Happy Fourth

Happy Fourth of July to all. Football might be America's game, but that presumes the existence, and continuity, of these United States.

The Declaration that this day commemorates swiftly and elegantly set forth this country's promise. On its fiftieth anniversary, two signatories, Adams and Jefferson, died quietly in their homes, their lives forever exemplifying our country's both great and contradictory narrative. (See this recent NY Times "picture essay" of Jefferson.) The Declaration of course begins:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This luminous promise has not always been kept. That is one reason why I always think it best to, whenever we think on the Fourth and the great Declaration, consider Lincoln's words about this promise from the vantage point of "four score and seven years" later:

. . . . [O]ur fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

. . . . It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Happy Fourth.

Kareena dazzles at movie screening

Wednesday night saw a Bollywood buzz at a suburban theatre, and rightly so, for it was a special screening of Kambakkht Ishq for close friends and select guests of Sajid and Wardha Nadiadwala.
Of course the lead pair — Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor, the latter dressed in a sunshine yellow loose dress — were there, Kareena’s sunshine smile and Akshay’s loud laughter leaving their stamp.

Shirish Kunder was without wife Farah Khan, but he found ample company in Riteish Deshmukh and later, David Dhawan. David wasn’t the only director there — Madhur Bhandarkar and Vipul Shah came along with their wives too. Niharika Khan laughed her way through the night with Roshan and Shaheen Abbas for company. Arpita Khan was spotted chatting with her former flame Arjun Kapoor, the two are still good buddies.

Zarine Khan came with her daughter Farah Khan Ali, son-in-law DJ Aqeel and daughter-in-law Malaika Khan. Dara Singh and son Vindoo walked in together, big smiles on their faces, and Vindoo left with an even bigger smile on his face courtesy the compliments he received for his role. So what if ishq is kambakkht, it can still be fun!

Football, decisionmaking, and the brain

One of the many reasons that football is the greatest of all games is that it encompasses every type of decision we humans are capable of. There are the carefully planned decisions coaches make leading up to a game: Who should start? What will our opening plays look like? How can we defend against this scheme? There are snap, in-the-moment athletic judgments: Who has the ball? Is the receiver open? Is the hole inside the guard or outside it, where will the running crease be? And there are what I call "golf swing decisions," which combine the reflective moment with the snap-athletic judgment: When should I snap the ball to time up with the motion man, while still getting off a good snap? I need to blitz through the A gap between guard and center, but what if they are in a slide or gap protection scheme and close that off? Should I try a rip or swim type move? I'm receiver and need to run an out route, but when if the cornerback comes up and jams me and I need to run a go route, how should I use my hands, eyes, etc?

Football shares the need for snap, athletic judgments with most other sports, like basketball or soccer. But it is unique in that every four-to-six second contest is preceded by a complete stop where everyone has some time to collect their thoughts -- or to heighten their anxieties. Baseball has some of this, insofar as pitchers have to think about the type of pitch they want to throw and where, but even if batters could get a handle on the pitchers' rhythm, the human brain cannot rationally break down what a throw is when it is coming in at 90 miles per hour -- it must be an instinctual swing-or-don't-swing response.

In a later post I plan to break down more of the cold, rational, time-intensive decisions and where those decisions break down. I'm interest in which decisions are "predictably irrational," and can they be fixed? Also, what heuristics do coaches and sometimes players use that correctly and incorrectly inform them? But today I limit myself to the raw, instinctual, athletic intelligence that football players must possess or be gone.

Athletic intelligence

Very rarely does a football player use their "rational brain" during a game the way solving a math problem would. Jonah Lehrer, in his book How We Decide, tells a story about Tom Brady. He describes Brady's mindset as an elite quarterback in the pocket which -- especially considering that quarterback is considered maybe the "most intellectually demanding" of all sports positions -- is surprisingly instinctual and unthinking. He drops back and scans his receivers. He gets to one and simply lets the ball go. Brady is asked: "Why did you throw it to that guy?" He replies: "I just felt like he was open." That's it. That's it?

Yes. There really can't be much to it than that. A QB might have an idea of where he might throw it, as his rational brain can do some early legwork, but the ultimate decision is by the emotional, reactive parts of his brain. (Lehrer and others get into the neuroscience of this, which I am not equipped to discuss.) The brain, getting some kind of positive feedback, tells the muscles to release the ball. And how could it be otherwise? These decisions happen much too fast for any person to coldly and rationally walk their way through it. The quarterback must simply know.

(Note that this is not saying that emotional or instinctual intelligence is better than rational intelligence, or vice versa. It is that some situations call for different types of decisionmaking. Indeed, my general assumption is that attempts atrational decisionmaking is usually better (which is in fact not always true), but many times, including in sports, there is no time for some sort of reasoned analysis. Contra this post then with Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.)

This need for amazing decisionmaking that is nevertheless largely reactive is one reason why it is so difficult to evaluate quarterbacks -- or any player. You only get so far by asking Tom Brady "why did you throw it to him" when his answer is "I felt like he was open." And that's with quarterbacks: obviously safeties on defense, or linebackers, or linemen, runningbacks, all rely more or less on this raw emotional intelligence rather than something coolly rational. How do you measure that kind of instictive, non-descriptive intelligence? Yet if a guy doesn't have it, he'll just kill your team with bad "decisions."

Yet what does the NFL use to evaluate its players' intelligences? The Wonderlic Test. Having just seen the above discussion, where not even Tom Brady's athletic intelligence is necessarily rational or describable in the way a mathematician's or philosopher's is, how useful can this test be? Yes, it can help eliminate some total knuckleheads, in that NFL players must learn large playbooks (and in college must be able to stay eligible lest the idea of student-athlete be completely severed), but most of what makes them elite or not is based on how they react.

When a linebacker just knows that a play-action fake is indeed a fake, or that the runningback still has the ball after misdirection from a wide-receiver faking a reverse, he uses very little if any of the skills tested by the Wonderlic. Yet I do sympathize with the NFL: how else can you test this stuff? But what if having a really high rational intelligence not only didn't help or didn't test what made a player good or great, what if a heightened analytical ability made a player worse?

Eli and Peyton Manning and David Foster Wallace

This is where the "golf swing" intelligence can come in; it's also often called "paralysis by analysis." Think about getting ready to swing a golf club while a friend or pro tries to coach you up. "Keep your arms straight." "Turn your hips." "Keep your head down." "Keep the club face square." "Choke down on the club." "Loosen your grip." "Bring your arms through before you start moving your shoulders, but keep your head down." "Keep the club face square but also rotate your wrists so that you finish with a good rotation." Etc. A friend of mine told me that he had one such session, where a pro told him about ten things to do before he swung the club, and then just sat there a minute before swinging. The pro said, "What are you thinking about?" His reply, "All the stuff you just told me."

Now here's a fact you may not know.

Question: Which Manning brother had the higher Wonderlic score?

Answer: Eli. By a long shot.

Peyton's score was perfectly respectable: a 28, higher than average for his position in fact. Eli? A 39, which put him in the 99th percentile of all NFL players -- as well as the 99th percentile of all two-million test takers. As Charlie Wonderlic said of Eli's score, "There's not a job on the planet that requires a person to score at that level." But who would you rather have making decisions for you on gameday? I thought so. Of course, Eli has improved, but there's no question that Peyton is the more consistent decisionmaker. Indeed, all too often Eli looks uncomfortable, like he has overthought the whole process of "just throw the football to the open guy." (Tom Brady, who scored a 33, is also not known as a hyper-analytical guy, though some of that is hearsay.)

And again, this is quarterback, supposedly the marquee thinking-man's position in all of sports. Obviously defensive backs and tight-ends don't need the same level of analytical ability as quarterbacks do. And yet, after games, what kind of questions do reporters ask? You got it: "What were you thinking out there?" "What did it feel like?" And the answers are almost always completely banal (and where they are not they are probably fake): "I just take it one play at a time. Keep doing my best. Focus on the basics, you know." "I'm just really happy. It feels great to contribute. We've all worked really hard."* Really, of what use is it to ask Santonio Holmes what was going through his mind when he leaked out to the corner of the end zone and made a miraculous, extended catch to win the game? "You know, I had been thinking about this great Henry James novel most of the time, but I regained focus when I saw the ball's trajectory and calculated that, based on its particular rotation speed -- as far as I could detect -- I should place my hands in a particular way and I also calibrated my feet so as to minimize the chance that if I slipped I might get any white ink on my shoes so that the ref might call me out." Uh. Holmes was plenty eloquent after the game, but the bottom line is: the ball was in the air and he made a fantastically athletic play. Any analysis might have been counter productive.

The late David Foster Wallace discussed this in a review he did of a biography about tennis prodigy Tracy Austin. I think it well sums up the dilemma that players, coaches and fans have in trying to understand athletic genius, which not only might be distinct from rational genius, it might be the antithesis of it.

It remains very hard for me to reconcile the vapidity of [an athlete's] narrative mind, on the one hand, with the extraordinary mental powers that are required by world-class tennis, on the other. Anyone who buys into the idea that great athletes are dim should have a close look at an NFL playbook, or at a basketball coach's diagram of a 3-2 zone trap . . . or at an archival film of Ms. Tracy Austin repeatedly putting a ball in a court's corner at high speed fro seventy-eight feet away with huge sums of money at stake and enormous crowds of people watching her do it. Ever try to concentrate on doing something difficult with a crowd of people watching? . . . .

It is not an accident that great athletes are often called "naturals," because they can, in performance, be totally present: they can proceed on instinct and muscle-memory and autonomic will such that agent and action are one. . . . They can withstand forces of distraction that would break a mind prone to self-conscious fear in two.

The real secret behind top athletes' genius, then, may be as esoteric and obvious and dull and profound as silence itself. The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player's mind as he stands at the center of hostile crowd-noise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all. . . .

This is, for me, the real mystery -- whether such a person is an idiot or a mystic or both and/or neither. The only certainty seems to be that such a person does not produce a very good prose memoir [or descriptive post-game interview]. . . . It may be that we spectators, who are not divinely gifted as athletes, are the only ones able truly to see, articulate, and animate the experience of the gift we are denied. And that those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it -- and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence.

This seems backed up by experience. Great players do not always make great coaches (or announcers), and often the "smartest" kids are "dumb" athletes. I will finish (for now) with a quote from a friend who is a high school coach, which I think for now provides about as good a summation as any of the awkward interplay between thinking and doing, "such that agent and action are one":

Give me the 2.5 GPA kids. I'll take them all day, everyday. Smart enough to know what's going on, too dumb to know when something is going to hurt, and not smart enough to remember what hurt last time.

*FN: These quotes are also roughly paraphrased from Wallace's fantastic essay, but since it's all so common anyone who has ever seen a post-game interview could fill these in.

Micheal Jackson's drug abuse: ex-bodyguard Geller

Two of Michael Jackson's former confidantes, medium Uri Geller and ex-bodyguard Matt Fiddes, say they tried in vain to keep the pop superstar from abusing painkillers and other prescription drugs suspected of leading to his death — but others in the singer's circle kept the supplies flowing. "When Michael asked for something, he got it.

This was the great tragedy," Geller said Thursday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his suburban London home. Geller, who said he suffered a terrible falling-out with Jackson several years ago over the issue, said he often had "to shout at Michael, to scream at Michael" as he sought to confiscate the singer's stocks of medication during his travels in England.

Geller said he slept on floors or sofas in Jackson's hotel suites in a bid to talk sense into his sometimes-incoherent friend. "Most of the people around Michael could not say `No!' to him. He desperately needed someone there all the time who could say `No!' and mean it, who could warn him of the dangers ... and tell him the truth," Geller said. "The big problem was that many people wanted to help Michael, to save his life, but we could not be there all the time." Geller said Jackson relied on medications to help him cope with relentless pressure and media criticism in his later years. "With his sanity buffeted and health wracked by global bullying nonstop, I think it's actually incredible that Michael held up as well as he did," he said. Fiddes, an English karate instructor who worked as a senior bodyguard during Jackson's travels in Britain for a decade, said the pop idol abused prescription medications, not recreational drugs, and took so much that it could be difficult to wake him for engagements. "I confiscated packages and Uri did too.

I mean, Uri confiscated injection equipment from his room," Fiddes said in an interview broadcast Thursday by Sky News. "And Uri would scream at Michael, you know, intensely, to stop doing this. But we just were getting pushed out." Fiddes recalled one occasion when Jackson planned to visit London Zoo to see the gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates — but was too spaced out to go anywhere. The bodyguard said he and Geller "were both shaking him trying to wake him up. It was clear that he had taken something that morning and he was hard to wake.

We were extremely concerned ... We couldn't get him in a state that would portray him in a good light." Fiddes said both he and Geller told others supplying medications to Jackson to stop, but when their efforts "got back to Michael, he would have a screaming fit that we were interfering with his private life. He was in denial." Several other Jackson confidantes have expressed concern since his death at the volume and mixture of medications he was taking. Self-help guru Deepak Chopra said he rejected Jackson's 2005 appeals for painkillers and that their relationship suffered lasting damage because of it.

Geller said he was fearful that Jackson could not have completed his planned 50-concert run in London, which was due to start July 13. Stress over the imminent comeback, as well as drug misuse, combined to kill his friend, he said. "Whatever the autopsy will come back with, part of what made Michael Jackson's heart stop involved the stress and the anxiety that, 'My God, in a few days I have to get on a plane and fly to England.' But he could have done it," Geller said.
From Yahoo Music

DEA joins Michael Jackson death probe

The circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson's death have become a federal issue, with the Drug Enforcement Administration asked to help police take a look at the pop star's doctors and possible drug use.

Following Jackson's death, allegations emerged that the 50-year-old King of Pop had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants.

The DEA was asked to help the probe by the Los Angeles Police Department, a law enforcement official in Washington told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

The federal agency can provide resources and experience in investigating drug abuse, illicit drug manufacturers known as "pill mills" and substances local police may not be familiar with, the official said Wednesday.

While the investigation into the singer's death deepened, passionate Michael Jackson fans spent another day in an uneasy limbo, awaiting word from the King of Pop's camp about where and when a memorial service might be held for their hero — and if they're even invited.

Speculation about the potential location of a memorial ricocheted during the day from the Staples Center to the Los Angeles Coliseum to the Nokia Theater.

One spot that was ruled out as an immediate memorial venue was Jackson's sprawling Neverland ranch in Santa Barbara County. Jackson family spokesman Ken Sunshine said a public memorial was in the works for Jackson but it wouldn't be held at Neverland.

That came as a blow to many Jackson fans who had already descended on the estate in the rolling hills near Santa Barbara with the hope of attending a public viewing.

"We're terribly disappointed," said Ida Barron, 44, who arrived with her husband Paul Barron, 56, intending to spend several days in a tent.

It appeared more likely that a funeral and burial would take place in Los Angeles, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.

Many of Jackson's die-hard fans refused to believe that the family would bury their most famous son without acknowledging the supporters who helped propel him to superstardom.

"I can't believe they wouldn't do something for his fans," said Rosie Padron, who had roped off a spot just outside the Neverland gates. "Michael loved his fans."

New Yorkers weren't willing to wait. The weekly Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater turned into a Jackson celebration, with impersonators emulating his outfits and mimicking his dance moves.

Allison Hector, who wore a T-shirt with the image of the "Thriller" album cover, ecstatically emulated moves she learned watching Jackson's music videos.

"Nobody moves like him," the 19-year-old said, her eyes filling with tears. "I feel it in my blood — I just can't help it!"

On the legal front, Jackson's 7-year-old will was filed Wednesday in a Los Angeles court, giving his entire estate to a family trust and naming his 79-year-old mother Katherine and his three children as beneficiaries. The will also estimates the current value of his estate at more than $500 million.

Katherine Jackson was appointed the children's guardian, with entertainer Diana Ross, a longtime friend of Michael Jackson, named successor guardian if something happens to his mother. A court will ultimately decide who the children's legal guardian will be.

Jackson's lawyer John Branca and family friend John McClain, a music executive, were named in the will as co-executors of his estate. In a statement, they said the most important element of the will was Jackson's steadfast desire that his mother become the legal guardian for his children.

"As we work to carry out Michael's instructions to safeguard both the future of his children as well as the remarkable legacy he left us as an artist, we ask that all matters involving his estate be handled with the dignity and the respect that Michael and his family deserve," the statement said.

The will doesn't name father Joe Jackson to any position of authority in administering the estate. Also shut out is ex-wife Debbie Rowe, the mother of his two oldest children.

The executors moved quickly to take control of all of Michael Jackson's property, going to court hours after filing the will to challenge a previous ruling that gave Katherine Jackson control of 2,000 items from Neverland.

Paul Gordon Hoffman, an attorney for the executors, told Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff his clients are the proper people to take over Jackson's financial affairs. He called Katherine Jackson's speed in getting limited power over her son's property "a race to the courthouse that is, frankly, improper."

Judge Beckloff urged attorneys from both sides to try to reach a compromise. A hearing on the estate was set for Monday.

The will, dated July 7, 2002, gives the entire estate to the Michael Jackson Family Trust. Details of the trust will not be made public.

Jackson owns a 50 percent stake in the massive Sony-ATV Music Publishing Catalog, which includes music by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers.

Jackson, who died June 25 at age 50, left behind three children: son Michael Joseph Jr., known as Prince Michael, 12; daughter Paris Michael Katherine, 11; and son Prince Michael II, 7. Rowe was the mother of the two oldest children; the youngest was born to a surrogate mother, who has never been identified.

Rowe, who was married to Jackson in 1996 and filed for divorce three years later, surrendered her parental rights. An appeals court later found that was done in error, and Rowe and Jackson entered an out-of-court settlement in 2006.

Neither Rowe nor her attorneys have indicated whether she intends to seek custody of the two oldest children.

AP writers Michael R. Blood, Noaki Schwartz and Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles; John Rogers in Los Olivos; Michele Salcedo in Washington; and AP Entertainment Writer Erin Carlson in New York contributed to this story. From Yahoo News

Why you can't just play "assignment football" against the flexbone/triple-option

The Navy blog "The Birddog" has a great post breaking down elements of Paul Johnson's flexbone offense. The videos he culls exhibit something I've tried to explain about defending Johnson's offense: you can't just play "assignment football." That term gets thrown around by announcers a lot, with the implication being that all you have to do is "assign" one guy to the dive back, one to the quarterback, and one to the pitch back. The problem is that Johnson will figure out your assignments and change his blocking schemes accordingly. For example, compare the two videos below, again, both courtesy of The Birddog.



Okay, so the safety ends up making the tackle on the pitch back, while the cornerback forced the pitch by taking on the quarterback. Johnson saw that, and on the very next play, called the same play to the other side, but with one important difference: the near slotback blocked the safety -- i.e. the guy responsible for the pitch back. So who now has the pitch back? Let's find out:



Answer: No one. That Paul Johnson, he's crafty. This is basically what happened when those Georgia Tech teams put it together last season and whupped up on teams. Indeed, his offense had a rather high degree of variance, considering that in some games against weak opponents it did little but in others, including against Miami and Georgia, the second half was defensive armageddon. I think the Miami game in particular was an example of a defense that had a plan for the flexbone going into the game, a decent one, but Johnson figured it out about halfway through and Miami lacked the ever important counter-to-his-counter. And once Johnson started messing with UM's defensive assignments, the defense got stretched out, and then plays like these happened:





(Ht Dr Saturday.) I will have more to say about Johnson's flexbone before the season begins, including some thoughts on defending it.(Preview question: how do you deal with the flexbone's triple scheme -- which can easily outflank the defense to one side of the field -- with the flexbone's immediate pre-snap threat of four-verticals? Keep in mind that adding another defender to the box tends to force you into a single-safety defense, which is precisely what four verticals is designed for. More on this later.)

But for now, savor last season's mutlifarious brilliance of option football writ BCS. The flexbone-triple:



End note: As a final bonus, it appears the good people at EA Sports have added more passing to the flexbone. In the video below, the old run and shoot "choice" route is shown. (Ht EDSBS.)



I'd like to think they got this from me, but all of us like to tout our self-importance, no?

Repost: Preview of Nick Saban's Alabama defense

[Ed. Note: This was originally posted last season as part of an Alabama - Clemson "coaching preview." I thought that now, in the doldrums before the season, the portion dedicated to Nick Saban could be reposted.]



Nick Saban: Still Billy’s Boy

Saban has been coaching defense – and coaching it quite well – for decades. But there is no question that the defining period of his coaching career was 1991-1994, when he was Bill Belichick’s defensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns. Just knowing that tells you a great deal about Saban’s defense: he (primarily) uses the 3-4; he’s very aggressive, especially on passing downs; he wants to stop the run on first and second down; he’s not afraid to mix up schemes, coverages, blitzes, and looks of all kinds; and, most importantly, he is intense and attentive to detail, which is the hallmark of any great defensive coach.

Let's allow Saban to explain his defensive philosophy in his own words. From one of his LSU defensive playbooks:

“[Our] philosophy on first and second down is to stop the run and play good zone pass defense. We will occasionally play man-to-man and blitz in this situation. On third down, we will primarily play man-to-man and mix-in some zone and blitzes. We will rush four or more players versus the pass about ninety-percent of the time.

“In all situations, we will defend the inside or middle of the field first – defend inside to outside. Against the run, we will not allow the ball to be run inside. We want to force the ball outside. Against the pass, we will not allow the ball to be thrown deep down the middle or inside. We want to force the ball to be thrown short and/or outside.

“… Finally, our job is to take the ball away from the opponents’ offense and score or set up good field position for our offense. We must knock the ball loose, force mistakes, and cause turnovers. Turnovers and making big plays win games. We will be alert and aggressive and take advantage of every opportunity to come up with the ball . . . . The trademark of our defense will be effort, toughness, and no mental mistakes regarding score or situation in any game.”

None of this is revolutionary and much of it is coach-patois (there is another section in his playbook where every position is required to put in “super human effort” or else they are deemed to have failed), but it’s a good place to start. Most good defenses begin with the premise that, to be successful, they must stop the run on first and second down to force known passing situations on 3rd down. (Which is one reason why Bill Walsh – in words far too often unheeded – advocated doing much of your dropback passing on first down.) Indeed, the book on Bob Stoops’s defense is known to everyone: first and second down expect an eight-man front and on third down you will see some kind of base or nickel personnel zone-blitz. No mystery there. A final brief prefatory note is that while Saban bases out of a 3-4, he quite commonly has one of his linebackers put their hand down and line up as would a 4-3 defensive end.

So let’s get a bit more specific. First I’ll discuss what is maybe Saban’s most common defense, Cover 1 Robber. Second, when Saban does use zones on known passing situations he likes the overload blitz and the common 3-3 zone blitz behind it, so I’ll show a basic example of what this might look like. And finally, I’ll discuss a couple coverage techniques that Saban likes to use.

Cover 1 “Robber”

Cover 1 is maybe the most common defense in the SEC. (Though “Cover 2” is close if you lump together all its variants.) Base Cover 1 is quite simple: the “1” refers to a deep safety who aligns down the middle, while all the offense’s skill guys are covered man to man. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is bump and run – it could be loose coverage – but it often is bump and run. The defense needs a great centerfielder back at Free Safety who can stop the deep ball and cover sideline to sideline.

The nice thing about this defense is it is simple and, once you’ve locked in five guys in man and a free safety, you can do whatever you want with the other five. And, maybe most importantly, with just one free-safety deep, the defense can get in a lot of eight-man fronts. On passing downs, the defense can find ways to creatively blitz five guys, have a deep safety, and all the while still account for all five of the offense’s receivers. The defense cannot really outnumber the pass protectors, but it can still collapse the pocket. That’s base Cover 1.

Cover 1 “Robber” works the same, except there are only four rushers and, along with the deep middle safety, another defender comes down to an intermediate level to read the QB’s eyes and “rob” any pass routes over the middle, like curls, in routes, and crossing routes. “Robber” is the most popular term for this technique but Saban’s is “Rat.” (I was always partial to Homer Smith’s term, “floaters,” which is the most descriptive.) There’s nothing magic about this coverage; every NFL team and most BCS college teams use it. Indeed, despite all the bluster about the Indianapolis Colts being a “Cover 2 team,” on first and second down you see lots of Cover 1 and Cover 1 robber from them, except they use their strong safety, Bob Sanders, as the “floater.” The key is for the floater to be able to read run, screen, or pass, and to use his eyes to get to the receiver and the ball. It’s particularly effective nowadays with the increased use of spread formations which most offenses use to open up passing lanes over the middle. Floaters or rat players can stop these inside passes and make game-changing interceptions. Below are some diagrams, and I expect to see Saban use this coverage a lot this season. (As a final note, Cover 1 Robber is useful against spread offense teams with mobile QB’s because the floater’s job becomes to not only read the QB’s eyes on passing downs but also to watch him for scrambles and to simply mirror the him on run plays like the option and the zone read.)

Base Zone Blitz

I won’t say too much because I’ve written extensively on pass protection and the zone-blitz here. But Saban will go to the zone-blitz in some passing situations and also when he feels like he can use the blitz in a way to attack an expected run and still play zone behind it. For example, if a team likes to run off tackle to the TE side on a particular down and distance, he might call a blitz that attacks that area and the zone blitz lets him still play sound coverage behind it. And like most modern defenses, Saban’s most common coverage behind a zone-blitz is a 3-3 or three-deep and three-intermediate defense with five rushers. Cover two behind a zone blitz is often dangerous because of the added uncovered deep seams, but most defenses feel comfortable with the 3-3. Below is a good example of an overload zone-blitz Saban uses to the open side of a one-back formation.

The thing to remember is that for years, when a team blitzed it was playing either Cover 1 or Cover 0 man (or simply left holes in its zone), and quarterbacks were coached to throw the ball where the blitzer had come from. Nowadays, there’s a common perception that a zone-blitz works because a defensive linemen gets in the throwing lane – no. What the dropping defensive end in the diagram above does is allow the defense as a whole to stay in zone coverage, and further notice who is covering the area where the blitzers came from: the strong safety, who is usually an effective pass defender, certainly moreso than a defensive end. That is how zone-blitzes cause confusion.

Other Techniques - Cornerback Leverage and Pattern Reading

Finally, let’s discuss some coverage techniques. The first is that Saban likes to have his cornerbacks adjust their “leverage” on a receiver based on the receiver’s split from the tackle and sideline. The theory is that if the wide receiver has cut his split down he has done one of two things: (a) given himself more room to run an out breaking route, or (b) cheated in to run a crossing or deep in-breaking route. So if the receiver cheats his split in, Saban has his cornerbacks align outside the receiver to defend the out-breaking route, because if he runs the in-breaking route the corner has help from the linebackers and safeties. Similarly, if the receiver lines up very wide (bottom of the numbers, let’s say), he has given himself room to run an in-breaking route like a slant. So the cornerback will align inside the receiver to take that route away and on the belief that an out-cut from that wide will be very difficult for the quarterback. To coach this Saban uses a “divider” line where they believe the receiver’s tendencies change to reflect one of the above two strategies. Nevertheless, the defensive back still must defend the route the receiver actually runs and maintain proper technique, but this is an important starting point.

More significant, however, is that Saban heavily coaches up “pattern reading” within his zone drops. The two zone-dropping schools of thought are to teach “spot-drops” or “pattern-reading.” One can overemphasize the distinction, but generally spot-dropping is easier to teach and was the traditional approach. For example, if your outside linebacker is responsible for the weak-flat, he will take his read steps and, upon reading pass, will drop to a spot and then react to the QB’s eyes. A big advantage with spot-dropping is simply that it is easy to teach to, say, a run-stuffing inside linebacker who spends most of his time on run game pursuit and shedding blocks. But the weakness is that well coached receivers – who have enough time – can become excellent at settling in the “zone holes” between defenders. And, with good receivers and good QBs, offenses have become more and more adept and finding and exploiting these zone holes.

Pattern-reading, on the other hand, is much like a matchup-zone in basketball. Defenders are responsible for zones but they basically play man on the receivers who come into their zones. Moreover, pattern-read teams begin by immediately coaching their defenders on how to recognize popular pass combinations (and indeed, the very concept of pass-combinations themselves), and each week zero in on the 5-15 most common pass concepts they will see from that opponent. When done correctly, pattern-reading defenders know exactly how to cover receivers in their zones and seamlessly (in a quite literal sense) pass the receivers onto other defenders as they run their routes. One thing that distinguishes Saban is that he uses pattern-reading in almost all of his coverages, including the traditional Cover 3, whereas many coaches only let certain defenders pattern read or only use it with certain defenses like Cover 4. Sounds a lot like Belichick, no?