The Patriots offense was virtually shut down by the New York Jets. QB Tom Brady was unable to get the offense into the endzone and was constantly rushed by a relentless New York blitz. It got people saying the Jets had the blueprint for beating the Patriots and with the rest of the league as witnesses, every opponent will follow suit.
Don’t believe it. This blueprint talk is garbage. It was the same thing people were saying after the Super Bowl XLII loss to the New York Giants. If this blueprint talk was true, then New England shouldn’t had won eleven games last year without Brady.
There are three reasons for why there isn’t a universal blueprint for beating the Patriots:
Philosophy – Rex Ryan is the rookie head coach of the Jets that cultivated his defense from his days with the Baltimore Ravens. Rex has a twin brother, Rob, who was the defensive coordinator of the Oakland Raiders. Rex believes in a 3-4 while Rob operated a 4-3.
Despite the relationship, the two brothers don’t share the same philosophy. And within the fraternity of coaches, the philosophies are as different as the coaches who teach the systems.
Every defense is as unique as the fingerprints of the architects that designed them. Even when they studied under a coach, they will make changes to the approach to make it their own. Former Philadelphia defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, who passed away this off-season, lives on through Sean McDermott. But McDermott, while running a lot of the plays taught to him by Johnson, made changes and adjustments to the defense to make the Eagles defense unique.
Take Sunday’s opponent, Atlanta, for instance. They might believe in letting the front four rush the passer while covering the secondary in a zone defense. With DEs John Abraham and Kroy Bierman, the Falcons have the ability to create pressure without blitzing, or at least not blitzing as much as the Jets did last week.
The Falcons watched how the Jets attacked on defense, and Atlanta might be so impressed by the performance that they incorporate some of what New York did last week. But defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder won’t copy exactly what the Jets did. That won’t happen. He has his philosophy that he believes in and he will stick with it.
Believing in the blueprint theory would be like former head coach Tony Dungy switching from his Tampa-2 defense to blitzing almost two dozen times. It never happened before and no coach would make similar radical changes like that from week to week.
System – The Jets play a 3-4 defensive alignment. And year after year, it seems another team switches from a 4-3 to a 3-4. But there still is a majority of teams playing a 4-3 front. Remaining on the Patriots schedule are four teams that play a 3-4 defense: Baltimore, Denver, Miami, and the Jets.
A 4-3 can be blitz-heavy, but to do it like a 3-4 would involve a little more creativity by substituting players frequently and using a lot of zone blitz principles. The substitutions become clues, reducing the element of surprise.
A 3-4 can better mimic what the Jets did, but it takes more than just running the same blitzes. The execution of the plays makes all the difference.
Players – Gang Green has a pair of safetys (Kerry Rhodes and Jim Leonhard) that are very good blitzers. ILB Bart Scott is excellent coming from any direction. Behind them are cornerbacks they trust in one-on-one situations (Darrell Revis and Lito Sheppard). Not every team has all those elements on their defense.
Any 3-4 defense can get their hands on the Jets playbook and run the plays as scripted, but they won’t always execute the plays as effectively because of the ability of the individuals running the plays.
The method isn’t as important as the objective, which is to cause pressure. There’s hundreds of ways to rush the passer. Overload blitzes worked well for the Jets, but other teams can get the job done with line stunts, corner blitzes, or with just the down linemen, if they’re talented enough.
Throughout the league there are 32 blueprints for playing defense. As for a universal blueprint to beat the Patriots or any team, it doesn’t exist.
As taken from www.randolphc.com. Any questions or comments can be sent to talktome@randolphc.com.
