Covering Mesh Route in Man Coverage

Michigan is a 4-3 personnel.

The Rush:

DL is slanting with the LB rushing off the the edge.

The Coverage:

Cover 1 with LB manned on the RB adding to the rush in a green dog technique

The pass rush is pretty straight forward. The impressive part is the man coverage. The Safety and LB do a good job of getting on different levels. The LB is playing the hip aligned TE at 4 yards with outside leverage while the safety is at 6. The press alignment of the corners naturally puts them on different levels from the man coverage players on the inside receivers. Post-snap the LB plays the upfield arm of the deeper route in the mesh. The corner has the WR on the lower part of the mesh. This is a great example of undercutting a route to get to low hip position maintenance. By undercutting the route the Corner is out of danger of getting picked on the mesh. Great job of understanding the route and knowing the position maintenance of when to play high arm vs. undercutting to play low hip. Good stuff from Don Brown.

Michigan Open Edge Run Pressure

When a TE is in the game, one tried and true pressure strategy is to slant the defensive line to the TE and send extra rushers to the open side (opposite the TE). The philosophy is simple, the moving DL make the TE side runs more difficult and help build a wall. The defense is looking to force the RB to hit the wall or cut back way from the moving DL into the extra rushers.

Michigan is in a sub personnel with 3 LB's 2 Rush Backer (OLB/DE types in 2 pt stances) and 1 down lineman. The secondary is a 6 DB dime personnel.

The Rush:
The front is slanting to the DE with 2 edge rushers. The inside edge rusher is able to bend flat and chase down the RB on run away while the outside edge rusher is able to play for boot/naked from the QB.

The Coverage:
Cover 1 with the mugged up LB manned on the RB.

Good job by the TE side edge rush building the wall and the bending open side rusher chasing the RB down.

Good stuff from Coach Brown and the Wolverines.

Michigan Pressure

Really interesting and effective pressure concept from Michigan defensive coordinator Don Brown. The Wolverines are in a 3-3 nickel personnel package.

The Rush:
The front slides the 3 down linemen to the strong side and has all 3 LB's walked up to the weak side. The Mike is initially in a 3 point stance. 

The effect is a 4 man version of America's Blitz. The Will wraps around to the fill the role of the inside rusher in the America's blitz concept. Because the defense bluffs the weak side overload the protection doesn't identify the concept as America's blitz and pass it off. The RB is forced into a really difficult block, scanning all the way back across the formation to pick up the Will as he wraps around. 

The Coverage:
Strong side is a soft cover 2 and weak side is a hard cover 2. 

Good stuff from the Michigan defense!

4 Man Full Line Twist

Here is another example of a twist that was a focus of a previous post about Don Brown's defensive scheme. This example is from the Falcon divisional playoff game vs. the Seahawks.

For the specifics of the twist, check out the previous article. The coverage was backed up by a cover 1 concept from a dime personnel.

Good stuff from Dan Quinn.

Don Brown Pass Rush Twist

Here is a 4 man pass rush twist Michigan Defensive Coordinator Don Brown utilized last season when he was coaching Boston College. 

The DE's are slanting inside. The DT's are looping to contain opposite of their initial alignment. 

A more traditional double twist from a DL looks like:

Both have the DE's going inside and the DT's looping. Crossing the DT's creates an interesting challenge for the pass protection.

The initial inside looping action of the DT, looks and feels like a DT twist.

The loop causes the guards to squeeze inside and put their vision to the opposite DT. With the Guard's attention inside the End has a 1 on 1 inside rush opportunity vs. the OT. 

For the offense to pick this stunt up the OG and OT have to set inside and redirect back out.

It is a difficult task for the guard to transition his eyes from DT to opposite DT and finally to the End. If he does get his eyes in the right place, he then has to physically handle redirecting and blocking the End. 

The OT has a difficult block due to lack of initial help from the guard. On a traditional DE/DT twist the OT will squeeze hip to hip with the OG. The body position of the OG helps stop the momentum of the penetrating DE. Once the DE is controlled the OT can set back outside to the looping DE. With the DT looping from the other side, the OT gets less help initially. No body positioning help for the OG means the DE may simply win the inside 1 on 1 pass rush. The other challenge is the OT may be engaged, locked on, and deep in the pass set by the time the looping DT from the opposite side shows up. In that case it is difficult for the OT to redirect and pick up the looper.

This same twist can be found other places like a old playbook from Tennessee Titans Defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau.