Mike Pettine Defense

[Shanedorf]

“The main emphasis is for our defense to compete against Aaron Rodgers as much as possible,” McCarthy said after Family Night practice Saturday. “That really goes back to the interview process. One of the top-five points of emphasis I was looking for in our new defensive coordinator, and speaking with Mike, is to play championship defense against a top-five quarterback.”

[packfanfb]

 

 

[Fl0nkerton]

Pretty interesting thread. It gets more in depth from last year if you read it from the top. Looks like this is how Cleveland will be using Randall at FS until Gregg Williams is canned.

[craig]

Thanks packfanfb, that was a really fun and interesting article: 

"This was fun: https://theathletic.com/475494/2018/08/16/whats-it-like-to-play-defense-for-mike-you-so-crazy-pettine-some-of-his-former-rookies-tell-all/ …"

I get the feeling that Pettine is a good teacher, and the "learnable" aspect of KILL is helpful to keep in mind.  

Not to be paranoid, of course, but I do wonder whether these pro-Pettine articles are perhaps pre-selected to interview guys who were well suited, thrived, and loved it?  

I'm still less sure how "learnable" it is and how great it is for guys who aren't as quick decision-makers and learners?  Martinez, Burks, Tramon, Jackson, Jaire, Lowry, HaHa, of course it should be great for heady players like those.  But what about guys maybe more from the Donnerson, Josh Hawkins, Evans, Brice, Josh Jones profile, who maybe aren't as quick to recognize and react and make pre-snap or post-snap decisions?  Hopefully KILL will work for them too; but not sure the media interviews tend to call up those types of guys as much?  If that makes sense?  

HOpefully it's going to be all good.  

 

[TransientTexan]

8 minutes ago, craig said:

Thanks packfanfb, that was a really fun and interesting article: 

"This was fun: https://theathletic.com/475494/2018/08/16/whats-it-like-to-play-defense-for-mike-you-so-crazy-pettine-some-of-his-former-rookies-tell-all/ …"

I get the feeling that Pettine is a good teacher, and the "learnable" aspect of KILL is helpful to keep in mind.  

Not to be paranoid, of course, but I do wonder whether these pro-Pettine articles are perhaps pre-selected to interview guys who were well suited, thrived, and loved it?  

I'm still less sure how "learnable" it is and how great it is for guys who aren't as quick decision-makers and learners?  Martinez, Burks, Tramon, Jackson, Jaire, Lowry, HaHa, of course it should be great for heady players like those.  But what about guys maybe more from the Donnerson, Josh Hawkins, Evans, Brice, Josh Jones profile, who maybe aren't as quick to recognize and react and make pre-snap or post-snap decisions?  Hopefully KILL will work for them too; but not sure the media interviews tend to call up those types of guys as much?  If that makes sense?  

HOpefully it's going to be all good.  

 

yea the proof will be in the pudding. I'm sure plenty of DC's and coaches have the right intentions and say the right soundbites of keeping things simple & being aggressive. but it's one thing to say words and another thing to execute against an NFL team. 

[craig]

It's been noted that new Defensive Coordinators often tend to have defenses improve their first year, but then perhaps not keep improving.  This seemed true for Capers, and also to some degree for Pettine.  2 thoughts:

1.  Think usually a DC change means a lot went wrong the year before.  Injuries were probably bad.  Existing talent was probably perceived to have under-performed.  (HaHa).  So simple reversion to the man should usually cause a defense to look a lot better under new DC.

2.  When a defense did so bad that you needed to fire the former DC, that probably means management is prioritized towards helping D.  This will usually result in personnel improvements being focused on D.  This year management spent top three picks on D; plus spent discretionary FA spending towards D (Wilkerson, Tramon, House).  

So between natural reversion toward the mean plus improved personnel, I think it's natural that a defense will normally bump up significantly under any new coordinator.  Once that does happen, of course, than perhaps the next off-season may not have resources as pre-occupied towards upgrading defensive personnel, so it's probably hard to keep improving as much.    

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

45 minutes ago, Fl0nkerton said:

Pretty interesting thread. It gets more in depth from last year if you read it from the top. Looks like this is how Cleveland will be using Randall at FS until Gregg Williams is canned.

This is very similar to the way Capers used his safeties.  

I had the same feelings about it that the author of this thread does.  It makes it so that for the majority of plays you really are playing defense with only 10 guys because the deep safety is totally out of the play.  

It was quite a contrast with what Zimmer does with his safeties, mostly setting them within 12-14 yards of the LOS.  Not saying it is the cause, but Zimmer had the top defense and we underperformed- perhaps because of the difference in talent on the two teams- but it made me wonder again if Capers was failing to put his players in a position to be successful.

I am hoping Pettine has the proper answers.

[Spartacus]

2 minutes ago, Ragnar Danneskjold said:

This is very similar to the way Capers used his safeties.  

I had the same feelings about it that the author of this thread does.  It makes it so that for the majority of plays you really are playing defense with only 10 guys because the deep safety is totally out of the play.  

It was quite a contrast with what Zimmer does with his safeties, mostly setting them within 12-14 yards of the LOS.  Not saying it is the cause, but Zimmer had the top defense and we underperformed- perhaps because of the difference in talent on the two teams- but it made me wonder again if Capers was failing to put his players in a position to be successful.

I am hoping Pettine has the proper answers.

You can only afford to have the safeties do that if the pass rush is getting home. You seen what happened to that Vikings vaunted D against the eagles. If the Packers did that last year they would have gotten destroyed even worse then they did. 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

3 minutes ago, Spartacus said:

You can only afford to have the safeties do that if the pass rush is getting home. You seen what happened to that Vikings vaunted D against the eagles. If the Packers did that last year they would have gotten destroyed even worse then they did. 

I think this is a tired talking point that isn't true.

The point is by playing that deep, it makes it harder to cover the short zones and stop the run, and in those areas the ball comes out before any pass rush would get home.  Playing the safeties up makes it easier to throw off short routes and gives the pass rush more time to get home.  If you go back and watch the Packers get destroyed by Atlanta, you will see that in the first half Matt Ryan's average time to throw following the snap was under 2 seconds.  No pass rush would have gotten home in that amount of time.Pass rush and coverage aren't either/or- they are tightly related and dependent on each other.

I would venture to say that Zimmer plays the safeties up with the safeties because he has a corner he can put on an island and not get burned deep very often.

Sure, the Vikings got beat in the NFC championship game.  They still had the top defense in football last year.

[Fl0nkerton]

29 minutes ago, Ragnar Danneskjold said:

I think this is a tired talking point that isn't true.

The point is by playing that deep, it makes it harder to cover the short zones and stop the run, and in those areas the ball comes out before any pass rush would get home.  Playing the safeties up makes it easier to throw off short routes and gives the pass rush more time to get home.  If you go back and watch the Packers get destroyed by Atlanta, you will see that in the first half Matt Ryan's average time to throw following the snap was under 2 seconds.  No pass rush would have gotten home in that amount of time.Pass rush and coverage aren't either/or- they are tightly related and dependent on each other.

I would venture to say that Zimmer plays the safeties up with the safeties because he has a corner he can put on an island and not get burned deep very often.

Sure, the Vikings got beat in the NFC championship game.  They still had the top defense in football last year.

Yeah, I can't say I am super well versed in defensive alignments, but what exactly is the selling point to doing this?
Sure, it *might* take away the deep ball, but what's the point if you're getting diced up underneath? That's asking a lot of your LBers, isn't it?

[Lodestar]

1 minute ago, Fl0nkerton said:

Yeah, I can't say I am super well versed in defensive alignments, but what exactly is the selling point to doing this?
Sure, it *might* take away the deep ball, but what's the point if you're getting diced up underneath? That's asking a lot of your LBers, isn't it?

"Bend but don't break."

Also known as "Bend to the will of your opponent, die a slow, excruciating death."

[Spartacus]

3 minutes ago, Lodestar said:

"Bend but don't break."

Also known as "Bend to the will of your opponent, die a slow, excruciating death."

"Bend but don't break" is just a buzz word for "We are not a very talented defense". With our corners last year playing with no safeties back would have been a disaster. I stand by that. This year? If we can get consistent pressure up front i'm feeling pretty good about our chances. 

[Fl0nkerton]

To me, bend but don't break is akin to "hold them to a field goal every possession" which is still like 30 -ish PPG.

Doesn't really inspire hope lol

[Norm]

I. Don't think that's really what it is lol

[AlexGreen#20]

Bend but don't break. AKA: STOP GIVING UP BIG PLAYS YOU WORTHLESS DBS.