The Tebow offense seems to be a fairly simple thing to defend. The issue is coaching it up enough, and having the player discipline to execute it. The other issue is getting guys who haven't defended the option in a decade to remember their option responsibilities. They also have to coach up new option concepts that many veterans haven't played against such as zone read and midline option concepts.
Before we get into the Tebow offense, let's first explain what it is not; the Wildcat. The Wildcat at it's core is a numbers game. What they seek to do is form an even personnel matchup with the defense by removing the quarterback. Then what they do is attack through either spacing or alignment certain areas of the defense where they will effectively create a man advantage. Visualize it as the inverse of the Rex Ryan type overload blitz. This is generally accomplished through the speed option that has a single EMOS read and a designated pitch man. Think of it as an aggressive sweep with a pitch man. This accentuates the man advantage concept by negating pursuit with a fast developing play. So if you're in an even man situation on defense with a 7 man front against the speed option, you need to crash the playside safety to present a pitch man defender and force a decision by the "quarterback". The defense will pursue heavily towards the flow of the play and the playside safety will crash. This opens up a lot of things. Should they elect to play the run, the logical choice is for the playside slot to execute that jet sweep which takes advantage of the pursuit. You can build plays off of that like the fake f jet sweep speed option, or a wildcat derivation of the counter where the pursuit functions as the jabstep in the traditional counter and your playside of the line can fold on the pursuit while the backside pulls into an open field executing fundamentally like a well timed screen would. Should they chose passing, it's a very simple fake downblock by the tight end to a seam route. He should pass the crashing safety quite easily and if the ball carrier is able to execute it is a good play. The issue with the wildcat is that it is extremely limited and there's only about 15 plays total which is defended by a single personnel group. So what we saw from Miami in their deployment of it was very Steve Jobs. They already had the technology, they just deployed it incrementally to retain the element of surprise. They really milked out everything that single wing speed option had to offer.
Tebowmania is a fascinating thing. Essentially, the Tebow offense is every option concept known to man with spread option passing concepts mixed into professional sets. They're using options to set up options. For example they will run the zone read which is an outside zone play with the QB reading the backside end. Should the backside end crash, as he should as the backside end in a zone play, the QB keeps and sprints past his angle of pursuit. They are mixing in the midline read off of this which negates the defense of the zone read which is a T/E stunt that baits the wrong call from the QB. They're running veer concepts utilizing O'Brien TE motion offense concepts. They're making reads simple in the passing game through things like stacked slants and in n up route combinations. It's very much so a limited offense that plays between the hashes because the QB can't make a play outside of it. They will occasionally try to gash a team to the outside with something like hitch screens but that is only if they overcommit. It's a limited offense so there are some fixes.
The first thing I would do is play a 44 defense. Tebow is incapable of executing a pass that will hurt your lack of an extra deep safety. So you play 8 in the box and force a pitch early by simply crashing the read man to force an early pitch. Simple, basic option defense. By forcing an early decision by the ball carrier you take away the power of the option. You play more zone than man because the majority of the offense is based upon man reads. The zone D also keeps your players turned towards the QB, taking away his scramble instinct. I know most people will say "but hey, Jay, zone isn't a great run defense" but NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND! Against the threat of the option, zone is a great defense. It retains gap integrity and in a 8 man front effectively floods both passing and running lanes.
I'm looking forward to seeing what BB does against this offense because in the NFL, there is no reason for giving up more than 10 points against it.
