Cbz40
The Grand Poobah
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dwmyers said:* Burmafrd is right; Dick Nolan's 49ers played the Flex as well.
* The Flex, iirc, was to some extent a reaction to the Lombardi sweep. At least in this guise, the idea was to put someone like, say, Bob Lilly nose on the pulling guard. Lilly was so fast he could beat the cut block, follow the guard, and catch the ball carrier in the backfield. The deal with the Flex is that it's just an elaboration of a 4-3 line spacing that goes something like this:
o * * o
The tackles are both pulled back a few inches to give them time to adjust to the guard's block and pursue along the line.
In the Flex, with Lilly nose on to the guard in front of him, you get.
* o * o
And if you expect an outside left run, with the right guard pulling, you would Flex as so:
o * o *
Otherwise, it was a read-and-react gap control defense. Players holding outside gaps were not to pursue, they were to stay in place and wait for the play to come to them. I think it was the latter, which isn't intuitive, which has led to only a couple people playing this kind of system. It's easier to teach defensive linemen to penetrate and pursue than this kind of cerebral and counterintuitive defensive system.
Because it was read-and-react and run oriented, it tended to be vulnerable to the first down pass; the pass rush wasn't automatic then. Big powerful runners, like Franco Harris, could just destroy the system entirely, by overpowering the whole team at the point of attack. Then again big powerful runners would do that to most any system.
David.
Great explanation.......Well done.
