Today's post by NEInsider on ESPN board

[Zeke_Mowatt]

I just went back and re-read NE Insiders' post, and realize that I got much more caught up in what the various people were debating than what was actually said. I'm man enough to admit I totally mis-read this based on a few people's critiques and I should have spent more time re-reading the original post rather than re-reading posters talking about what was in the original post. I still think the 'back and forth' doesn't do either side justice, and that all parties are (and have been) essentially saying the same thing, but there seems to be a safety vs. Hobbs issue in many of the arguments, but as I'm reading it now, it's really all about Samuel and his gambling. What this did raise for me, as a question, and I pose it to both coaches and lay folk alike, is the validity of the idea that, as I mentioned in my last post, they deliberately rolled help to Samuel, as I've heard often here in critiques, or that help rolled because it had to. So which is it, typically, is the safety rolling away from Hobbs to help Asante because he jumped a route when he shouldn't have, or was that by design to cover Asante's lack of deep skills (or to accentuate his quick first step, break on the ball, etc)?

 

[TripleOption]

Jesus, you're sharp as a tack, huh? Maybe I should have used colorful pictures instead. Try reading my last sentence, over and over, until all those funny little characters start making sense. It's tongue in cheek, sparky, based on the juxtaposition of the fact that he's citing his "superior" skills and instantly debasing the other posters argument, sort of like I was doing to show how arrogant it sounds.

You fake arrogance pretty well.

My point has been that the argument is semantics; in Cover One a FS is given the freedom to support where he feels necessary...and may be directed to roll to one side of the field or "keep an eye" on a particular area. He may also "rob" a route or player. For Andy to speak in absolutes about "never being run at any level" is foolish. My point about coaching is that I am not engaging in a debate in theory; I have actually coached similar coverages and his decrees do not hold water with me.

 

[TripleOption]

my Ivy League degree in English

Hell, you'd think that anyone smart enough to get into an Ivy League school would major in something he could actually use in real life.

 

[Zeke_Mowatt]

Because Andy can "study" football all he wants, it amounts to a college professor who teaches Criminal Justice thinking he is a cop. If he has never coached he has no idea what coverages work or do not or what the coaching points are. He may have an idea, but he certainly should not argue in absolutes with people who have actually coached the coverages he so resolutely claims do not exist.

I 100% agree with you about arguing in absolutes, but any good professional at any trade also knows that they are not the end-all be-all of knowledge either. Your denigration of his contribution, be it valid or no in this case, is not automatically validated by your profession no matter how much you think it should be. There are plenty of coaches who weren't players, who are still far more capable than those players at designing plays. I find it impossible to believe that there aren't some very smart people out there who are capable of studying coaching and being able to understand the concepts we are talking about here. And to reply to your College Professor example, just because the professor may not 100% understand the experience of being a Cop, he may actually be more qualified by his separation from certain circumstances, of coming up with some better strategy, training, or whatever than someone who is more immersed in the overall experience.

 

[Zeke_Mowatt]

Hell, you'd think that anyone smart enough to get into an Ivy League school would major in something he could actually use in real life.

You're a coach, what'd you major in? I'm betting it wasn't "coaching" or "football". You would be surprised at the number of very successful people I meet in my line of work who do nothing at all related to their major. And while I will grin sarcastically often at my "useless" English major, it's helped me get a lot farther in life than a lot of other degrees, after all, speaking, writing, and analyzing are some of the most basic, but important skillsets in almost any profession.

 

[Patjew]

WTF are you guys all talking about? Could this get any more abstract or obtuse?

Maybe it just did.

 

[billdog3484]

unfortunately for Hobbs, I think most of the uneducated ESPN sports fans will always see Hobbs as a lesser talented CB than he really is. The image of Burress scoring that SB GW TD is engrained in everyones mind (a nightmare in ours). bottom line is burress 1 on 1 v. Champ Bailey probably wouldve scored on that play

 

[Patjew]

You're a coach, what'd you major in? I'm betting it wasn't "coaching" or "football". You would be surprised at the number of very successful people I meet in my line of work who do nothing at all related to their major. And while I will grin sarcastically often at my "useless" English major, it's helped me get a lot farther in life than a lot of other degrees, after all, speaking, writing, and analyzing are some of the most basic, but important skillsets in almost any profession.

Any liberal arts BA is basically the same thing: a stepping stone. So says this history major.

Now a PhD in one of those disciplines is another story. I know a few underpaid, miserable English Lit profs, who are basically a dime a dozen.

 

[PatsFan37]

Jesus, you're sharp as a tack, huh? Maybe I should have used colorful pictures instead. Try reading my last sentence, over and over, until all those funny little characters start making sense. It's tongue in cheek, sparky, based on the juxtaposition of the fact that he's citing his "superior" skills and instantly debasing the other posters argument, sort of like I was doing to show how arrogant it sounds.

The point you're missing with all your inflamed rhetoric is that some of us are trying to listen to guys like TripleOption and Alvinf and Unoriginal, because their knowledge of football makes this board worthwhile. When people who know their ABC's more than their X's and O's pounce on them with snide remarks, it lessens my opportunity to learn.

What I see sometimes on this board, and pay attention because this is the real point, is the chilling effect of people who insist upon shouting their mistakes over and over in their desperation to have the last word and to drown out through sheer persistence anyone who disagrees.

If they succeed, I won't be able to listen to those who know their football. So I let those folks that might not have Ivy League degrees know that they have an audience. It's really that simple. But then, I majored in engineering -- we were taught substance over style.

 

[Frezo]

The most disappointing thing about this thread was that I had to sift through an, at times, heated argument to gain an understanding about cover 1 and its variations. If you guys could start a thread about something in particular that you see the Pats do while leaving the raucous debates to the politicians, I'm confident that many of us beer drinkin', chili pounding fans would express our appreciation.

 

[Zeke_Mowatt]

Any liberal arts BA is basically the same thing: a stepping stone. So says this history major.

Now a PhD in one of those disciplines is another story. I know a few underpaid, miserable English Lit profs, who are basically a dime a dozen.

Agreed, PhD wasn't something I wanted to explore. Although dime a dozen could also describe English majors who became car salesmen too

 

[patchick]

Any liberal arts BA is basically the same thing: a stepping stone. So says this history major.

I remember once going to a UMass-Harvard game with my dad. He was really impressed that the Harvard players all seemed to be listed as economics majors, whereas the UMass players majored in leisure studies, etc. So I had to break it to him: "Dad, 'economics' is just Ivy speak for 'pre-business.'"

Personally, I use my fancy liberal arts degrees to sit up half the night posting on football bulletin boards.

 

[Zeke_Mowatt]

The point you're missing with all your inflamed rhetoric is that some of us are trying to listen to guys like TripleOption and Alvinf and Unoriginal, because their knowledge of football makes this board worthwhile. When people who know their ABC's more than their X's and O's pounce on them with snide remarks, it lessens my opportunity to learn.

What I see sometimes on this board, and pay attention because this is the real point, is the chilling effect of people who insist upon shouting their mistakes over and over in their desperation to have the last word and to drown out through sheer persistence anyone who disagrees.

If they succeed, I won't be able to listen to those who know their football. So I let those folks that might not have Ivy League degrees know that they have an audience. It's really that simple. But then, I majored in engineering -- we were taught substance over style.

^^That explains plenty.

Pay attention here slappy, if it wasn't for people like Andy and Pats1 making comments (perhaps erroneously per the "smahties" here) about NE Insider's "analysis" of our defensive scheme, you wouldn't have been able to enjoy (as I did) this wonderful explanation of a variety of defensive backfield schemes and the X's and O's discussion we don't get as often as many of us would like.

Unfortunately I haven't seen (and a few of us posted to this effect earlier in the thread, perhaps you should have paid more attention) many threads where people just out of the blue start explaining X's and O's to us beer swilling lay folk.

So when Andy and Pats1, even if they are wrong, bring up something that really leads to an awesome breakdown, pardon me for taking a little offense to one of those "in the know" people who I rarely see just up and throw down some knowledge, trying to slam the conversation shut with a post that amounts to "I'm a coach, you're not, shut up"

Ultimately if Andy and a few others hadn't kept the discussion alive, if they just shut up when someone else said "I know more than you (or I'm a coach), you're wrong, end of discussion" a lot of nuances of different schemes might not have come to light, and I, for one, enjoyed the hell out of reading them.

So you can take my "inflamed rhetoric" and cram it up your substance. I've said a few times Andy might not win awards for gentle presentation, but I can't fault him for making his point, because as I still read all of their posts, they were all saying essentially the same thing, with some minor variances of how they read the OP. Neither was wrong, but neither was right trying to shut the other down either.

 

[TripleOption]

You're a coach, what'd you major in? I'm betting it wasn't "coaching" or "football".

What, you think I coach for a living? I should be so lucky. I DO have a real job.

 

[PatsFan37]

So you can take my "inflamed rhetoric" and cram it up your substance.

Slappy, sparky, sharp as a tack, shove it up your substance. You really know how to put that Ivy League degree to use. When you want to take a break from insulting people, look over here at some of the work Pats1 and Box_O_Rocks did a few years ago on my website (the only part of the football analysis this assistant-of-little-knowledge could contribute).

Of his own accord, Unoriginal put up a brilliant breakdown of the Giants game last year. These football guys frequently comment. They don't need a poke in the ass from the likes of you.

This is the stuff I love, this is why I come here, and I don't like it when you insult these folks. Please don't imply I'm trying to stifle someone like Pats1. That's not something I would ever do. To the contrary.

Not everyone on this forum is fortunate enough to have an Ivy League degree or even a college education. That doesn't make them any more or less qualified to post. A football coaching background, however, is awfully useful on this fan site. Don't you think?

 

[Ring 6]

I'd love to have you send this 'paragraph' to some of your Ivy League English professors and have them comment on your sentence 'structure'.

I tried 3 times to get Andy to tell me what the deep safety was doing such that he wasn't covering over the top on Hobb's receiver. You know what I finally got ? "If he did have deep help and got beaten deep, the safety is primarily to blame. As to what the safety was doing, if he wasnt assigned as deep help, who cares, if he was, he was either slow getting there or playing the wrong defense."

So all that Andy can say is that, after a season of practices, game play, film analysis, and coaching the only reason Hobbs didn't get the help is that the safety screwed up - the safety that Belichick is still letting play despite making these kind of 'mistakes'. Pardon me all to heck if I think that the deep safety (as well as every player on the field in a Belichick defense) is making reads of offensive keys and is making split-second decisions as to what DB or LB most needs support. And this, by the way, is pretty much what the Insider was saying in his original post. What Andy wants to claim is that (to quote his word) there is 'ZERO' chance that it is the other CB that the safety is allowed to decide to support. Again, pardon me all to heck if I think that Andy doesn't have a copy of the Patriots playbook where he can make that 'ZERO' claim so vehemently and caustically.

The Insider discussed only one type of other support (to the other CB). He didn't claim that this was the only decision that could take support away from Hobbs although he certainly didn't mention any other decisions either.

So the Insider gave one case of where Hobbs lack of support was due to a decision on the part of the deep safety. I was trying to get Andy to provide some information that would be of interest (at least to me) as to what decisions the deep safety might have been reasonably making that would leave Hobbs without deep support but came up empty. Thanks to all the other folks along the way who did provide some very interesting comments about what the deep safety's assignments and decisions might have been.

That is a total misrepresentation of what I said.

You asked what the safety was doing on a HYPOPTHETCIAL PLAY that was never described.
There is no way to answer that other than to give guesses based on what the coverage may have been/
Your question was like saying when Brady gets sacked what did the RG do.

How can I answer what a safety was doing if you don't reference a play that occured or tell me what coverage was called,

Do you think that every time a deep pass is completed the safety does the same thing?

 

[Ring 6]

You fake arrogance pretty well.

My point has been that the argument is semantics; in Cover One a FS is given the freedom to support where he feels necessary...and may be directed to roll to one side of the field or "keep an eye" on a particular area. He may also "rob" a route or player. For Andy to speak in absolutes about "never being run at any level" is foolish. My point about coaching is that I am not engaging in a debate in theory; I have actually coached similar coverages and his decrees do not hold water with me.

What I have said all along, consistently, is not that there is no defense where a safety makes decisions on where to support. I said that there is no defense, run anywhere by anyone that has a corner CERTAIN HE HAS DEEP HELP, but that deep help is only an option for the safety.

You have said everything but this.
Just answer one SIMPLE Question (because this one question is exactly all I have been saying)
Have you ever coached defense where the safety is given the freedome to support whereever his feels is necessary, but you instruct the corner to cover as if he is assured of deep help.
It isnt possible. I haven't disagreed with anything you have said, other than implying that any coach would ever do the above.
That has been my SOLE POINT. There is no possible reason to have a corner playing as if he is assured deep help if the deep help isnt certain.

I cannot believe that such a basic concept has taken this much discussion.

It is as if we are saying we are going to tell the OL to block but not tell them what the play is.

 

[Ring 6]

Because Andy can "study" football all he wants, it amounts to a college professor who teaches Criminal Justice thinking he is a cop. If he has never coached he has no idea what coverages work or do not or what the coaching points are. He may have an idea, but he certainly should not argue in absolutes with people who have actually coached the coverages he so resolutely claims do not exist.

First, I have played through college, and have coached, so your assumptions are wrong.

Secondly, it doesn't matter if I played, coached or was a physicist or math teacher.

It only takes COMMON SENSE to know that no one SANE would ever call a defense where the corner is told he has deep help (ASSURED OF IT) but the safety is told to choose a side.
There is no reason, it makes absolutely no sense. It is self-destructive to tell the corner to rely on help he will not necessarily have. You gain nothing. And if you did that eventually both corners would get run by on every play, both thinking no big deal, I have help and only one would get it,.

You need to learn to read and not act like you must be right, and in order to be right you only have to say "I coach football, so anything that sounds like football I must be right on".

 

[TripleOption]

First, I have played through college, and have coached, so your assumptions are wrong.

It only takes COMMON SENSE to know that no one SANE would ever call a defense where the corner is told he has deep help (ASSURED OF IT) but the safety is told to choose a side.
There is no reason, it makes absolutely no sense. It is self-destructive to tell the corner to rely on help he will not necessarily have. You gain nothing. And if you did that eventually both corners would get run by on every play, both thinking no big deal, I have help and only one would get it,.

Youth football doesn't count.

You are NEVER "assured" of deep help. You may think you have it, but if the Safety screws up, forget it.

That's why you tell your DB's that if they undercut a route or jump a hitch "If you take it, you better make it." If they don't, help or no help there is a good chance of a TD.

 

[Ring 6]

Youth football doesn't count.

You are NEVER "assured" of deep help. You may think you have it, but if the Safety screws up, forget it.

That's why you tell your DB's that if they undercut a route or jump a hitch "If you take it, you better make it." If they don't, help or no help there is a good chance of a TD.

Of course your answer starts by being a jerk, and continues by refusing to answer the question.

Now you have pretty much reached the point of lying.
One more time.
2 scenarios.

1) I call a defense where my corner has a safety ASSIGNED as deep help. That is the safeties ASSIGNMEN T
2) I have one safety deep to cover the entire deep field.

Are you trying to tell me that you expect a cornerback to cover exactly the same in both scenarios?

While you are answering that, how about you also fill on in on your sparkiling coaching resume.