All-Twenty Tuesday: Cardinals Defense With Buckner

Though Buckner won’t be calling the shots on defense, as he’s not the defensive coordinator, his style of rushing the passer was certainly taken into consideration when making the hire.

So, now that we know of the stats he’s had and some of the feature players he’s groomed over the last few years, what does that look like schematically on the field? Are the Bucs going to be changing up how they align their defensive front?  Now that the ink has dried on the contract, let’s go over some Cardinals film and envision where some of the current Bucs players could be filling in in what many hope to be a revamped defensive front for 2018.

Let’s get back to some basics with schemes — ultimately my goal with the Cover 3 is to teach you all how to recognize this stuff when you watch it live so you can better understand your team and their potential.

Anytime you heard the question, “are they 4-3 or 3-4?” most of the time the coach or person you’re asking will respond with, “well, everything is multiple now a days.” That answer isn’t technically wrong, but it doesn’t answer the question that still deserves to be answered and it doesn’t really clarify anything.

Let’s clarify it now.

The numbers in the formations “4-3” or “3-4” indicate how many players are where. The first number in the sequence tells you how many down linemen there are (meaning how many defensive players have their hands in the ground in the trenches). The second number in the sequence identifies how many linebackers there are. So, in a 4-3 there are four box players with their hands in the ground at the line of scrimmage and there are three linebackers behind or around them. In a 3-4, there are only three down linemen while there are four linebackers.

So, what’s the real difference, or the better question might be what’s the point?

It’s all about spacing and personnel, really.

Take the picture above as a reference. Because football begins with stopping the run, that’s where alignment strategies begin. To the right and left of every player along the offensive trench there is a “gap.” When a defense lines up, there generally has to be an equal amount of players in the box (meaning defensive linemen and linebackers, although sometimes a safety if one creeps down close to the line of scrimmage) as there are gaps. In an “even” trench, there are six gaps. When a tight end is added, that creates an extra gap to seven and is called an “odd” trench – even and odd numbers, obviously.

The diagram above makes things a littler easier to see. The letters in between the offensive line tell you where the gaps are and what they’re called, and the numbers in front of the defensive linemen tell you what “technique” or positioning they’re lined up in – that’s what it’s talking about when you hear people say Gerald McCoy is a “3-tech defensive tackle.”

Just because a defense is multiple in what it can do doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a “home base” of a formation. For Buckner, that formation has been the 3-4, but with an “Under” variation like Pittsburgh, Baltimore and the Los Angeles Rams run.

The screenshot above is what a 3-4 Under looks like. It’s a traditional 3-4 alignment with three down linemen and four linebackers, but the way you can tell it’s an “Under” variation is because the nose tackle (defensive lineman in the middle) shades slightly towards the closed side of the play (the side where the tight end is, if one is present). If you’ll look above, there’s not only one but two tight ends to the right side of the screen, and you can see the nose tackle shading slightly to the center’s right shoulder, instead of either straight in front of his helmet or on the other side. The rest of the spacing builds off of that.

Now, I’m sure the next question is, why would the Bucs move to a 3-4 when we were told they have the personnel to run a 4-3?

To answer that question we have to explain that there are more than just two options: 4-3 or 3-4. There are different version of each that slide some closer to the other.

Some 3-4 formations do what is called “2-gapping,” which is where the down defensive linemen are responsible for covering two gaps instead of one. For these types of 3-4 defenses, you’re going to look for big, long defensive linemen who can hold up against double teams and basically eat up space and gaps, making room for the linebackers to make the plays. The Buccaneers have the linebackers to do that, but they don’t exactly have the defensive linemen to.

This is where the whole “you can’t switch to a 3-4 because it’s a waste of Gerald McCoy” comes in, which would be true for some 3-4 variations, but not the one Buckner runs.

In a 3-4 Under, you still have to have at least one player manning two gaps, but the rest of the defensive line gets to one gap, which is where McCoy, for example, is at his strength. This is the position that Pro Bowlers Cameron Heyward and Aaron Donald play in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, respectively.

Allowing McCoy to play one gap from one of the 3-4 defensive end spots – likely the one to the weak side of the field – allows him to still use that great jump off the snap to disrupt plays in the backfield.

The play above is a good example of the Cardinals one-gapping along the defensive line with a disguised blitz. Arizona sent its defensive linemen going one way, occupying just one gap while the blitzing player was able to make an impact. That left a one-on-one on the edge and that player was able to disrupt the pass.

The screenshot above is of a play that is a good visualization of what the Bucs could be under Buckner and where Gerald McCoy would still be able to impact the game just fine.

The formation above isn’t exactly like the diagrams of a 3-4 Under would show since the Cardinals liked to get a bit unconventional with their spacing to try to confuse the offensive line (not a bad idea), but you still see one of the interior defensive lineman shading to the strong side with the tight end which, in turn, gave the strong side defensive end (possibly McCoy here) and the strong side stand up linebacker (think Kendell Beckwith or Noah Spence) both one-on-ones.

All of that is nice coming from a base formation when you know the other team is going to pass, but just as the cliche “we like to stay multiple” answer suggests, today’s age of football is all about getting pressure from nickel formations (meaning one less linebacker and an extra defensive back in their place to better cover more receivers in spread offenses).

The screenshot above is a look at a Buckner 3-4 Under front coming from a nickel formation. The Cardinals were more aggressive in their nature. They often had a strong safety or a cornerback as a threat to either blitz or run contain on any nickel down. That’s something the Bucs could do more of, if they choose, but it’s risky with their current personnel.

Regardless, if they go to a 3-4 Under, even though it could translate fine from a gap standpoint, they’ll still have to do it from the nickel formation, too.

In the play above, you can see the linemen firing off the ball in one direction shooting their one gap. Buckner was quoted on the previous page saying they want to be the ones to dictate what the offensive line is going to worry about due to how aggressive they attack the pocket, not the other way around fearing the weapons on the offensive side.

The play above was a good example of that. Every gap was accounted for while the play was developing, and the extra blitz should have gotten home for the sack. There were plenty of one-on-one opportunities, even with the one gap system in place.

Even if the Bucs go to the 3-4 Under as a base, they’ll still be playing from the 4-3 formation, at times, as the Cardinals did, even as a more 3-4 aggressive team.

The screenshot above is a common 4-3 alignment from a nickel formation. In it, you have the nose tackle in the middle shading to the open side of the field as to two gap for the defensive end on the left who just has to worry about backside contain, you have your 3-tech defensive tackle as the centerpiece in between one gap and you have the other defensive end heads up with the tight end as to cover two gaps on the closed side in case of an outside run. When you add in that the two linebackers and a safety will come down into the box, that means all the gaps are accounted for and the play should be a successful one.

It was.

So where’s the catch then? If a 3-4 can play from an Under variation in a one-gap system and get the job done with multiple formations in between, why isn’t every team running it?

Well…

The thing about 3-4 defenses is that they’re more aggressive by nature. They give a defense more options to disguise what they’re doing, which players are dropping and which ones are blitzing, it allows them to bring extra players for pressure and more players around the box means less yards after catch over the middle and more clutter in run defense. But, when you go beyond that, if you don’t have the right players in the secondary, you can get burned like in the play above.

In the best 3-4 defenses, you need corners who can play close, man coverage and you need a center fielder, single-high safety who is not only athletic as hell, but instinctive to boot. You need 3-4 strong safeties that are truly box safeties. There isn’t as much Cover 2 and they’re more there for tight end coverage and run support. A 3-4 strong safety is very much defined, something the Bucs didn’t have the last two years.

The Bucs have a player I believe can be a single-high safety in Justin Evans and they might have an outside guy who can be a lock down in cornerback Brent Grimes. But, the big problem with the Cardinals last year, and with any aggressive 3-4 defense is that when you have a weak spot, it gets exploited quick. Patrick Peterson is one of the best corners in the game, but he could only cover one side. Opposing teams killed the Cardinals opposite him because there was such a drop off. Playing a 3-4 requires so much chemistry because of how aggressive it is. But, the pay off is a formation that has won most of the Super Bowls over the last decade.

Perhaps the Bucs are a year away in the secondary from completing a full-on 3-4 transformation, but that shouldn’t stop them from trying. Buckner’s 3-4 Under front can still get the most out of some of the Bucs’ best pass rushers like McCoy, Spence and even Lavonte David and Kwon Alexander as linebackers – I’m sure linebackers coach Mark Duffner would welcome the added aggression, especially since David and Alexander weren’t blitzed nearly as much as they were in 2016 and neither recorded a single sack last year.

Much of the rest of the defense is out of Buckner’s control, but that front he does control has played with effort, effectiveness and aggression for the last five years. In whatever formation that will come from, Tampa Bay needs it.