Eric Mangini Thread

Originally posted by thl408:
My guess is no knows how to play zone defense very well because that's not something they did under Fangio. No one knows how to blitz because they rarely did it under Fangio.

I thought defense played a very fair amount of zone under fangio.

Originally posted by the_dynasty:

Originally posted by thl408:
My guess is no knows how to play zone defense very well because that's not something they did under Fangio. No one knows how to blitz because they rarely did it under Fangio.

I thought defense played a very fair amount of zone under fangio.

They played very little spot dropping zone under Fangio. When creating the Coverages and Concepts thread, I had to dig deep to find Cover2 Zone and Cover3. I never found Tampa2. Fangio's defense was predominantly man coverage and pattern matching. Defenders assigned to a WR that ended up staying in to pass block would drop to a zone, but that was only because Fangio was strict with rushing 4. (If a RB stayed in to pass block, the LB assigned to him would spot drop zone).

Originally posted by the_dynasty:
I thought defense played a very fair amount of zone under fangio.

They played a patter-match scheme where the defender would start the play in zone and switch to man coverage once the receivers made their break and declared their route, basically adapting to whatever the offense threw at you. It eliminated all the soft spots you see in our zone coverage now.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
No offense taken at all- and my thoughts too when you see stuff like this, I'll even think, "if I can see this, and I don't do this for a living...."

Ray Lewis made a comment about the defense being out of sync--He said that it's as if there is no communication going on and that every defense he'd been on there is constant communication...DBs to DBs, LBs to LBs, DBs to LBs, LBs to DBs. Seemed like he was talking about the niners.

When four DBs for the niners are all near a receiver on a deep route and they all break the wrong way after the catch... They looked like swooping birds doing a pattern flight while the receiver ran straight into the endzone. Total confusion.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:

How come AZ can continually dial up these effective blitzes? I know their secondary is very good, but it's not like I'm seeing some huge discrepancy between the personnel

Like you said, their secondary is good. ARI plays man coverage behind their blitzes. The 49ers are playing zone behind their blitzes. Blitzes work when it's executed well. Every rusher has to work in concert with one another as they shoot their assigned gap or occupy their assigned OLman. In defense of the 49ers, this is the most they've blitzed in the past few seasons so it's a learning process.

And guys such as CB's, S's and ILB's are blitzing too for the first time while OLB's are dropping back a lot which I'm assuming affects rhythm as well. Takes a while to get in sync. I hope it starts to all gel quickly!

Like Thl said, that sticky man coverage behind it helps a lot too. Having a guy named Patrick Peterson helps a lot too. He's, essentially, left on an island in man coverage and is spectacular. That gives the other guys a safety to help. If the opposing O tries to keep an extra blocker in, that frees up a middle lurker for even more help.

Comes back to the whole, "gotta have the horses to run in the Kentucky derby" thing.

I'm just not sold on our young DB's. I know the pass rush isn't helping and they're young, but I'm just not seeing the potential. They look like they have stiffer hips, lack ball skills, and have a hard time understanding NFL passing concepts quickly.

I hope I'm wrong, but it's hard to have hope even for the next year and a half.

You're probably not wrong. But I'd like to know what's in the stable first.

I'm ready to just go press man with Acker, Johnson, Brock/Ward with safeties over the top. Let them play how they played in college. Get back the OLBs and DL primarily in pass rush. Stunts. Sure, bring an exotic blitz once in awhile. Show a disguised pre snap look and change it up post snap. This zone is killing everyone right now. If they beat us in man, make them at least earn it. Get the 4 safeties on the field. Get Bowman and Wilhoite off when you can.

Originally posted by thl408:
Like you said, their secondary is good. ARI plays man coverage behind their blitzes. The 49ers are playing zone behind their blitzes. Blitzes work when it's executed well. Every rusher has to work in concert with one another as they shoot their assigned gap or occupy their assigned OLman. In defense of the 49ers, this is the most they've blitzed in the past few seasons so it's a learning process.

The Cards approach is largely based on being able to trust their CB's on an island. That is why Bowles brought in Revis and Cromartie when he went to the Jets. Its about timing and efficiency, using a variety of blitzes, particularly the triple A gap blitzes to keep an offense off-balance. They are a very well coached team and James Betcher has stuck to the same system that Bowles used. They've been in the same system for awhile, Calais Campbell was talking about even how much of the stuff they do now is similar to what they did under Ray Horton, back when Whisenhunt was the head coach.


I was hoping that Mangini would follow up and put his own touches to the defense while largely maintaining the framework of it, the way Bowles did when he replaced Horton but it seems like Mangini decided to blow everything up sky high and start anew.

Originally posted by NCommand:
I'm ready to just go press man with Acker, Johnson, Brock/Ward with safeties over the top. Let them play how they played in college. Get back the OLBs and DL primarily in pass rush. Stunts. Sure, bring an exotic blitz once in awhile. Show a disguised pre snap look and change it up post snap. This zone is killing everyone right now. If they beat us in man, make them at last earn it. Get the 4 safeties on the field. Get Bowman and Wilhoite off when you can.

I've hoped for this for a couple of weeks just to get a feel for the individual talents of the DBs. Acker's draft write up mentioned his flexible hips and agility to turn with the receiver...so it seems press man would be his cup of tea. Johnson has looked good at times as well.

Fangio mentioned how he was surprised that Willis had not learned to blitz when he joined the team. Did he have Willis blitz? No. So I'm not sure whether Fangio decided to go with the players strengths or did he just decide to play bland and allow J Smith and A Smith terrorize QBs?

I still think the team is in the throws of learning paralysis and they need to either lighten up on the schemes or move to a more straight forward scheme for at least part of the game...press man.

Mangini's defensive schemes work great.......if it was 2003 and you had Rodney Harrison and Teddy Bruschi on the defense lol

Originally posted by goldlame2013:
Mangini's defensive schemes work great.......if it was 2003 and you had Rodney Harrison and Teddy Bruschi on the defense lol

Yet even back in 2003 the Patriots did a greater variety of things, especially on the back end, they were constantly employing new looks and varying their tactics based on opponent. Bruschi was actually one of the weak links on that defense in terms of the passing game and got picked on a bit.


Compare Mangini's approach to what the Patriots are running today.

"So when you talk about, 'What defensive system do you run?' virtually every defense you play in the league is in nickel, five defensive backs. Five defensive backs, whatever version it is. There are five DBs, put it that way. Whatever the rest of it is, you can look at that separately. That's certainly not the way it was 10 years ago. I'd say we were in the 30s, 30 percent, high-30s. Now that number is doubled. We're almost, I think we're in the 70 … to 75 percent range of nickel defense this year. Now you know, we've been ahead some, but we've also played a lot of multiple receiver teams."

In essence, the discussion of whether a team is 4-3 or 3-4 is outdated. There are – especially with the Patriots – only two linebackers on the field for the vast majority of their defensive snaps. What kind of front do the Patriots use?

Generally, the Patriots have two defensive tackles and two standup defensive ends, two linebackers and five defensive backs. Other times, they will go with three down linemen but those could be a defensive tackle and two guys who came into the league as either outside linebackers or defensive ends – edge guys – but are playing down.

http://www.csnne.com/blog/patriots-talk/patriots-defensive-evolution-constant

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

Originally posted by goldlame2013:
Mangini's defensive schemes work great.......if it was 2003 and you had Rodney Harrison and Teddy Bruschi on the defense lol

Yet even back in 2003 the Patriots did a greater variety of things, especially on the back end, they were constantly employing new looks and varying their tactics based on opponent. Bruschi was actually one of the weak links on that defense in terms of the passing game and got picked on a bit.


Compare Mangini's approach to what the Patriots are running today.

"So when you talk about, 'What defensive system do you run?' virtually every defense you play in the league is in nickel, five defensive backs. Five defensive backs, whatever version it is. There are five DBs, put it that way. Whatever the rest of it is, you can look at that separately. That's certainly not the way it was 10 years ago. I'd say we were in the 30s, 30 percent, high-30s. Now that number is doubled. We're almost, I think we're in the 70 … to 75 percent range of nickel defense this year. Now you know, we've been ahead some, but we've also played a lot of multiple receiver teams."

In essence, the discussion of whether a team is 4-3 or 3-4 is outdated. There are – especially with the Patriots – only two linebackers on the field for the vast majority of their defensive snaps. What kind of front do the Patriots use?

Generally, the Patriots have two defensive tackles and two standup defensive ends, two linebackers and five defensive backs. Other times, they will go with three down linemen but those could be a defensive tackle and two guys who came into the league as either outside linebackers or defensive ends – edge guys – but are playing down.

http://www.csnne.com/blog/patriots-talk/patriots-defensive-evolution-constant

And that's point, the Pats are ahead of the curve, like 49ers used to be. Now the 49ers are followers.

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by NCommand:
I'm ready to just go press man with Acker, Johnson, Brock/Ward with safeties over the top. Let them play how they played in college. Get back the OLBs and DL primarily in pass rush. Stunts. Sure, bring an exotic blitz once in awhile. Show a disguised pre snap look and change it up post snap. This zone is killing everyone right now. If they beat us in man, make them at last earn it. Get the 4 safeties on the field. Get Bowman and Wilhoite off when you can.

I've hoped for this for a couple of weeks just to get a feel for the individual talents of the DBs. Acker's draft write up mentioned his flexible hips and agility to turn with the receiver...so it seems press man would be his cup of tea. Johnson has looked good at times as well.

Fangio mentioned how he was surprised that Willis had not learned to blitz when he joined the team. Did he have Willis blitz? No. So I'm not sure whether Fangio decided to go with the players strengths or did he just decide to play bland and allow J Smith and A Smith terrorize QBs?

I still think the team is in the throws of learning paralysis and they need to either lighten up on the schemes or move to a more straight forward scheme for at least part of the game...press man.

I seem to recall a sick sack on Drew Brees, Monday Night home opener in 2010 where WIllis flew through the line and dropped him very fast.

That was pre-Fangio.

Originally posted by JTsBiggestFan:
I seem to recall a sick sack on Drew Brees, Monday Night home opener in 2010 where WIllis flew through the line and dropped him very fast.

That was pre-Fangio.

Yes, he did blitz but it was extremely rare and Fangio was surprised that his knowledge of how and when to blitz was so poor for such a great player. My guess is that Willis and Bowman were such great sideline to sideline ILBs that blitzing wasn't a strength...especially as they had the Smiths.

Mangini better keep it simple

Originally posted by Allx9er:
Mangini better keep it simple

he already does.

if the Packers drop a 50 burger, fire him today