Strength on Strength

Although many coaches complicate it, defensive strategy is very simple. You want to place your best against their best, or (if possible) negate their best through a variety of means. Most defensive coaches do this simply by having more “best players” than you do; thereby at any given time, having a favorable “best on best” situation. This is basic, “My kids are better than your kids,” football.

For a coach without superior athletes, this ideology of “My kids are better than your kids,” when they aren’t, allows an offensive coordinator to gash you at your weak points repeatedly. This is especially disastrous if your weak points are the majority of your defense. Unfortunately, getting louder or staring blankly at your play sheet won’t help this dilemma. The smart defensive coordinator already knows this fact, but can find little help in formulating a plan to execute that will even or better the odds from the schemes of a professional or college team. Those high level organizations have athletes. That is the goal of this manual: to even, or at least better, the odds for lesser players and their coaches.

Ability to Play in Space

Most coaches have highly complicated schemes and run a variety of plays to attempt to achieve a “best on best” situation (strength on strength). The reason these schemes work with very little efficiency is because lesser athletes have a lot problems playing in space with greater athletes. Many coaches fail due to their athletes’ inability to play in space, in a “spaced out” defense. Different schemes can facilitate or negate this as a weakness.

Take for example a team full of Fred Flintstone look a-likes who run 5.5 40’s across the board with only three 4.8 40 guys who can halfway tackle. This team may have trouble running a 3-5 man front because all of these schemes at some point need a few athletes to flow to the point of attack. “Few” is an understatement since most of the schemes under 3, 4, or 5 man front basically have 2-5 linebackers and 3-5 secondary-that usually comes to 7 athletes-depending on line play and assignments.

Many of us are lucky to have 3 athletes that can somewhat match up to our opponents and tackle. So in those schemes, you may have superior large, strong, and aggressive linemen, but you are still vulnerable to the outside, off tackle, or in the air (wide or vertical). This is due to lack of ability in the areas of pursuit downhill, pursuit outside, speed-rush/pressure, and ability to break to ball in secondary. The below graphic demonstrates this principle.

Defenses with “Space” Players Blackened

What are you thinking, Coach? That is correct, in the Gap-Air-Mirror Youth Defense, the corners and man-on tight end backers are not necessarily top-notch athletes. Before you begin to think I’m a quack, read on and understand. I’m not saying they are horrible, just not studs. Think about their responsibility for a moment. They cover their man for about 1-2 seconds and are aligned right in front of him. Is that extremely difficult?

I know you must be thinking in true “I get the chalk now,” coach talk. You’d run a quick fade, right? That is all they are drilled to stop. I cannot speak for what Coach Reed has his youth players practice against in his Gap-Air-Mirror Youth Defense since the pass is much less of a threat. But with us, if we see anything more than a quick route, the heavy pressure will get to the quarterback, resulting in a sack.

The best athletes are the ends coming off the edge, and it is extremely hard to block them due to every gap pressure. What is great about this defense is that the ends cause a mismatch and negate many of their strengths, such as passing, sweep, etc. The alignment of the personnel also negate a lot of strength issues, such as line movement, line superiority of size, and receiver ability to get into space.

There is much more to this than I’m discussing now because I’m only introducing the principle of lesser athletes in space. I have many other defensive calls to aid in covering receivers and pressure the passer even more.

Playing the Percentages

As with everything in life, football follows some simple rules. To run the ball, a team must be able to block and execute to some extent. This is not a demanding task with superior athletes. But to pass the ball, a team must be able to throw, catch, and pass block. This is much more demanding of the players’ skills.

I highly recommend that you read John T. Reed’s book “Coaching Youth Football” to fully understand basic statistics at different levels, and the actuality of what most coaches do on your level of play. It is very unsound to run a pass-oriented defense against a wishbone (off-tackle/lead/dive/sweep) scheme. In the same fashion, a traditional run defense with few zone defenders (2-3) versus empty sets (spread passing) is very unsound with slow players. Either of these mistakes will get you beat up severely.

The “strength on strength” is NOT in favor of the defense in either scenario.

Click here to read the rest of this chapter in PDF format

This article is an excerpt from the book, The Gap-Man Pressure Football Defense, by Robert McAdams.

Coach McAdams has played football at the Junior High, High School, Amateur-Marine Corps, and College levels. He graduated from the Marine Corps Boot Camp where he played for the runner up 1st Marine Regiment Bulldogs in 1996 and later coached the 1st Marines to an All-Pendleton Championship over the 2-time defending Champion 11th Marines, finished his duty in the Marine Corps Infantry.

During his college years, he played Division III football, competed in Olympic Weightlifting, and researched strength and power training. He has played on a Championship Team in the Marine Corps as a Linebacker and Fullback and coached 7 different football teams, including a number of Championship Teams.

Coach McAdams is very familiar with “unorthodox” offensive and defensive strategies from extensive research and experience. He has been a head coach, coordinated both sides of the ball, and heavily researched how to compete without great athletes. In addition to his football coaching experience, Coach McAdams has 15 years of experience in weight training . He competed in Olympic weightlifting in the 85k, 94k, and 105k weight classes over his 5 year career and was invited to the 2004 Olympic Trials for weightlifting.

Coach McAdams has a Masters degree in Kinesiology from Midwestern State University where he served as an intern coach and competitive weightlifter for the Wichita Falls Weightlifting Club – a perennial power in the Olympic weightlifting world. His Masters thesis covered the topic of strength and power training for optimal results.

Click here to visit Coach McAdams web site at www.robertwmcadams.com