PC is Playing With 3 LBers Due to the Rams.

Fade

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I am sure there are a lot of people scratching their heads with the Hawks playing in their base against 3 and 4 WR sets. Jamar Taylor is a more than capable nickel back, but it's because of the Rams offense.

Last year the Rams were carving up teams with Gurley against Nickle defenses, and then they would run playaction pass with Goff when teams went base. With some motion trickery mixed in, to get people misaligned. It was a ridiculously simple thing that teams eventually figured out, after the film piled up.

The Bears last year cracked the code. Just play your base defense. Gurley can't feast, and expect pass/playaction, it worked. The Rams haven't been the same since on offense. Now I am over simplifying it for brevity's sake. But it is real.

Goff just isn't good enough to make consistent tight window throws and go through his reads. He is the one that needs a run game. (Tical lol). He needs McVay to tell him the coverage before his mic cuts out, and is scared of his own shadow when pressured.

So Pete has been playing 3 backers to get them used to it and more comfortable (both the players and the coaches). So they could be prepared as much as possible for their incredibly important divisonal matchups against the Rams, and even the 49ers. (I am not going to get into that one yet.)

For those that don't know, McVay's offense tore Pete a new one last year, and the adjustments he has made have primarily centered around stopping McVay's scheme and, stopping Shanahan's run game.

476 yards & 33 pts.
467 yards & 36 pts.

They surrendered to McVay last year.

Pete is very smart on the defensive side of the ball, and this plan of his to play base defense inordinately is going to pay dividends against the Rams.

The other layer to this is Pete is making teams one dimensional in general. Opposing OCs see 3 LBers on the field, and they are going to want to throw it. Since they are primarily a zone team anyway, their LBers don't really have to cover speedy WRs 1-on1 down the field anyway, as they will get passed off to the DBs.

This is very interesting to me, and can't wait to see how this plays out over a more extended period of time.

I thought base defense was dead three years ago, but it looks like it is making a comeback.
 

Smellyman

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Good thoughts.

but may be more due to the fact that he has 3 very good LBs that he wants them on the field as much as possible They are also smart and all pretty good in coverage.

Being base also leads to less breakdowns defensively.

Watched Coleman play very well today against KC. If they had him still there would be more nickle.
 

olyfan63

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Fade, WTH, are you saying that Pete evolves and adjusts, not just an old dog who refuses to learn new tricks? That's counter to the conventional wisdom on Pete here at .NET.

Thank you for the fascinating (and I believe, accurate) take. Eager to see how this works out against the Rams on Thursday. For sure I have noticed the TV announcers commenting over and over so far this season how the Seahawks play their LBs on all 3 downs.

Hell, you're even suggesting that Pete is changing to "adapting to opponents" rather than simply "enforcing our will" on them, one-size-fits-all style. And this after Schotty made adjustments at Pittsburgh to the quick passing game, for the win. Heck, you're even kinda suggesting Pete has been taking notes on the Belichick Approach. NO!! Say it isn't so!! You know what all this means... Superb Owl, Seahawk 1 is flying your direction...
 

Mad Dog

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Interesting take. I certainly buy us wanting to stop the Rams run game in its tracks and force Goff to beat you. But at the same time, it does hamstring your coverages by forcing zone with 3 LB's out there. I'm sure McVey will dial up zone beaters all day if we stick with only zone coverages.

I think in the end, Pete wants his best guys out there. If they hold up, which they have so far, he'll stick with it. Just like last year and the run game. Once it started clicking, Pete was happy to stick with it.
 

sutz

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I think both ideas are active here. Yes, Pete is working on ways to beat the Lambs, and you can't drop that on the team in one week. Maybe Belichick can get away with huge changes in how he runs the team from game to game, but most teams need a bit of practice to run their schemes.

Also, Pete is trying to "keep his best players on the field." He has said that in interviews several times. It's not a bad philosophy, either. Us old timers remember the classic Tampa 2 defense, one of whose features was that they didn't need to make a lot of wholesale personnel changes. They put their best 11 guys out there and dared people to beat them. It worked very well for several years, as long as they had some of the best talent in the league. Right now, we have 3 of the best LBs in the league. :Dunno:

Incidentally, that's kind of how we did the Legion of Boom, too. There wasn't a lot of need to substitute. Our best guys were out there most plays, come and beat them. In the end, the one constant about football is that fundamentals usually win. The team that runs, throws, blocks, and tackles best will win more games. Most of the rest of it is trickery.

Guess we'll find out Thursday night.

:snack:
 

Seymour

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Copy cat league.

Pete is doing it because Belichick lit his path shutting down the Rams last SB the same way.
 

toffee

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Fade":2f4smfng said:
The Bears last year cracked the code. Just play your base defense. Gurley can't feast, and expect pass/playaction, it worked. The Rams haven't been the same since on offense. Now I am over simplifying it for brevity's sake. But it is real.

Fangio the great!

It was unthinkable after firing Harbaugh, 9ers picked Tomsula over Fangio after interviewing both, the rest, as the saying goes, was history. Fangio's defense under Harbaugh was solid, Tomsula? Rumors had it that he ratted on Harbaugh to the Yorks and he was rewarded.
 
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DomeHawk

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It was actually the 6-1 defense with six on the line of scrimmage and only one linebacker off the line that stifled the Rams offense.

It happened in week 13 when the Rams went to Detroit to play the Lions. The Bears used a similar game plan and New England employed the 6-1 in the Super Bowl.
 

LTH

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IMO I dont think it has anything to do with the Rams...I think The Hawks do what they do according to the talent they have... I think it's more of the Hawks saying this is who we are... this is what we do... Now beat it or die trying...

This is going to be a devastating, nasty, D when they start clicking... they will scare the league....

LTH
 
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DomeHawk

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LTH":3qxt4zz0 said:
IMO I dont think it has anything to do with the Rams...I think The Hawks do what they do according to the talent they have... I think it's more of the Hawks saying this is who we are... this is what we do... Now beat it or die trying...

This is going to be a devastating, nasty, D when they start clicking... they will scare the league....

LTH

I probably doesn't have that much to do with the Rams but it will be interesting to see how often we are in the 6-1, that the Patriots used so successfully, in the game.
 
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Fade

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olyfan63":g8qiqj08 said:
Fade, WTH, are you saying that Pete evolves and adjusts, not just an old dog who refuses to learn new tricks? That's counter to the conventional wisdom on Pete here at .NET.

Thank you for the fascinating (and I believe, accurate) take. Eager to see how this works out against the Rams on Thursday. For sure I have noticed the TV announcers commenting over and over so far this season how the Seahawks play their LBs on all 3 downs.

Hell, you're even suggesting that Pete is changing to "adapting to opponents" rather than simply "enforcing our will" on them, one-size-fits-all style. And this after Schotty made adjustments at Pittsburgh to the quick passing game, for the win. Heck, you're even kinda suggesting Pete has been taking notes on the Belichick Approach. NO!! Say it isn't so!! You know what all this means... Superb Owl, Seahawk 1 is flying your direction...

Pete is far more flexible on D.

He is very rigid on O.

But there are signs this year he is loosening the reigns a bit on his OC & QB.

He "Pete" balled it up in the 3rd qtr, but they had a 3 score lead so.... Pete is playing a long game style wise, while just squeaking by in the early going. He is trying to set things up to make a legit run come Jan.
 
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Fade

Fade

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DomeHawk":hkngi400 said:
It was actually the 6-1 defense with six on the line of scrimmage and only one linebacker off the line that stifled the Rams offense.

It happened in week 13 when the Rams went to Detroit to play the Lions. The Bears used a similar game plan and New England employed the 6-1 in the Super Bowl.

Yes, the Rams are an outside zone running team.

DET took away the edge by loading the LoS, and forced Goff to beat them.

Goff's numbers specifically, have been dreadful since the CHI game.
 

chris98251

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The were saying yesterday that we are the only team that stays in a base defense in the league right now, completely going against the grain.
 

knownone

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Most people actually credit the Lions with figuring out the Rams offense. They utilized quarters coverage with a 6 man front and 1 MLB: 6-1-4. The Bears and Patriots copied them. None of these teams were in their 'base' defense they just weren't in their nickle defense which is how most teams tried to defend the Rams. Seattle (ironically) tried to defend the Rams with a variant of the 46 defense initially, and it worked for the most part, but it left us vulnerable on the back end.

It looks to me like we are playing 3 linebackers because we have 3 of the best coverage linebackers in the league, and the weakest one (Kendricks) is a damn good pass rusher. This allows us to be strong against the run while daring the offense to attack us underneath. I wouldn't expect that to change against the Rams, but I also don't think it has much to do with the Rams offense. In other words, if we were doing this because of the Rams why would we rely so heavily on 3 LBs against teams that don't even run a variant of the Rams offense?
 

Scorpion05

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I agree, but it’s also more than that. Without Kendricks, I think we would play more Nickel. I think part of the reason we’re playing less nickel is there is simply a shortage of talent.

Last year, we had a shortage at LB. Kendricks missed games, Wright missed games. And we had Justin Coleman, who’s a really good slot corner.

We have LBs who are athletic enough to cover running backs, some WRs, and tight ends in space. And obviously, having 3 LBs is great for stopping the run. So it all compliments each other
 

WestcoastSteve

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LTH":1vmrpcmj said:
IMO I dont think it has anything to do with the Rams...I think The Hawks do what they do according to the talent they have... I think it's more of the Hawks saying this is who we are... this is what we do... Now beat it or die trying...

This is going to be a devastating, nasty, D when they start clicking... they will scare the league....

LTH

Yeah I'm with you, I think it's about getting the best 11 on the field. I doubt we would run a defense all season just for the Rams. Our goal isn't to beat the Rams it's to get back to the Super Bowl.

Kendricks is a significantly better player than all our nickels.
 

WestcoastSteve

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Scorpion05":vbhje04c said:
I agree, but it’s also more than that. Without Kendricks, I think we would play more Nickel. I think part of the reason we’re playing less nickel is there is simply a shortage of talent.

Last year, we had a shortage at LB. Kendricks missed games, Wright missed games. And we had Justin Coleman, who’s a really good slot corner.

We have LBs who are athletic enough to cover running backs, some WRs, and tight ends in space. And obviously, having 3 LBs is great for stopping the run. So it all compliments each other

Another good point. Before 2018 they played mostly nickel. We saw some 6 DB and 7 DB formations last year but I think that had a lot to do with the weakness at LB outside of Bobby more than anything else.
 
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