Bears Blitz

Published by Shaun Leistikow on April 30, 2009
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

A lot of teams are transitioning over to a 3-4 defense.  What is so special about this?  The one thing that everyone automatically says is that you can’t tell where the blitz is coming from.  Well, that’s not entirely true.

The 3-4 has two defensive ends and a nose tackle on the line.  The nose tackle can shoot either the strong A gap or the weak A gap.  The defensive ends can be put pretty much anywhere.  They can sit in front of the guard, be put on the B gap, lined up in front of the tackle, or on the C gap.  That goes for strong and weak sides. 

The idea is that you cannot just automatically assign two offensive lineman to double team a certain guy.  It is exactly like sending in a stunt every single play.  We have an idea on where they’re coming from, but not certain. 

How do we get this idea?  Well, the first thing is that our formation will affect their formation. 

Cover 1

The Cover 1 defense is made for one man deep or free to play however the coach wants.  The rest are playing man to man.  Think of it this way: you normally rush 4.  That leaves 7.  There are two running backs, two wide-outs, and one tight end that you cover.  That is 5 people you have to cover when you’re doing man to man.  So you have 7 people with 1 person being deep. 

What do you think that final player is going to do?  Well, he’s not going to play deep or it’d be cover 2.  However, he doesn’t necessarily have to blitz either, but more than likely that is what he’ll be doing.

So you have four down lineman that are definitely rushing the quarterback and we have to pick one more.  Well, one of the safeties is playing center field.  We know it’s not him.  The two corners aren’t rushing unless a linebacker or the other safety is edging closer to them.  The whole point is that someone is blitzing.  Who the person blitzing will determine on the location of the defenders to their man. 

If you are unsure, but you suspect someone is blitzing, then move that person in motion.  They can move in motion and then go right back to the same spot they were.  They just need to move enough so we can see what the defense plans on doing.

The Cover 1 is probably the hardest for offenses to pick apart because you know they are blitzing.  They’re coming at you with 3 defensive lineman and 2 linebackers.  However, there are four linebackers so we have some eliminating to do. 

When we go against the 3-4 like in Green Bay we like to move Forte and Olsen around quite a bit.  We’re trying to determine what they are doing.  Once we know what they’re doing we will know for sure what we are going to do.

I also want to let you know that you can also do zone defense in cover 1 and that you’re not just forced into doing man to man.  You can tell when they decide to do this as well.  Bring a couple guys close together and their formation will not move.  They will stay fanned out so they can get to their zone.  Of course, this isn’t always very obvious in the NFL as I make it sound.

Cover 2

Cover 2 is a little more tricky.  We know this because we see this as Bear fans.  In fact, this is what I run 90% of the time in Madden because speed is everything and I swear every time Terrell Owens just gets faster and blows by everyone and that’s with both my defenders on him!  Sorry about that.  I hate Madden, but I’ll get back on subject now.

Anyway, Cover 2 can be 2 man deep and man under.  Again, they have four linebackers and two corner backs for pass protection.  That makes six and they only have to cover 5.  So we know at least one linebacker is coming in with the three defensive lineman.  With the cover 2 you can also do a zone defense. 

You can blitz people too, but in this situation you will normally leave an area or a man open.  This area and or man can be determined immediately if done appropriately.  However, a lot of people will see a cover 2 blitz, but what is really happening is that the offense will leave a running back or two back to block.  Well, what does the cover person do? 

In Chicago we play containment.  We normally don’t blitz in, but I have seen it done before.  The key thing is when you do blitz in, you want to run through the running back or whoever you were supposed to cover so they can’t sneak out and catch a make shift screen pass.

Cover 3

If they decide to go cover 3 then you can tell that the one of the safeties will cheat to the side and the other safety will cheat to the middle of the field to get his 1/3.  The other two 1/3’s is covered by the corners. 

The other safety that is moving to the side is going to cover the flats.  The other side, where the safety is not on will tell us who is not blitzing.  They will be covering the other flats.  This leaves three lineman and three linebackers left.  One of the three linebackers is blitzing.  The other two will be falling into their respective zones covering the hooks. 

When you watch the game you can start to tell when they do this. 

Now when we run with three wide receivers then that is the same thing as taking a linebacker out.  We still have to deal with a guess of which one of the three linebackers is coming. 

There is also the case when they blitz two linebackers.  This will leave a man or a zone open.  The question is can we detect it before they can get to the quarterback.

Cover 4

The cover 4 is really simple, but they can change it to be a little more complex in the NFL.  Normally the corners will take the deep outside zones and the safeties will take the deep inside zones.  This eliminates man under, unless the defense wants to leave one loose or they only use three rushing.  This is what you normally see at the end of the game.  For instance when Pittsburgh was ahead they did Cover 4 with a three man rush so they could do man under.

Summary

How does this refer to Chicago?  Wouldn’t it be nice to know our quarterback can pick these things up easily?  The 4-3 and the 3-4 are similar in many ways.  The offensive lineman and the quarterback have to be on top of their game.  For many of the teams that play with a 3-4, Jay Cutler has usually a 90 or higher QB rating.  So this shouldn’t affect him. 

It’s now up to our offensive line and how well they can gel.  We get to practice against a couple of teams who use the 3-4 in the preseason when we play Denver and Cleveland before we do our test against Green Bay.  I can’t wait for the football season to begin!