Blitzing with Controlled Abandonment

by: Mike Kuchar
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The Origin

The roots of the zone blitz trace back nearly 25 years ago, when defensive guru Bill Arnsparger was calling the shots for the Miami Dolphins no-name defense in the early 1980’s. Like a mad football scientist, Arnsparger spent countless hours trying to drum up schemes to get to the quarterback without sacrificing holes in the secondary or having the long ball beat one of his cornerbacks in man coverage. He finally stumbled upon the zone blitz concept after moving stud defensive end Kim Bokamper to outside linebacker in his 4-3 scheme. In order to take advantage of his speed and quickness, Arnsbarger would call the coverage to his side and drop him in the hook area reading the QB while the next two adjacent linebackers would come steaming off the edge. With the additional five man rush and Bokamper’s ability to knock down passes, the Dolphins defensive tradition started to take shape.

Although he didn’t know it at the time, Arnsparger had developed the blueprint for the hottest trend in defensive football. He taught what he knew to football’s modern day zone blitz legend Dick LeBeau, who found ways to design the system to his 3-4 schemes in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Tapes started surfacing around the league and before you knew it, the majority of the NFL teams had implemented some form of a zone blitz package to use with regularity. As the quickness and athletic ability of players improved, so did the variety of zone blitz schemes. Two-gap defenses gave way to single gap schemes where players had the ability to get off the ball in a hurry, slant and get down the line of scrimmage to make plays.

The Concept

Although Arnsparger’s concept of rushing the passer while playing zone coverage behind it has stayed true, the schools of thought on how to correctly implement a zone blitz have changed. But before you sit down and start recklessly drawing up stunts and blitzes, mixing and matching the LB’s with the DL, the first thing you need to do is create the coverage. “We actually had been teaching the zone blitz wrong,” says Mark Snyder, head coach at Marshall University. “We kept talking about where we could send people and what gaps we should attack. So when we decided to sit down with Coach LeBeau he said ‘Whoa! Stop! You must teach the coverage first. Teach the coverage first.’” Despite the complexity of the rush scheme, the coverage principles are rather simple. Almost all forms of a zone blitz rely on three deep, three underneath coverage. It is not important who is playing those coverages, but it’s vital you don’t have one of those zones unoccupied. According to Snyder, the six coverage zones that must be taught are the following:

• Three Deep Third Players: Always have a middle of the field safety playing deep in case the ball breaks the box and he has to make a play. The middle of the field player should usually be your best secondary tackler while the other two deep third players should be more cover men, staying on top of all routes.

• Two Wall to Flat Players: They must do whatever they can to stay inside the seam of the defense and “wall off” the number two or three receiver. If number two or three goes vertical, they must run with them to support the safety. “The seam player especially to the field side is one area where they cannot mess up. They must force an outside release and carry people to the safety,” says Snyder.

• One Hook to Three Player: The player stays in the hook zone about ten to twelve yards off the line of scrimmage eyeing the QB and knocking down any routes that cross his face. The defender opens up to the number three receiver and stays in the low hole.

Once you teach that concept, the rest of it falls into place. “When you think about the zone blitz, as long as you have a wall-to-flat, a hook-to-three and a wall-to-flat player on the other side of the formation you can do whatever you want to do on defense,” says Snyder.

Jon Tenuta, the defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech has been a DC at the Division I level since 1987 and has made his living being a full-fledged advocate of the zone blitz package. In fact, over the last ten years, the zone blitz has made up 70 to 80 percent of his defensive package week-in and week-out. Tenuta runs the zone blitz mainly out of necessity – his undersized front four at G-Tech average 255 lbs. They just don’t have the size to defeat blockers one on one, so Tenuta moves them around to make plays.

“We believe in pressure. We run the pressure game because it dictates to the offense what they can do. Our philosophy behind our system is this: first, we want to confuse the offensive line. We want to make the offensive line help and adjust every play. Secondly, we want to confuse the QB. We want to give the QB a pre-snap read in one coverage and come with an entire different one. We want to make sure the QB cannot read whether a second or third level player is coming on the blitz. We never want the QB to be able to set his feet.”

When Tenuta talks about third level, he’s talking about the secondary. Many times, safeties or corners can come on any particular blitz as long as you protect the side of the blitz by rotating the coverage behind it. The intent behind all zone blitzes is two fold: send a five man pressure with six underneath, or send a six man pressure with five underneath. To send a sixth man, you’d have to cancel out a zone. Most coaches would keep the two seam players and play without a middle hook coverage.

“The number one thing we talk about is having a lean alley player, which is someone to play the seams,” said Paul Rhoads, defensive coordinator at Pittsburgh. “If something breaks down in our blitz and the ball gets to an open area we’ll track it from outside in and make the play in the middle of the field.”

It’s the same concept that Snyder calls MOP coverage at Marshall (See Diagram 1). He’ll run it mostly out of his base under front, but the concepts can be incorporated for any scheme. “We have the wall to flat players to the field, a free to hook player in the middle and a wall to flat player to the boundary. The Sam becomes the wall to wall to flat player to the field. The SS buzzes down and plays the hook to free player and the defensive end to the side of the blitz still plays the wall to flat player to the boundary,” says Snyder.

Diagram 1: MOP Coverage

Coaching the drop end is a major issue in the zone blitz package. Like Bokamper, the drop end must be athletic enough to get under the number one receiver and play the flat, yet be strong enough to rush the passer. Changing personnel in these situations would only make it easier for the offense, and at the high school level it’s rare to have someone with that combined ability. “A lot of college teams drop the end because he’s athletic enough to do it. He’s probably a converted linebacker or maybe even a skill player at the high school level,” says Rob Stern, head coach at Hudson Catholic High School (NJ). “There’s a lot of scaling down once it gets to our level. Only once in a while you may get an end that is more suitable to play outside backer and is able to do those things. It’s rare, but that’s the guy you want dropping into the flat.”

Zone Pressures vs. The Run

Defense is about winning the battle of first down. Offenses set their target at four to five yards in order to be faced with an attainable second down distance. So, it’s no surprise that the majority of zone pressures are called on first down, anticipated run-downs. Not only does it bring five to six people to the line of scrimmage immediately on the snap, it will usually mess up offensive blocking schemes as well, forcing linemen to think on the run. “More teams run a lot of zone schemes offensively by blocking gaps. We match up by zone blitzing so we can get in those adjacent gaps. The better we are (then them) the less we’ll bring. But when we’re hurting, we’ll be coming,” said Stern.

The base zone pressure that Stern’s defensive coordinator Lou Zampella will dial up in run situations is “Omaha Fire 3 Cover 3” (See Diagram 2). “Omaha” tells the defense that the blitz will be run from the open side of the formation, away from the tight end. Zampella varies from Snyder’s concept by keeping two flat players instead of seam players. In Hudson Catholic’s base 4-3 scheme, the rush end will execute a “stick” technique, slanting into the front side A gap. The nose crosses face of the center into the backside A gap while the tackle loops for contain because the end is dropping into the flat. Fire 3 tells the Will LB to come off the weak edge as a contain rusher with the Mike LB coming into the front side B gap. The free-safety buzzes into the flat while the Sam plays hook to free spying the QB. The corners and the strong safety are the deep third defenders.

Diagram 2: Omaha Fire 3

Where you blitz from usually depends on offensive tendencies. Depending on the situation, many teams favor TE side runs. They may run to the boundary or to the field. These are all things that need to be determined in your game plan for that week. “We’re going to utilize everything for offensive tendencies,” said Rhoads. “If they favor the tight end there are certain tight end pressures we can use. We may also choose to run split end pressures if to get guys moving laterally down the line of scrimmage and run things down from the backside. We’ll go into each game with four basic first and second down pressures and one or two third down pressures.”

One of those first down pressures that Pitt will use is called “Over Simba” (See Diagram 3). The Panthers will begin each play out of a 4-3, Cover 2 shell. As the QB is beginning his cadence, the strong safety will walk down from his 2x10 alignment off the TE and get into the box, while the free safety starts to cheat to the middle of the field. Rhoads is converting to a conventional cover 3 look, but he’ll disguise it as long as possible. On the snap, the strong end will fire into the D gap, while the three technique tackle crosses the guards face into the A gap. The nose will stay in the backside A gap, and the weak end will stay a C gap, contain player. The Sam will shoot through the B gap with his aiming point being the inside eye of the offensive tackle. The coverage will rotate into a cover three scheme with the corner’s and free safety playing thirds and the Will and SS playing the seams. The scheme results in a five-man pressure.

Diagram 3: Over Simba

Zone Pressures vs. The Pass

Once you’ve accomplished your goal and prevented the offense from getting in a favorable third down situation, you have the freedom to rush the passer using as many different looks as possible. When you’re using zone pressures in a passing situation, your defense has to be concerned about two things: (1) the escapability of the QB once you do get to him and (2) the soft spots of zone coverage if you don’t get to him right away. Some coaches have different philosophies on that theory. Mark Snyder sees zone coverage as an asset in third and long situations. “I like it against a team that has a QB that can run because everyone has their eyes on the QB,” says Snyder. “Not one of our defenders has their backs turned as if it were man, so we have that to our advantage.”

On the other hand, Tenuta and Rhoads have their corners play more aggressive coverage to try and avoid the issue of the QB finding open receivers. “The ability of your corners to play man coverage is really the key to a zone pressure package,” said Rhoads. “We need corners that will be more aggressive. We stay on top of every route, especially ones that threaten the middle of the field like post routes. Having said that, we don’t plan on giving the QB much time to make something happen.”

When Rhoads gets a high tendency of teams throwing to the field in passing downs, he’ll dial up “Over Wick” (See Diagram 4) a field side five man zone pressure bringing the Will linebacker. Because of the spacing generated by a traditional 2x2 receiver or spread set, the Will – the best cover linebacker – lines up to the field side. In Wick, the end and nose to the field side will cross face into the next adjacent gap, while the Will – who will line up off of the number two WR – comes off the edge on the snap. The free safety buzzes down to bang the number two receiver while playing the seam. The strong safety will rotate to the middle of the field playing a third with both corners. The Mike LB becomes the hook to three player, reading the eyes of the QB.

Diagram 4: Over Wick

Essentially, as long as you stay within the concepts of having three underneath defenders and three deep third defenders, the zone pressure package is easy to teach. It doesn’t matter who those players are as long as before the ball is snapped, your defense knows who’s playing coverage and who is coming on the blitz. Just don’t over coach them. “When you are going through this defense, start slowly and add later. Try to get good at one or two stunts before you add on,” said Snyder. “After you get good on those two stunts, then you can bring on the full complement of stunts that a zone blitz will allow you to do.”

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