Football analysis and strategy from Chris B. Brown
The Science of the Post: Going Deep with “Mills”
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The Science of the Post: Going Deep with “Mills”
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherf—r in the room, accept no substitutes. – Ordell Robbie I have an admission to make: while I love a well executed power sweep or double-A gap blitz, and I’m a sucker for a well timed shallow cross or screen pass, and while I even get a…
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The Evolution of the Inverted Veer/Power Read … and of Alabama and Clemson’s newest wrinkle, the “Toss Read”
For the last five or six seasons, the so-called Inverted Veer (also known as the Power Read) has been one of the most effective plays in football, and it has been the weapon of choice for some of college football’s greatest talents, including Cam Newton and RG3 and now Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson and Jalen…
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Smart Notes — Harbaugh’s Coaches Clinic, Mouse Davis R&S Tapes, Twitter, Toenail Fungus
Clinic season. Springtime is when coaches get together and — to some extent against their own interests (though not entirely) — share information on the ins and outs of their schemes, personnel strategies and general program management. Sometimes this involves one staff visiting another, but the backbone are the clinics, where (typically) college and sometimes…
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LSU Hires Dave Aranda as Defensive Coordinator
Aranda is an excellent hire for Les Miles and LSU. From LSU’s release: “This is a great hire for us,” Miles said. “Dave has an outstanding track record of producing some of the best defenses in college football. We’ve seen him up close and understand how difficult it is to have success against him. “He’s…
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New Grantland: Breakdown of Gary Patterson’s TCU 4-2-5 Defense
I’ve been working for a few months on a deep-dive analysis of Gary Patterson’s morphing, multifarious 4-2-5 defense for Grantland, and it’s now up. Patterson’s defense is intriguing on a number of levels, and not only because TCU is ranked #2 in the preseason AP polls: Patterson’s 4-2-5 is custom built for the kinds of…
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Mastering the Sack
I recently stumbled across some pretty nifty cut-up videos of NFL sacks, which highlight the effort, techniques and schemes that result in losses for offenses. It’s an understudied area, as sacks and pressures that move the QB off the spot and force bad throws or decisions are often seen as results rather than processes: it…
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Translating Nick Saban: Three Plays from the BCS Championship
Nick Saban did the full ESPN car wash today, and ESPN, to their credit, fit in a brief bit of actual football talk as they looked at three plays from the BCS Championship game against Notre Dame. The segment is definitely worth watching: Although there was good information here, the segment was also a bit…
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New Grantland: How the Ravens Will Try to Contain Colin Kaepernick and the Diversity of the 49ers’ Offense
It’s now up over at Grantland: Making whichever choice this unblocked defender makes the wrong one is read option 101. It’s an idea that’s been around for more than a decade. When fully realized, San Francisco’s read option goes far beyond those basics, to places college teams haven’t even been. “We’ve gone down our own…
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New Grantland: How Joe Flacco’s Big Arm Can Exploit the 49ers’ Secondary
It’s now up at Grantland: The key to the 49ers’ success in that game, as well as for much of the past two years, is rooted in a common misconception about their defense. It’s often noted that the 49ers play almost entirely with two safeties deep, splitting the field into halves while the remaining defenders…
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Nick Saban Doesn’t Teach Backpedaling?
Former Alabama and current Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick caused something of a stir when he told the media that he “never backpedaled at Alabama.” Apparently, this is something Bengals coaches value, as Kirkpatrick had to learn to backpedal. Some fairly questioned whether this was hyperbole — How do you not teach defensive backs to…
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