AFM Home | The Staff Report | April 2004

Over the last five years, offenses have been doing a much better job “hiding” their personnel groups. More and more offenses are also running multiple formations from their 21 personnel package. To counter this, we have gone back in time to study play tendencies. Most of our defensive calls now are based on down and distance. We look at personnel tendencies within the down and distance and field tendencies. This has given us much better insight into what offensive coaches are trying to do.

Our down and distance goal is to get the offense into 3rd & long situations. Needless to say, we are much better defensively on 3rd & long than we are in 3rd & short (See Table 1). In an effort to get in more 3rd & long situations, we started to study 2nd down. After taking a closer look at what offenses run, we decided to pressure more on 2nd down. We brought 5 or 6 man pressure on 34% of our 2nd down snaps. That compares to 28% on the other downs. Our pressure rate jumps to 49% of snaps of 2nd & 7+. We have forced teams into their 3rd & long package early. During the 2003 season, we picked off 28 passes, 14 of which were on 2nd down.

Table 1 - 3rd Down Success

Many defensive staffs will study every minute detail of 3rd down tendencies. We have broken 2nd down much in the same way. We used to consider 2nd & 4-6, “Regular Situation,” and treat it the same as a 1st down. When we started to study 2nd down more closely, we discovered that offenses call a very different game on 2nd & 4-6. The teams we played in 2003 ran on 61% of their first down snaps. On 2nd & 4-6, that number dropped to 51%. On first down we pressured only 8% of the time. On 2nd & Medium, that number jumped to 25%.

The pass tendencies also break down very differently on 2nd & medium compared to 1st and 10. Deeper 5 step routes stayed constant at 37% of the passes on both 1st & 10 and 2nd & medium. The remaining 63% broke down very differently. Play action passes comprised a much bigger portion of the remainder on 1st down (21% to 12%). This makes sense as it coincides with the higher run tendency on 1st down.

Monday is game planning day for Johns Hopkins Football. As a defensive staff, we sit in front of our white board that is sub-divided for situations and consider all relevant tendencies for each situation. We will develop a call list for each down and distance based on what the offense runs from their different personnel groups. We consider down and distance situations in the Red Zone (+10-20), Hot Zone (+10-3) and Goal Line (+3-1) completely separate from the rest of the game plan. Our process is always the same, but obviously the tendencies will change from team-to-team.

2nd and very long (11+); our 2003 opponents threw 69% of the time on 2nd & very long (34 of 49). The goal of many of the offenses we face is to get to a make-able 3rd down, i.e. get back on schedule. Remarkably, only 4 of those 34 snaps were 3 step routes. Offensive coaches must feel that more yardage is necessary on 2nd & very long than can be attained on 3 step routes. Deeper 5 step routes made up 19 of the 34 pass plays we saw. This is why we pressure more on 2nd & very long than any other situation other than 3rd & medium (3-5). We feel we can accurately predict the route and protection that the offenses will use and pressure accordingly.

2nd and long (7-10): other than 1st and 10, 2nd & long was our most common down and distance situation in 2003. Our opponents threw on 63% of their snaps. Short 3 step routes are much more common than on 2nd & very long (25% of the 81 pass plays). A six-yard gain gets an offense into a 3rd & short situation. We also saw a dramatic increase of action passes and screens compared to 2nd and very long. Much of the run game included some sort of misdirection – CTR’s, QB runs or an option. Because of the greater unpredictability and the higher rate of 3 step, we cut back on the pressure. We brought heat on 31 % of 2nd & long snaps, only 1% more than our season average on all snaps. We typically want to play some sort of coverage with a hard corner to help against 3 step and option.

2nd and medium (4-6): when we started studying 2nd down more intensely, we noticed that 2nd & medium is indeed different than 1st & 10. As I said above, we took a very good look at 2nd & medium. Offenses tend to run more at you, less misdirection. Perhaps this is to reduce the risk of loss of yardage. We tend to combat this by bringing extra help for inside runs, not from linebackers, but from defensive ends. When we do pressure, it is more straight ahead gap responsibility pressure, no twisting.

2nd and short (1-3): there are two, very old schools of thought about 2nd & short. According to what we see, they are still prevalent. Some coaches are just looking to move the chains, get the next first down. Other coaches are happy with the fact that at least they will be in a 3rd and short situation and consider 2nd & short a “free down”. Overall, we saw a 60/40 Run/pass breakdown. We consider that a meaningless ratio though. Some offenses you face may be 99% run in this situation. Also, we had a mere 23 snaps of 2nd & short in 2003, not enough to make any conclusions. It is important to know which school the OC belongs to.

We found game planning second down very helpful for making our defensive calls this season. We will continue to take a close look at second down while preparing for our opponents in 2004. I am looking forward to see what the numbers tell us at the end of next season.