I’ve always wanted to put together the advantages of the Odd Front and the advantages of the Even Front defenses. They both have great points. Its not a secret that I prefer the 4 down linemen, but I’ve also talked a lot in the past about the 3-5-3. Every sound defensive structure has its place, no doubt. The question is how much of that can you install, teach technique, and run effectively in a given season.

My ideal is to have a 3, 4, and 5 man front without making any personnel changes. To do this, we’re going to need to base out of a 3 down front. That doesn’t mean we’re going to run it more than anything else, just that this is what we’ll build off of. If you start out with 4 down linemen, one of those guys that you need to drop off to play an Outside Linebacker position in your 3-man front is going to consider himself a lineman. Linemen don’t drop into coverage (mind you, this is all a mental game, because it could be the exact same player going either way), but Linebackers rush the passer and stop the run. So making a Linebacker into a Defensive End is natural, while making a Defensive End into a Linebacker is not. Maybe it only makes sense to me, but it that’s good enough.

Heads

Our base front, HEADS, is going to involve a head up Nose Guard (0 technique) along with two head up Tackles (4 techniques). Names are irrelevant, it doesn’t matter if you call them Ends or Tackles.

I’m calling the Outside Linebackers the Sam (strong side) and Will (weak side). Alignments will vary, but running out of a 3-4 concept compels me to start these guys at 3×3 off the End Man on the Line of Scrimmage (EMOLS).

The two inside backers in our 3-4 look will be the Mike (strong side ILB) and Jack (weak side ILB). I have no reasoning behind the “Jack” name than it was what our weak side ILB was called on my high school team. We didn’t ask why, which is a good indication that it was a different time then. They’ll start off in 30-techniques, or outside shade of the Guards, and 5 yards off the Line of Scrimmages.

Let me just say without getting into too much that the “Base” look of this front for me would be a strong slant from the 3 down linemen. My real reason for wanthing this front is not so much for pass coverage, as some people do with a 3 down look. I love the blitzes out of this look! There’s a lot of trying to “trick” the offense here, no question about it. Is it right? Who cares, its fun.

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Split

The second front will be the traditional OVER Front – but in no way I can think of does it make sense to call this OVER. Instead, we’ll call it SPLIT. The linemen shift to the Split End side of the offensive formation, away from our strength call. The Nose becomes a weak shade (or weak 1-tech). The weak side Tackle is now a 5-tech Defensive End (we’re not changing his name though), and the strong Tackle is the 3-tech now. This is where having a Strong and Weak instead of a Left and Right side Tackle is going to be important. This is where I’ll spend most of my base defensive plays, so I don’t want to have a guy that should be a weak side Defensive End in an Over Front playing at the 3-tech for me.

Here’s the conflict. Who do we want to teach the most to, and who can you teach more to? I drew up SPLIT here with the Sam walking down to a head up 6-tech. If you look at my last post, you’ll see that I don’t expect a walked down OLB to play a 6, because it probably doesn’t fit him physically and is a more complex place to play mentally. So even from when I drew this up a few hours ago, I’m making some changes.

I’d rather play this guy in a 9-tech and let him run wild. This makes a smoother transition for your Linebacker walking down (even though he’ll spend a lot of time here). All that means is you have to teach the Mike and the Jack a little more, because they’re going to need to walk over to a 50-tech (over C gap) for the Mike and to a weak 10-tech (stacked behind the Nose) for the Jack. They’re playing true Miami 4-3 Linebackers, 2-gapping. Its not that big of a deal, and I’d rather teach the Linebackers more than teaching the Linemen more.

Tight

The next front will, sensibly, be the TIGHT front. It creates more of a true Under Front. The backers are back in their 30 techs. The Defensive Line shifts over toward the Tight End. Weak side Tackle goes to a 3-tech, Nose goes to a strong 1-Tech, strong Tackle moves into a 5-tech. The Sam remains walked down in a 9-tech. The Will walks up on the line in a weak side 5-tech, which is a great spot for a guy who rarely comes down there and may not be that big. You can crash him hard, have him responsible for contain, or drop him into pass coverage.

Bear

Finally, a great front that every good defense needs is BEAR. The weak side looks exactly like the Under front. Your backers are able to run free in this defense. On the strong side, your Sam has to kick down to a 5-tech and the Strong Safety walks down to a 9-tech. Another way to do this is to run the Sam in a heavy 7-Tech (inside shade on the TE) and let the Strong Safety play a loose 9, or 1×1 off the TE.

Though I love Quarters Coverage, when you jump into this BEAR front, we’ll be playing mostly man coverage with the possibility of some Cover 3.

I’m putting all of this together on the fly. This isn’t something I’ve run before, but something I’ve been wanting to put together and consider running in the future. Therefore, the names are meaningless. Honestly, I think this is a great defense to use some funky names that fit your mascots or tough and cool words. The idea of a Multiple Front Defense is by no means new, but I want to incorporate all of my ideas and what I know into it, so we’ll build from the ground up and pretend these are all my original thoughts.

The plan is to go from here into the complexities of teaching technique for each position in the base fronts, putting together a coverage package, and adding in a nice pressure package include both zone blitzes and man blitzes.

If you have ideas, comments, questions, or anything else, please take the time to send me an e-mail at joe@gridironchat.com. On the subject of blitzes, I’d love to hear how you’ve used your favorite blitz in the past to stop an offense – particularly stopping the run with blitzes.

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