Spin Doctor
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I came across an interesting thread on reddit. It's quite an interesting take and I think most of the points are valid.
I begun going over footage of older games that I could find and it's interesting, teams like the Steelers and Ravens back in the day would heavily disguise their coverage back in the 2000s. Lots of zone blitzing concepts. Dick LeBeau in particular would never tip his hand pre-snap as to where they were coming from. In this NFL, passers had to weigh and measure things more. it was more common for passers to take 2-3 years to develop. That style of defense went out of vogue after the explosion of the LOB.
What made the LOB dominate? Well, as that poster put it, the dominance of the LOB came from the talent. I'll add on a bit here. The trend in the NFL was towards bigger receivers that could come down with contested balls. Changes in rulesets made it easier for receivers to contest balls. The NFL had the preconceived notion that bigger cornerbacks were a liability due to stiffer hips and inability to change direction as fast. Big safeties such as Kam were often transitioned to LB or used depth. LB's such a Wagner were considered too small by NFL standards. This caused guys such as Browner, Sherman, Wagner and Chancellor to be overlooked. If they had been drafted by anyone else other than Carroll, I doubt that they would've seen the light of day, or been given proper development.
These players were the key to Carroll's flavor of cover 3 dominating the NFL landscape. The biggest player here was as the poster said, Earl Thomas. Thomas was unquestionably the best player of his generation. His range and football instincts allowed the Seahawks to play an aggressive form of football. In addition to this, it allowed Kam Chancellor to play a more aggressive form of football. He could function as a fourth linebacker, BUT he could also burn you in coverage. He was the element of surprise in the defense. He could cover ground surprisingly fast for someone his size and he could shed blockers like a linebacker. Earl Thomas is what allowed this to work.
The last piece was gamesmanship by Carroll. He came with the theory that they were not going to call defensive interference every play, it would ruin the flow of the game. Our corners held, mugged wide receivers at the LOS and played a game not normally seen by corners in the NFL. They messed up the timing of more traditional pocket passers and if they messed up, Earl could come in and break the ball up. In addition to this, Sherman became one of the top coverage CB's in the NFL. He could lockdown one side of the field and allow Earl the leeway to shade to the other side.
Carroll also found a way to make usage of players that were tweeners at the pass rushing position. Raheem Brock, and Clemons found new life in Seattle. In addition we brought in Avril and Bennett into the fold. Bennett was sneaky because he could rotate inside and still be a force against the run or play outside. It still makes me mad to this day that Bennett was let go by our two kicker looking, diet coke goblet wielding of a GM, Tim Ruskell. Our big anchor, Red Bryant was able to make Bennett even more successful inside while he ate blocks.
This unique set of characters allowed the Seahawks to run the "we're better than you, you can't do anything about it" defense. Seattle would show cover 3 presnap and not deviate, bucking some conventional NFL wisdom. This defenses knew how to play to certain matchups and had a knack for when to sub players in and out. Schematically it was dead simple and relied on guys executing and knowing their assignments. It was a perfect storm for a once in a generation defense. It was a defense that was balanced and could tackle running and high power offenses just in it's base form.
After 2011 and 2012 the NFL started to take notice. Gus Bradley got his first HC gig and teams started to try the same approach as the Seahawks. Players that matched our guys profiles were over drafted. The NFL is a copycat league and everyone started running primarily single high safety defenses.
Enter the revenge of the offenses. Shanahan and McVay saw the trend and started running long developing crossing routes and exposed the cover-3 system. In addition to this, most of the NFL didn't have an Earl Thomas, or Kam Chancellor or Richard Sherman. If they did it was usually only one of the above. The result was an offensive explosion. Deep crossing routes, fades, etc became the go to for NFL offenses. Post 2015 the offense yards per play and overall proficiency shot up at an alarming rate.
Enter VIC Fangio. Vic Fangio and a few others took notice of this and decided to run more disguised coverages and two high coverages to take away those bread and butter crossing routes. The NFL didn't evolve, it went back to the norm. More matching of personal, disguised coverages, zone blitzes. This is what guys like Dick LeBeau were doing back in the 2000s. Others started copying the approach and expanding on what Fangio did. Not necessarily his schemes, but how he employed deception and subterfuge.
Since the tables turned to more complicated defensive schemes and subterfuge from the base cover-3, we're seeing some interesting trends in offenses. Yards per play are down, offensive production is down significantly. The top passers in the NFL at the moment by yardage are now guys that prefer to hang in the pocket more. The top passers are as follows at the moment by yardage: Kirk Cousins, Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield, C.J Stroud and Dak Prescott. Passes from the previous eras such as Flacco and the Red Rocket, and even our very own Geno Smith are finding successes.
The NFL is shifting away from the athletic wonders, and going more towards savvy pocket passers. I think Brady was onto something when he said guys in this NFL aren't great passers. Most of these guys came up in a NFL where defenses were simple. I think it also shows why guys such as Carroll and Wilson struggled later in their careers. I'm not sure Wilson would be as successful playing in the 2000s NFL. It also make guys such as Geno that are able to play from the pocket and take what they are given all that much more valuable.
I recommend reading the reddit comment, it's long but makes some compelling points.
