Toronto vs. Winnipeg, Presumably, everyone not in the shot is in motion. Photo by Ethan Farquharson.
I get a fair amount of e-mails, some of which I remember to save and some of which I forget. However, I take the time to answer all of them and try to put a lot of thought into those answers.
Every once in a while, I will post a few of those questions, and the answers. These are some questions from a few months ago that were sent as e-mails, and the responses I sent back.
If you have a question, feel free to email me at footballdefense@gmail.com or use the Contact Page. If I missed your question in the past, send it again – I promises that I at least INTEND to answer everyone!
Bernard had a really interesting question on Canadian Football. I know that a lot of Canadian coaches have to just take what they can get from American Football sites and adapt it, but it was fun to think about what we could do with a 12th man (and a bigger field).
And Bernard, your English is better than plenty of American coaches, by the way.
Good morning Joe,
I am Bernard , I just bought your ebook on the 4-2-5 defense a few days ago.
I am from Montreal, province of Quebec , Canada. This year , I will be defensive coordinator for a 14-15 years old boys team . I will be back on defense after a few years coordinating offenses and having head coach duties as well.
In Quebec, we play what I called Quebec football, 4 downs like in the States but with 12 players and on a Canadian gridiron 12 yards wider than the American field. We have a rule too that the offenses have to throw the ball in one of the three downs.
In the other provinces they play 3 downs football like in the Canadian Football league.
I am just curious to know how you would adjust the 4-2- 5 defense with a 12th player. Would you add one more free safety to make it a 4-2-6 ???
Just wondering too when you are at third down and 7 yards to go for example, if you would limit the drop your lower zones players to less than 12 yards. What I want to know is how do you adjust the depth of the drop in the lower zones depending of the situations.
Thanks in advance .
Congratulations for your e-book. This is a great reference. One of the best football book I have ever read.
P.s. Sorry if my English is not too good I am French Canadian.
Bernard Furlong
Bernard,
Sorry it took me a little while to get back to you, I had to think about this one – not used to that extra player! Where does he play? Do you still have 5 Offensive Linemen, and the extra player is another receiver? Then I would definitely put your extra player in as a DB.
My first thought is to take the 8 man front principles, if what said is the case, that the 4-2-5 has, and combine them with a 2-high safety coverage that is more common with 4-3 or 3-4 defenses (7 man fronts) in the American game. My recommendation would be to use some form of Quarters Coverage, like I talk about on my site here.
I would not move the drop of the Linebackers up for shorter 3rd down plays. If we drop to 10-12 yards, we should be able to break up on a ball at 7 yards. If you cut your drop off at 7 yards, there’s a massive hole behind you between the deep safety and the underneath linebacker. If your guys drop to 10-12 and settle up to read the QB, they should have plenty of time to break on a route at 7 yards and get a PBU.
Coach Daniel
Derek was one of several coaches who pointed out that I did not talk much about the alignment to Trips in Coaching Football’s 4-2-5 Defense. In response to him, I wrote an article about it. Here was Derek’s response – which pointed out I still haven’t gone to enough depth on it! Here’s the article, first: Defending Trips in the 4-2-5 Defense
Loved the article. What will the alignment be for your strong safety and weak safety?
Derek Youngblood
Derek,
The Weak Safety will be in a 3×3, he could loosen up to 5 yards off the LOS in passing situations. For the Strong Safety, the base rule is to split #2 and #3 receivers at 5 yards depth. On run downs we like him to be tighter, maybe outside shade of #3.
I’ve played with a lot of other ideas, like rolling the Weak Safety back and the corner down to play a Cover 2 concept on the single receiver side, or bringing the Weak Safety over on Trips to give you a numbers advantage over there, with the weak side ILB man on the back to the weak side and the corner locked down on the single receiver. That makes your Defensive End the contain player, or else you can cut the DE into B Gap and loop the weak ILB to be the contain and flat player.
Just some ideas, but they’re all at least relatively sound and can be an adjustment if a team is wearing you out somewhere. The one I put in the article is the base, catch-all Trips alignment.
Coach Daniel
Interested in learning more about the 4-2-5 Defense? Check out Coaching Football’s 4-2-5 Defense eBook, and join Football-Defense.com as a member for tons more on the 4-2-5 Defense!
