Rodrigue discusses Snow

[Mr. Scot]

In The Athletic: What Panthers DC Phil Snow’s first minutes with media says about the direction of Carolina’s defense

Regarding the question that's on everybody's mind, here's what Rodrigue gathered from the conference call.

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What’s his ‘base’? Why does it matter?

Snow got his first defensive coordinator job in 1980. Since then, he has run a 4-3 base defense. He’s also run a 3-4 base defense. He’s leaned on nickel, he’s played some dime, he ran a 3-3-5 “stack”. He’s even played three safeties. Snow doesn’t really seem to be a “base” kind of guy, and where the Panthers are concerned, that’s a good thing.

“What’s smart to do is use the people that you have. Our team is not settled yet,” said Snow, when speaking to media via conference call on Tuesday. “There’s a lot of things that have to happen before we know what we have, so we’ll utilize the people that we have.

“We’re going to be multiple, anyway, so you’ll see us in four-man, three-man, bear. You’ll see us in a lot of different stuff, so I think today you have to be multiple to give the offense some problems from a schematic standpoint. We’ll see what we have and then we’ll put it together.”

Multiplicity (Is this a word? It works, so we’re calling it a word) is really important in the modern league, as offenses evolve at a rapid rate. It means a defense, and particularly a defensive front, can move between many different types of alignments because it has the types of players who are capable of doing so.

A defense that wants to characterize itself as “aggressive” is one that will not always simply allow an opposing offense to dictate to it; moreso it will be able to “attack” first via its alignment and design to force an offense to check into something outside of its original plan. Therefore, malleability of personnel and skill set opens up options.

There was much ado, for example, about the Panthers’ “shift” to a 3-4 “base” last summer, and in many ways, they appeared to be doing just that. The staff brought in several outside linebacker/defensive end types in free agency and the draft and worked in practices on installing three-man fronts. But in reality, the Panthers were adding a layer of multiplicity that they didn’t previously have — and this personnel didn’t signal a total “shift” into a strict 3-4, always, all the time, but rather the ability to move between fronts as needed, given the added versatility of rostered players. While speaking to the media, former head coach Ron Rivera even laughed a few times early in the season at the fact that while Carolina put in all of that work to add these layers, offenses were still forcing them into four-man fronts and their nickel subpackage — and even a variation of dime! — for a large percentage of defensive plays.

Snow might be 64 years old but he’s got the modern idea down: While he might lean on some packages more heavily than others, to call really anything a “base” is to invite too much binary structure into what a defense must be on any given down. Toss that word out. Call it whatever you want, as long as it’s many things at once, and as long as it maximizes the skill sets of the guys in the locker room.

“You just don’t run a system if you don’t have the players to run it,” he said. “The players win the football games, not the coaches, so we’ve got to put them in the best position to play and we’ll decide from a technique and schematic (standpoint) what that is as we develop this roster.”

 

[Mr. Scot]

Here's a contrast that I find noteworthy.

This...

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A defense that wants to characterize itself as “aggressive” is one that will not always simply allow an opposing offense to dictate to it; moreso it will be able to “attack” first via its alignment and design to force an offense to check into something outside of its original plan. Therefore, malleability of personnel and skill set opens up options.

vs this.

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While speaking to the media, former head coach Ron Rivera even laughed a few times early in the season at the fact that while Carolina put in all of that work to add these layers, offenses were still forcing them into four-man fronts and their nickel subpackage — and even a variation of dime! — for a large percentage of defensive plays.

 

[Jon Snow]

11 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Here's a contrast that I find noteworthy.

This...

vs this.

 

I noticed that also.  Seems Ron forgot about that little detail.

[Mr. Scot]

6 minutes ago, Jon Snow said:

I noticed that also.  Seems Ron forgot about that little detail.

One of the things I really liked in his initial presser was the talk of how he wanted to dictate to other teams, be proactive rather than reactive.

Granted, that's far from the only thing Rivera said he was going to do but never did.

[Toomers]

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While speaking to the media, former head coach Ron Rivera even laughed a few times early in the season at the fact that while Carolina put in all of that work to add these layers, offenses were still forcing them into four-man fronts and their nickel subpackage — and even a variation of dime! — for a large percentage of defensive plays

 

  Because preparing to play a defense(nickel) that has been run by every team around 70% of the time(for years$ is just too difficult? I usually never pay attention to anything coaches say but this is beyond ridiculous. How can this come out of his mouth? Did he really think teams were going to suddenly stop using “11” personnel? 

[Jon Snow]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

One of the things I really liked in his initial presser was the talk of how he wanted to dictate to other teams, be proactive rather than reactive.

Granted, that's far from the only thing Rivera said he was going to do but never did.

Well to be fair he may have wanted to but his bosses may have complicated things.  He did manage to do a good job under the one who won't be mentioned.  

Snow is in for a rough road ahead from the media and the fans, not to mention getting the current players on board.  We shall see how it all unfolds.

[TheSpecialJuan]

[MHS831]

In fairness, what RR did vs. a defensive theory?  An attacking defense is great, until it isn't.  You have to have better personnel than we had. If you can't stop the run, for example, the blitz is not very scary.

[LinvilleGorge]

“You just don’t run a system if you don’t have the players to run it,” he said. “The players win the football games, not the coaches, so we’ve got to put them in the best position to play and we’ll decide from a technique and schematic (standpoint) what that is as we develop this roster.”

 

This is so blatantly obvious and logical, yet it sounds so damn novel after a decade of Rivera.

[Jon Snow]

27 minutes ago, MHS831 said:

In fairness, what RR did vs. a defensive theory?  An attacking defense is great, until it isn't.  You have to have better personnel than we had. If you can't stop the run, for example, the blitz is not very scary.

Now remind the class who is responsible for said personnel.

[JARROD]

Finally.

 

[rippadonn]

Attacking defense starts up front. You can't win if you don't touch the QB. The Dline requires some serious upgrades to "attack".

[MHS831]

4 minutes ago, rippadonn said:

Attacking defense starts up front. You can't win if you don't touch the QB. The Dline requires some serious upgrades to "attack".

To do so without a blitz--especially in the day of the mobile QB--is huge.

[MHS831]

3 hours ago, TheSpecialJuan said:

He looks like that guy that shows up at the playground fence a lot even though he has no children.