dwmyers
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For those of you whose earliest experiences of Dallas Cowboys football are QBs like Tony Romo and DeMarcus Ware, you might not remember Bill Arnsparger. He was Don Shula's defensive coordinator for many years. He was the inventor of the "53" defense, one of the earliest 3-4 type defenses in the NFL. In 1972, 1973, and 1983 he had the #1 defense in the NFL under Shula. Later he goes to LSU as head coach and they win the SEC for the first time in many years. In the 1990s, he is a DC with the Charger and he leads them to a respectable defense.
In 1999 he wrote a book, called "Arnsparger's Coaching Defensive Football", which I recently reviewed here.
http://codeandfootball.wordpress.co...-coaching-defensive-football-another-classic/
He talks about a lot of things. In a section called history, he discusses the wide tackle six and then the seven-diamond that can stem from a wide tackle six.
Among the teams that would play this defense successfully were the teams at Tennessee from the 1940s to the 1960s. So why is it important? Tell you what, take the right tackle on that defense, stand him up in a two point stance and move him back 2-3 yards. What Buddy Ryan defense does it resemble?
The reason this kind of talk merits FAN page status is that Bill later discusses, in a fair amount of depth, the Tom Landry flex. He doesn't diagram it accurately. It's clearly a flex strong, and the weak side DE is in a 5, not a 4, the onside tackle isn't flexed. But for the purposes of his discussion that wasn't important.
The player he talks about most, the single most important player in the Landry flex, to Bill, was the weakside defensive end.
He discusses the responsibilities of that end pretty exhaustively. Not the "book" responsibilities. He didn't have the Landry playbook that I know of. It's a product of pure film study.
So why that end? I will suggest that if you study the pursuit responsibilities of the OLBs in a Miami (JJ) 4-3, you'll see striking similarities between those responsibilities and what Landry's weakside end is doing. Further, he doesn't say so, but I suspect he picked up some tricks that his offside ILBs and OLBs in his 3-4 used. Why else bring up the topic at all?
It's a unique, fascinating look at the flex, and suggestive that flex pursuit principles influenced the way the Miami Dolphins' 3-4 played.
In 1999 he wrote a book, called "Arnsparger's Coaching Defensive Football", which I recently reviewed here.
http://codeandfootball.wordpress.co...-coaching-defensive-football-another-classic/
He talks about a lot of things. In a section called history, he discusses the wide tackle six and then the seven-diamond that can stem from a wide tackle six.
Among the teams that would play this defense successfully were the teams at Tennessee from the 1940s to the 1960s. So why is it important? Tell you what, take the right tackle on that defense, stand him up in a two point stance and move him back 2-3 yards. What Buddy Ryan defense does it resemble?
The reason this kind of talk merits FAN page status is that Bill later discusses, in a fair amount of depth, the Tom Landry flex. He doesn't diagram it accurately. It's clearly a flex strong, and the weak side DE is in a 5, not a 4, the onside tackle isn't flexed. But for the purposes of his discussion that wasn't important.
The player he talks about most, the single most important player in the Landry flex, to Bill, was the weakside defensive end.
He discusses the responsibilities of that end pretty exhaustively. Not the "book" responsibilities. He didn't have the Landry playbook that I know of. It's a product of pure film study.
So why that end? I will suggest that if you study the pursuit responsibilities of the OLBs in a Miami (JJ) 4-3, you'll see striking similarities between those responsibilities and what Landry's weakside end is doing. Further, he doesn't say so, but I suspect he picked up some tricks that his offside ILBs and OLBs in his 3-4 used. Why else bring up the topic at all?
It's a unique, fascinating look at the flex, and suggestive that flex pursuit principles influenced the way the Miami Dolphins' 3-4 played.
