What defensive innovations will we see in the new decade? Probably not many – there’s nothing new in football. But there’ll be adjustments, tweaks, and without a doubt, cool new nicknames for the same idea. What is the best defense to use in the 2010 season? Whatever you know best, or whatever fits your personnel [...]

I wanted to revisit the 3-5-3 Defense to talk about another advantage of it. That advantage is in the opponent’s offensive line learning to block all of those slanters and blitzing backers. Now, any good Offensive Line coach will probably tell you that blocking the Odd Stack is no problem. Zone guys, especially, will tell [...]

The biggest mistake I have made in the past is in not taking all of the thinking out of the play for my defensive players. What it boils down to is gap responsibilities though, and knowing who is coming to your gap. Let your players understand what’s happening to them and why they should never look for the ball.

One of the great advantages of the 3-5-3 Defense is the ability to ‘create’ nearly any defensive front, while showing the same look pre-snap every play. The myth that the 3-5 is not a good run defense is wrong, because you can turn it into any defense that you want.

Since we’ve established the fronts with the 3-5-3 Defense and included one or two good stunts as well, I want to talk a little bit on the coverage in this defense. Because of the nature of the 3-man front, and the ability to bring anyone from anywhere, the coverage zones in the 3-5-3 have a [...]