaranteed.

[BleedTheClock]

2 hours ago, Darth Pees said:

Not if your other DT is a beast.

This argument goes both ways. If your other DB's are lockdown coverage players, your FS can go whack it on the sidelines and you won't have any issues playing defense. I am looking at this from a schematic perspective. The FS is the only guy that isn't responsible for filling a gap. And he's rarely asked to cover in man coverage, so he's basically just an extra defender in theory. Is it that simple? Absolutely not. But if you have a bad player there, you can simplify the scheme to hide him. You can't really hide anyone else on defense schematically.

[Carmen Cygni]

Safety is a premier position, with often the best athletes, and is even more so in today's modern game. They are the field general for the back 7, help over top, bracket/cone/slot coverages, the 8th man in the box, an extra blitz option, etc. etc.

 

This thread makes me want to punch babies. I'm done dealing with it's generalities and ignorance.

 

Side note: The basic philosophy in a 4-3 with Force principles is to funnel everything to the 3 tech, so that argument is crap too.

[BleedTheClock]

5 hours ago, Carmen Cygni said:

You're going to give up a **** ton of plays down  MOF. I'm going to have my QB eye banging him all day to open up the seams and get my receivers on top of him for the bug play. Of course, that's if I have to bother considering your FS is bad and has trouble recognizing concepts and making the proper coverage calls.

You're going to get murked in the run game if your NT is bad. Up and down the field and it doesn't even require the QB making an accurate throw deep down the field.

 

This is why this is a dumb argument to get into. Every position is important. So I went with the one position that is labeled as the "extra" defender that is the furthest away from the action and requires the QB to make a terrific throw. It also requires the WR to break away from his man in coverage and requires the OL to protect the QB long enough to get the ball deep down the field. Handing the football off to your RB is a much less risky proposition for the offense. Nobody would throw if they could gash you on the ground every play because it limits mistakes. If you try and target my FS all game long, you're going to have to start driving the football down the field very often and that isn't what successful offenses do. Teams don't want to throw over the middle of the field between the seams consistently.

[BleedTheClock]

7 minutes ago, Carmen Cygni said:

I'm done dealing with it's generalities and ignorance.

I've been coaching defense for 10+ years (albeit on the HS level) and am willing to spar you all day on this topic. Throwing out paper thin arguments and then claiming others are ignorant makes you look silly and childish. What makes you the authority on the topic? I'm not claiming to be the authority here, but to call us ignorant for disagreeing with you is pretty funny considering my entire life is spent analyzing the game. I'm not a superstar coach; I'm not better than anyone else here. But to typecast me as ignorant is pretty funny.

But I understand you're getting upset that people are poking holes in your argument, so go "punch a baby."

[Kiwibrown]

42 minutes ago, Carmen Cygni said:

Safety is a premier position, with often the best athletes, and is even more so in today's modern game. They are the field general for the back 7, help over top, bracket/cone/slot coverages, the 8th man in the box, an extra blitz option, etc. etc.

 

This thread makes me want to punch babies. I'm done dealing with it's generalities and ignorance.

 

Side note: The basic philosophy in a 4-3 with Force principles is to funnel everything to the 3 tech, so that argument is crap too.

name one safety who is a freak athlete?

Diversity of role does not equate to spectacular athleticism. Neither does organizational skills. 

I would be happy having a corner that isn't that smart if he can follow the guy he is supposed to, but i don't want a thick safety.  I agree that safetys need to be clever dudes, ut that is a more learned skill than an innate one. 

 

[Kiwibrown]

Jim Leonard didn't belong on the football field athletically. ran a 4.63 40, wan't particularly big. But he was an effective FS in the NFL. 

How many corners are there with poor athletic ability? pretty much none.