Not much going on on this Wednesday morning, but here’s a quick rundown of today’s top stories:<\/p>\n
Belichick Honors Buddy Ryan –\u00a0<\/strong>Bill Belichick was able to make quite a name for himself as a defensive coordinator as he ascended to having\u00a0become\u00a0one of the best NFL coaches in the history of the league, and the passing of the defensive-minded Buddy Ryan saddened the entire football world on Tuesday, including the Patriots coach.<\/p>\n Ryan passed away at the age of 85 and was someone that Belichick always held a lot of respect for, especially for a lot of the innovative schemes he put together over the course of his legendary career.<\/p>\n Belichick issued a statement on Ryan’s passing<\/strong> <\/a>via the team’s official website:<\/p>\n “Today is a sad day in football due to the passing of Buddy Ryan,” wrote Belichick. \u00a0“It was always very challenging to compete against Coach Ryan, who was father to a great football family that carries on his coaching and defensive tradition. My condolences are with the Ryan Family.”<\/p>\n Belichick was asked back in 2012 about why teams shifted away from running a two-back offense, which he credits Ryan’s 46 defense in changing how teams countered that formation and he said it’s something teams still use down on the goal line.<\/p>\n “A lot of the success that Buddy had with the 46 defense came in the \u201880s when there was a lot of two-back offense,” explained Belichick<\/strong><\/a>. \u00a0“It was one of the things that probably drove the two-back offense out. If you remember back in the \u201880s when Buddy was in Philadelphia, he had a lot of trouble with the Redskins and their one-back offense, a lot of trouble. There were a lot of mismatches of Art Monk and Gary Clark on the middle linebacker and stuff like that. I think the 46 was really originally built for two-back offenses, whether it be the red, brown, blue and the flat-back type offenses and eventually even the I-formation. I think it still has a lot of good application; a lot of teams use it in goal-line situations. They either use a version of it like a 5-3 or cover the guards and the center and however you want to quite fit the rest of it, but that principle you see a lot in goal-line, short yardage situations.”<\/p>\n “You see it and some teams have it as part of their two-back defensive package. As it has gone to one-back and it\u2019s gotten more spread out, if you\u2019re playing that, it kind of forces you defensively to be in a one-linebacker set. You lose that second linebacker and depending on where the back lines up and what coverage you\u2019re playing, then there\u2019s some issues with that. If you\u2019re in a one linebacker defense and you move the back over and the linebacker moves over then you\u2019re kind of out-leveraged to the back side. If you don\u2019t move him over, then you\u2019re kind of out-leveraged when the back releases and that kind of thing. There are some issues there that, I\u2019m not saying you can\u2019t do it, but you have to work them out.”<\/p>\n “In a two-back set, I\u2019d say it was probably a lot cleaner and it always gave you an extra blitzer that was hard for the offense. Even if they seven-man protected on play-action, there was always an eighth guy there somewhere. You didn\u2019t have to bring all eight; if you just brought the right one and they didn\u2019t have him or somebody would have to have two guys and that creates some problems.”<\/p>\n “I think that\u2019s what Buddy really, where the genius of that was; he had by formation a different combination and group of blitzes so depending on what formation you were in, then he ran a blitz that would attack that formation and then when you changed formations, then he would change blitzes. Now, plus the fact [he] had Dan Hampton, Richard Dent, Mike Singletary, [Otis] Wilson, [Wilbur] Marshall, that was a pretty good group there. You could have probably played a lot of things and that defense would have looked pretty good, especially when they put Hampton on the nose. That was pretty unblockable.”<\/p>\n The Eagles, where Ryan coached from 1986-1990 posted a nice tribute to the former coach via Twitter:<\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/V9Xvjqufzk<\/a><\/p>\n — Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) June 28, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n