The Bandit is back

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source= ... 9341099837

Well the News Tribune beat me to it. After having rewatched the game this morning I noticed something very familiar.


Rewind to 2010 and the big transition. Pete’s first year having taken over a young and depleted team with little to no defensive prowess and an aging quarterback. Truly a team in the long tooth years of what was only two years prior a team trying figure out how to regain its mojo and become a playoff contender once again. Holmgren didn’t leave much on his way out is an understatement. Pete wanted to make “something” happen. Insert Marshawn and the “bandit” defense and the next thing you know this fledgling team became the first team to win a division with a sub .500 record.

The run game consistent and the bandit defense which uses up to 7 defensive backs (sorry EA but it’s not, “ in the game” ) was implemented to create confusion and havoc by just flat out being faster and an out of nowhere look that offenses weren’t ready for. With an undersized and relatively inexperienced secondary and defensive line in flux who was getting shredded it was just what the doctors ordered. After what looked assuredly like a lame duck season before the eventual mass exodus and emergence of the Legion of Boom two years later the bandit defense and a strong running game propelled the Seahawks to that division title and home game against the 13-3 defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans which resulted in one of the biggest playoff upsets and arguably the best run for a touchdown in NFL History.

Here we sit with only a few games left in what was to be another assuredly lame duck season. As the momentum started to shift at the emergence of a consistent quarterback and running game the one thing that seemed to be missing was a dominant defense as many teams compiled excessive yardage which very well could be caused by simply not having cohesion, having injured players and lacking some experience. The ability to create turnovers seemed to follow Earl Thomas, Kam Chancelor to the bench and Dick Sherman to San Francisco.

It would appear now that the Seattle Seahawks may be smelling blood as the Bandit defense has once again resurfaced in the most dominant defensive performance of the year against Minnesota. I would not expect to see it full time however as some opponents will not consistently demand such a wrinkle to hold them at bay. As the playoffs near we may not see much of it in fact. The Vikings game was essentially a playoff game in terms of taking executive security of the 5th seed but rest assured when the playoffs come around this team will not get pushed through, around or over on the defensive side of the ball by the likes of the New Orleans Saints, St Louis Rams or any other offense they way they had previously.

Enjoy the ride and go Hawks!

Ok 91 views and no comments? Does nobody remember the “Bandit defense?!” Perhaps didn’t notice it Monday night?

Or maybe you just described it so well there's nothing to be added.

Hawkstorian":3cy5zmat said:

Or maybe you just described it so well there's nothing to be added.

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I just find it an extremely Interesting wrinkle that was dead in the LOB era. The style of defense doesn’t look nearly the same as the standard cover 2 press we have been accustomed to seeing. I posted that I wouldn’t expect to see it much until the playoffs but that’s basically because, in my limited knowledge of the scheme, that it’s somewhat gimmicky and unsustainable over the long term but in spurts it can be an absolute shock to offenses.

Cool write up and interesting history lesson for those who may have forgotten.

Believe it or not, formations with 7 defensive back are in Madden, it's a variant of quarters coverage. Seattle's "bandit" formation from last week looks like a modified version of what the Patriots used against the Vikings the previous week. I have no idea how Seattle's coverage is different schematically but what I do know is the Patriots used a safety as their 7th DB and Seattle used a corner.

We saw glimpses of it early in the season so I don't think this is a midseason idea. I think Pete had intended to do this from the start with Tedric Thompson coming in as the 7th DB. Earls injury probably delayed our ability to run it until another DB was up to speed.

knownone":1ajc51ss said:

Cool write up and interesting history lesson for those who may have forgotten.

Believe it or not, formations with 7 defensive back are in Madden, it's a variant of quarters coverage. Seattle's "bandit" formation from last week looks like a modified version of what the Patriots used against the Vikings the previous week. I have no idea how Seattle's coverage is different schematically but what I do know is the Patriots used a safety as their 7th DB and Seattle used a corner.

We saw glimpses of it early in the season so I don't think this is a midseason idea. I think Pete had intended to do this from the start with Tedric Thompson coming in as the 7th DB. Earls injury probably delayed our ability to run it until another DB was up to speed.

Click to expand...

You are correct that in madden the Seahawks defensive playbook does have a formation with a third safety I’m just not sure it behaves the same as the bandit unless I’m missing something.

As far as having seen it earlier there were brief glimpses but without (or so it seemed) being used as one of the primary schemes on a high percentage of downs. That said you could be onto something with Petes intentions of running it all along but just not being ready yet.

Bandwagon76":2flui4cj said:

It would appear now that the Seattle Seahawks may be smelling blood as the Bandit defense has once again resurfaced in the most dominant defensive performance of the year against Minnesota. I would not expect to see it full time however as some opponents will not consistently demand such a wrinkle to hold them at bay. As the playoffs near we may not see much of it in fact. The Vikings game was essentially a playoff game in terms of taking executive security of the 5th seed but rest assured when the playoffs come around this team will not get pushed through, around or over on the defensive side of the ball by the likes of the New Orleans Saints, St Louis Rams or any other offense they way they had previously.

Enjoy the ride and go Hawks!

Click to expand...

I think Pete and Norton made a concerted effort after seeing some glaring weaknesses in their traditional cover 2 single high safety defense, with getting gashed in certain scenarios throughout the season to not just sit back in that cover 2 and get burned over and over..........mainly deep crossing and seam routes where these younger players were having a hard time getting their depth and lanes right.

Thus the bandit is back, along with quite a few more wrinkles over the past 2-3 weeks. We've seen;

- more delayed blitzes
- more disguised corner blitzes
- more gap blitzes
- more man to man and cover press inside the redzone

Bandwagon76":1ml2e18u said:

knownone":1ml2e18u said:

Cool write up and interesting history lesson for those who may have forgotten.

Believe it or not, formations with 7 defensive back are in Madden, it's a variant of quarters coverage. Seattle's "bandit" formation from last week looks like a modified version of what the Patriots used against the Vikings the previous week. I have no idea how Seattle's coverage is different schematically but what I do know is the Patriots used a safety as their 7th DB and Seattle used a corner.

We saw glimpses of it early in the season so I don't think this is a midseason idea. I think Pete had intended to do this from the start with Tedric Thompson coming in as the 7th DB. Earls injury probably delayed our ability to run it until another DB was up to speed.

Click to expand...

You are correct that in madden the Seahawks defensive playbook does have a formation with a third safety I’m just not sure it behaves the same as the bandit unless I’m missing something.

As far as having seen it earlier there were brief glimpses but without (or so it seemed) being used as one of the primary schemes on a high percentage of downs. That said you could be onto something with Petes intentions of running it all along but just not being ready yet.

Click to expand...

I agree I don't think it is similar at all. Typically quarters is almost entirely zone. It's what some people associate with "prevent" at the end of games, 2 to 4 deep, zone underneath, and that's what I'd assume is in Madden (although I haven't played a new Madden in 4 or 5 years so i'm not entirely sure).

Pete had Flowers and Griffin primarily playing man except when the Vikings ran quick inside concepts like curls and slants, on those they seemed to dropped into deep zone coverage with either Bobby or the slot corner/nickel picking up the receiver underneath. It's weird, I'm by no means an expert but nonetheless, I've never seen this with quarters personnel. Maybe someone with more knowledge of defensive schemes can chime in but it honestly looks to me like we're running a disguised cover 3 with 7 DBs.

One interesting parallel to 2010 is our defensive line talent. The only way you pull this formation off is with a dominant 3 man front, we had that in 2010 with Mebane, Bryant, and Clemons. It seems we are seeing the emergence of Poona Ford along with Stephen, Reed, and Jefferson in 2018. Poona, in particular, might be our best offseason addition if this formation turns out to be is the best way to stop teams like the Chiefs. Dude does not get moved by double teams and if you can't run when the defense has 3 linemen... good luck passing.

Bandwagon76":3n5qcuxs said:

Ok 91 views and no comments? Does nobody remember the “Bandit defense?!” Perhaps didn’t notice it Monday night?

Click to expand...

It's all a bit Smokey...

We went 7-9 in 2010, so the Bandit must not have been all that amazing.

Sgt. Largent":mkdayrno said:

Bandwagon76":mkdayrno said:

It would appear now that the Seattle Seahawks may be smelling blood as the Bandit defense has once again resurfaced in the most dominant defensive performance of the year against Minnesota. I would not expect to see it full time however as some opponents will not consistently demand such a wrinkle to hold them at bay. As the playoffs near we may not see much of it in fact. The Vikings game was essentially a playoff game in terms of taking executive security of the 5th seed but rest assured when the playoffs come around this team will not get pushed through, around or over on the defensive side of the ball by the likes of the New Orleans Saints, St Louis Rams or any other offense they way they had previously.

Enjoy the ride and go Hawks!

Click to expand...

I think Pete and Norton made a concerted effort after seeing some glaring weaknesses in their traditional cover 2 single high safety defense, with getting gashed in certain scenarios throughout the season to not just sit back in that cover 2 and get burned over and over..........mainly deep crossing and seam routes where these younger players were having a hard time getting their depth and lanes right.

Thus the bandit is back, along with quite a few more wrinkles over the past 2-3 weeks. We've seen;

- more delayed blitzes
- more disguised corner blitzes
- more gap blitzes
- more man to man and cover press inside the redzone

Click to expand...

The last part of your post nailed it! ....and as I am a huge believer in “pressuring the opposing QB” as much as possible, I love the changes! :2thumbs:

We used it in Chicago Russell's first year, we had a huge amount of injuries at LB and TE going to that game and used the extra DB's and a lot of 4 WR sets that day. we used it off and on a lot the rest of the year and then kind of shelved it for a while.

MontanaHawk05":jta4s2i6 said:

We went 7-9 in 2010, so the Bandit must not have been all that amazing.

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With some pretty questionable talent.

I think the "Bandit" could have quite a bit of utility in 2018 NFL. We'll see, I guess.

MontanaHawk05":1x787dul said:

We went 7-9 in 2010, so the Bandit must not have been all that amazing.

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It’s not that it was amazing. The point is that it was something they used back then to cover up obvious weaknesses and to anal a few wins they wouldn’t have had otherwise. They didn’t start the season running it and it helped immensely in winning that division and lastyky, stifling Drew Brees in the playoffs.

Brees threw for 404 yards

In my opinion this is an interesting nuance but still just a minor wrinkle. Every team mixes up blitzes with dropping extra people into coverage - what Pete's defense does differently at times is on the personnel side (nickel 5DBs, dime 6DBs, bandit 7DBs). However, that's not really a liability against the run here because we have a really good MLB and a bunch of larger physical DBs who are willing and able to tackle. It's just a way of getting our best 11 guys on the field when we don't have much depth at pass rush DL and we're missing a couple of Will LBs.

The 2013 team had Chris Clemons, Cliff Avril, Michael Bennett, Bruce Irvin, KJ Wright and Bobby Wagner in their front seven. Why would you pull any those guys off the field on passing downs to play dime, let alone pull two of them off to play bandit? If our 2019 team has more pass rush DL we will see less DB usage.

MontanaHawk05":3fm0jqpl said:

Brees threw for 404 yards

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Did you watch the game? I’m not sure why you are arguing. He passed the ball 60 times completing 39 and lost a fumble. It wasn’t a good game for them a much less talented 7-9 team defeated an 11-5 team by keeping them off balance and uncomfortable.

The entire point of this post was to bring up that they used it a lot vs Minnesota and the results were pretty good. I also said that it is somewhat (or seems to be) somewhat gimmicky. It is KNOWN that in order to do great things the defense has to play well down the stretch and into the post season and it was cool to see it work much better than it did in 2010 albeit against a lesser competent opponent and with better personnel on defense.

More than anything it shows Pete’s genius as a defensive minded coach to bring it to the table during such a pivotal point in the season and should be interesting to see to what extent it continues if at all.

The game against the Saints isn’t the best representation anyway as it was used sparingly but when they first started using it they really caught the opponent off guard and took some time for offenses to adjust which was just enough to get us into the playoffs.

As a long time lurker on this site I can recall some saying it wasn’t in our best long term interest to even win that game as getting into the playoffs would only result in embarrassment and a lower draft pick. All in all it worked out just fine and we had the beast mode game and Matt Hasselbecks last home playoff game as he went out on a good note until the following week when we kind of fell flat.

I respect that you have a gazillion posts but the ones you’ve posted thus on this thread are nothing but snobbish and passive aggressive.

And, you can thank last weeks dominant defensive performance to Pete Carrol and the bandit defense. Cheers!

AgentDib":2g8z2lr4 said:

In my opinion this is an interesting nuance but still just a minor wrinkle. Every team mixes up blitzes with dropping extra people into coverage - what Pete's defense does differently at times is on the personnel side (nickel 5DBs, dime 6DBs, bandit 7DBs). However, that's not really a liability against the run here because we have a really good MLB and a bunch of larger physical DBs who are willing and able to tackle. It's just a way of getting our best 11 guys on the field when we don't have much depth at pass rush DL and we're missing a couple of Will LBs.

The 2013 team had Chris Clemons, Cliff Avril, Michael Bennett, Bruce Irvin, KJ Wright and Bobby Wagner in their front seven. Why would you pull any those guys off the field on passing downs to play dime, let alone pull two of them off to play bandit? If our 2019 team has more pass rush DL we will see less DB usage.

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I simply said the bandit is back and would never insinuate it’s better than having copious amounts of depth with a myriad of abilities within your standard position players.

What I am saying is that PC and company used it to great success because we are unable to play defense the conventional way he would like to.

Something had to change with the defense in order for this team to comepete on that side of the ball. Personally I was growing tired of watching this team get gashed over and over with runs inside and outside and screens. It looked better and that was refreshing to say the least.

Now to pay attention and see if the defense continues to approve in conventional C2 single H or if the bandit is here to stay for the duration of this run until they add more pieces in the off-season.

If it IS broke, fix it, if you can’t fix it, throw it away and try something else. That’s pretty much what has happened and now of their is continued success with the hybrid style bandit then if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Thank your for creating this thread pointing out the use of the Bandit package against Minny.

I was wondering how our pass D suddenly got so good so fast after being gashed throughout the season by good teams. The D made Cousins look very 3rd string.

Now we'll see what Pete & Ken trot out for the 49ers tomorrow. I'd somewhat expect them to NOT play a whole bunch of Bandit, unless they need to. I could be wrong, but I'm thinking why give future opponents more film to study and scheme against? Then we'll see how much Bandit we need to play against KC. I guess if Pete feels that's what we need to do to win vs KC, we will see it.

It also shows how well Poona Ford is playing and thus the opportunity to use a 3-man front. Kudos to Carroll (and Norton) for being flexible and recognizing what they have to work with, talent wise, and adapting the scheme.

olyfan63":2c44xytb said:

Thank your for creating this thread pointing out the use of the Bandit package against Minny.

I was wondering how our pass D suddenly got so good so fast after being gashed throughout the season by good teams. The D made Cousins look very 3rd string.

Now we'll see what Pete & Ken trot out for the 49ers tomorrow. I'd somewhat expect them to NOT play a whole bunch of Bandit, unless they need to. I could be wrong, but I'm thinking why give future opponents more film to study and scheme against? Then we'll see how much Bandit we need to play against KC. I guess if Pete feels that's what we need to do to win vs KC, we will see it.

It also shows how well Poona Ford is playing and thus the opportunity to use a 3-man front. Kudos to Carroll (and Norton) for being flexible and recognizing what they have to work with, talent wise, and adapting the scheme.

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Pete is just an incredible coach.