From Dan Quinn to Todd Wash
by John Morgan on Feb 2, 2011 5:50 PM PST
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PrintDan Quinn was destined for a short stay in Seattle. Not like Jim Mora was destined for a short stay in Seattle, but more like Greg Oden was destined for a short stay at Ohio State. Quinn was the most mismatched among the original brain trust that dreamed the mighty West Coast Defense. Bradley was the linebacker guru with an endorsement from Lane Kiffin. Mora was the visionary. Quinn was a career defensive line coach that had worked under Mora in San Francisco, Nick Saban in Miami and Eric Mangini in New York. Magini and Saban are both Belichick disciples and both employ a 3-4 look.
Seattle took these disparate parts and forged them together, hoping to birth a griffin but instead aborting a beefalo. It couldn't blitz like a 3-4 or create pressure from its front four like a 4-3. It couldn't rush the passer from the strong side and couldn't stop the run from the weak side. It couldn't figure out a damn thing to do with Aaron Curry.
Etcetera.
So Quinn is gone now, and in his place is Todd Wash. Wash doesn't arrive with annoying baggage like a history of success or aspirations of promotion. He's systems guy, pure and simple, from the wellspring, and to my knowledge free of any crazy notions about a hybrid defense. His ends are pass rushers, his tackles penetrate and his run defense is atrocious, damn it.
Losing Quinn and signing Wash could mean an end to the unbalanced line. It was something Pete Carroll took on and ran with, but not something that reflects Carroll's greater coaching philosophy. In light of just how terrible Seattle's defense was, it wouldn't surprise me if some fundamental changes were made. Bradley remains, but I doubt Bradley was ever very committed to the strongside end/Leo setup. In his three seasons in Tampa as a linebackers coach, the Bucs mostly started a traditional Tampa 2 front four: light, fast and disruptive. The one exception is Kevin Carter, but Carter was not a 3-4 end but a 6'6" freak of nature. More Mario Williams than Red Bryant.
Kidding aside, there is no way of knowing if Wash is a good defensive line coach or not. Tampa has drafted quite a few promising line talents over the last few seasons, and few have developed, but that is hardly conclusive. Either way, Wash is in, Quinn is out, and with Quinn might go Seattle's unorthodox defensive line.
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Reading Sando's
lil’ tribute to Tez makes me almost wish the Seahawks would spend the 25th pick on some awesome pro-bowl all-pro sick nasty interior lineman. As far as the unbalanced line, I’d like for the powers that be to make it work.
could happen
this years draft is a veritable gold mine of D line talent
If we switch back to a traditional D line
What happens to Red Bryant and Chris Clemons? Do they just become rotational players, with Bryant in on run downs and Clemons in on passing downs?
He didn't stand out when he played there before
It may be an issue of leverage when playing vs OGs/Cs.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 2, 2011 7:51 PM PST up reply actions
Thank Fucking God.
Ditch that Leo. As much as it’s my astrological sign, I hate it.
Go back to a 4-3. Move Mebane back to his natural spot, rotate Bryant and Cole at the other (which makes sense… does it?). On passing downs, put Clemons and Curry out wide, or even put Curry in at one of the tackle spots (that seemed to work somewhat).
What to do about the starting ends? Man, I do not know. Keep Brock around, for now, and see what the draft offers us.
Move Mebane back?
You mean after we resign him.
We basically have to get three starting defensive linemen right now today if we change the front. Mebane being the only one who is a known quantity, the other two we need to procure from places as of yet unknown (while 1/3 of the league running the same defense looks for similar players.)
See my comment a little below, under Patches, for more detail.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, anymore than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw
by Tyler Jorgensen on Feb 2, 2011 9:58 PM PST up reply actions
It wasn't the scheme that was the problem.
It was the injuries. Once Bryant, Mebane and then Cole were hurt we could not stop the run. Our run defense went from 89 yards/game to 139 yard/game.
The problem with the traditional defense is that it requires a freak of nature at defensive end. The DE has to be strong enough to stop and run AND fast enough to rush the passer. These guys are few and far between and every team is looking for them. I would say the strongside end/Leo combination worked well. It allows players that otherwise could not fit the position to excel by doing one thing rather than both. Brock and Clemmons had career highs in sacks. The run was shut down making the offenses one dimensional until we had injuries .
Most of those people were back by the end of the year.
Is the loss of Bryant all by himself enough to kill this defense? Then it isn’t very good.
The loss of Bryant was followed closely by the loss of Cole and Mebane
by the time Cole and Mebane were back, Siavii was out.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 2, 2011 9:43 PM PST up reply actions
Siavii wasn't much of a loss
I don’t think it made much of a difference
Um, exactly.
That’s basically 3/4 of the line intact, and still the defense was getting absolutely shelled game after game.
When?
When was 3/4 of the line intact? Be specific.
Also, how important is the 5-tech position in this scheme? What kind of depth did we have there?
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 3, 2011 8:52 AM PST up reply actions
Siavii doesn't count.
And Brock, by all counts, seems to have done just fine.
Brock didn't get starts at the 5-tech until very late in the game
for most of the year he was playing as a rotational LEO and DE in a 3-man front (with Clemons and Curry) on passing downs.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 3, 2011 11:09 AM PST up reply actions
The point I'm making is that the only real piece missing by the end of the season is Bryant.
And it was an awful defense.
If your defense is predicated on the play of a player who’s pretty much impossible to replace after injury, you’re using a very, very risky scheme.
Siavii played decently in his absence
but Siavii wasn’t moved over there until Cole and Mebane were back.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 3, 2011 11:55 AM PST up reply actions
And I think the argument can be made
That the defense played well when the DL was mostly healthy, but that the depth was really poor (we played a street FA for a bunch of snaps in his first week with the team vs the Giants), which is what you’d expect from a rebuilding team (especially in the face of a stunted FA).
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 3, 2011 11:58 AM PST up reply actions
All I got is this.
Last seven Seahawks’ games, points scored against.
24
42
14
40
34
6
That is not playing well.
The only teams all year that we kept under 21… which might be “average”… were San Fran, Arizona, Arizona, Carolina, and St. Louis.
That can't be traced directly to losing Red though.
Their schedule was much more difficult at the end of the season and they were dealing with other injuries as well.
Um... I uh, agree...?
Yes, it WAS more difficult. They played teams that weren’t horrible, and as such, got trounced. That doesn’t make the defence “OK” when it played the horrible teams, it was still bad.
The defense faced injuries all year, it’s true. But, as per a recent article by John, every team faces injuries. The injuries faced by this 2010 Seahawks defence were not massive in number or intensity. Other than Bryant, the players lost were generally of the replacement-level variety.
I thought the point you were trying to make is that the team was overly dependent on a player they couldn't replace (Red).
But they were able to replace him with Siavii but Siavii was hurt and then Brock filled in and played well also. The defense was bad, no one would argue that, but was it bad because Bryant was irreplaceable? I don’t think so.
Um, good point, I should clarify.
It’s complicated, in that a lot of people who think this particular scheme is still good have claimed that it looks bad because of injury. My point is that no one outside of Bryant is particularly irreplacable, and if your defensive scheme goes to shit when one player goes down, it’s a risky, risky scheme.
This defense, as shown by the numbers, was not good with or without Bryant. It had success early, noticeably catching San Fran, Chicago, and San Diego before they were decent (and SD still put up a zillion yards almost at will), and then coasted to not-quite-horrific level by pasting Max Hall, Jimmy Clausen, and Sam Bradford.
Bryant is irreplaceable to the defense, yes. But not only does that not mean the defense is good with him, it means that the defense is even worse and incredibly risky to run in case he is injured.
He played really well at 5-tech
Balmer was horrible and started there for most of the season.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 3, 2011 8:51 AM PST up reply actions
I agree with this--
“the strongside end/Leo combination worked well. It allows players that otherwise could not fit the position to excel by doing one thing rather than both.”
In other words, it created a value add situation from a place in which there wasn’t any. Making a change back ends the value found in both Clemons and Red. It means the need to bring in even more players to replace them at the ends, but doesn’t bring anything of value in replacement for the loss of each of them. Plus it restandardizes us into a defense (tampa2) that has proven to be effective only when played with elite level talent at a multitude of positions. Elite talent that we don’t have and a good 1/3 of the league is also searching relentlessly for.
It also probably means putting all early draft resources toward replacement of both ends, makes the probability of fixing the offensive line (or QB) through talent lessened and we get to hope to fucking god that coaching change alone suddenly makes mediocre talent effective. Ironically, it will essentially be doing the same thing to the offense that was tried with the defense the year before with the LEO— a move that actually yielded some net gain in maximizing lesser talents.
I HATE going more traditional Tampa 2. I fucking hate it. We’ll draft to the D, see little improvement on offense and not as much as would be wanted on defense, and we’ll have yet another year of spinning our wheels with a broken and ineffective defense.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, anymore than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw
by Tyler Jorgensen on Feb 2, 2011 9:53 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
Just because you play a 4-3 doesn't mean you automatically go Tampa-2.
There are lots of variations on the 4-3.
Plus, if it’s only 1/3 of the league, that’s a good thing.
This defense, WITHOUT Clemons, and Brock, and Bryant “out of position”, was better last year.
Bradley's a Tampa2 guy.
Hopefully you are right that we don’t go that route.
But if 1/3 of the league is looking for Tampa2 talent and it is very difficult to fill a tampa2 effectively to begin with, then that means there isn’t as much of it—- that’s not what we want.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, anymore than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw
by Tyler Jorgensen on Feb 3, 2011 11:31 AM PST up reply actions
Also, Clemons can still play end in a 4-3. He did in Philly, and Oakland.
He might need to be pulled for a few run-heavy downs, but that’ll just make him fresher and lengthen his career.
He was never a primary guy in that role, nor was he entirely as effective as he was in the LEO.
But bigger point— what happens to Red then? He isn’t great at DT or DE in a more traditional setup.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, anymore than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw
by Tyler Jorgensen on Feb 3, 2011 11:33 AM PST up reply actions
I don't know.
But I do know that this scheme didn’t work because it relied on people in very particular roles… the injury to Bryant took the defense from mediocre to absolutely friggin’ awful.
Keeping this unbalanced end thing just to maintain Bryant’s usefulness seems silly to me.
Well, Clemons wouldn't be as effective either.
He’s a backup in a more traditional 4-3.
I say keep it at least one more year, rebuild the OL, do what you can in other spots, then if it is a failure in year 2, go ahead and rebuild the defensive line next.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, anymore than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw
by Tyler Jorgensen on Feb 3, 2011 11:59 AM PST up reply actions
I got no problems with rebuilding the offense.
But I don’t think it’s a matter of doing one before the other.
This defense was awful, the numbers prove it. It was worse this year than the year before, and that’s after an offseason of major tinkering by the FO and coaching staff. I’d say it’s riskier keeping the unbalanced Leo than jettisoning it.
I'm not sure there is a scheme known that can truly mask the deficiencies of personal
and arguing for a scheme based on it’s ability to let lesser players excel is missing the forest for the trees. Fact is our defense sucked and would’ve sucked if we ran a traditional 4-3, 3-4, cover 2 – you name it. We need to address the defense in this draft and probably the next few. Ends and corners are a priority but a talented interior lineman would also work.
My point is you leverage what you have.
We’re weak, but can utilize lesser talented players in the scheme.
Going to a different scheme only means we need even more players, and those we found effective here will no longer be as effective. Primarily I speak not of Clemons, but of young bull Red Bryant, who seems best suited to the LEO.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, anymore than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw
by Tyler Jorgensen on Feb 3, 2011 11:34 AM PST up reply actions
The LEO position came with Pete, not Quinn or Bradley
I’ve got to think that it will stay and we’ll invest in the bigger guys on the DL to deal with the depth issues we faced in the middle-to-late part of the year.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 2, 2011 7:53 PM PST reply actions
I hope so... I dearly do.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, anymore than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw
by Tyler Jorgensen on Feb 2, 2011 9:58 PM PST up reply actions
The term "Leo" and the strict strong side, weak side designation started in 2010
The basics of the defense were in place in 2009, including the massive left defensive end.
They used the same thing at USC and called it an Elephant
The exact uses may shift around based on personnel and the Off that they face, but same concept.
The LEO is what we were calling the elephant earlier this year
because that was the designation (“elephant LB”) that came from USC.
Most 4-3’s have some degree of asymmetry (likely a response to the common asymmetry of the offense front), but the 2010 Seahawks defense stood out much more than the 2009 Seahawks defense. In 2009, the difference in size between our two starting DEs was something like 20-25 lbs; in 2010, the difference was closer to 50-70lbs.
The use of a bigger SSDE isn’t uncommon. LJ was picked as such a guy, who could play outside or move inside. Redding came from a traditional 4-3 in Detroit where he also played both inside and outside. Putting Redding at SSDE in 2009 wasn’t a big change; putting Red Bryant there was.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 3, 2011 9:01 AM PST up reply actions
If we switch to a traditional 4-3 shouldn't we trade Red Bryant?
if we can? Seems silly to build a scheme that make one of our best defenders a situational player. Clemons will be fine – he’ll be able to rush the passer from whatever scheme we run and has proven to not be a total liability in the run/screen game.
Yes please draft a huge speciman
talented, hungry, and injury free dl if available in the 1st. pretty please
Editing question
And this really is a question. I was just struck by this sentence.
Seattle took these disparate parts and forged them together, hoping to birth a griffin but instead aborting a beefalo.
I had to read it 3 or 4 times. At first I thought it was about beefalo, but that wasn’t it. Then it hit me. The present tense verbs—hoping and aborting—in the last clause just sound weird. Wouldn’t it read more smoothly as “…hoping to birth a griffin but instead they aborted a beefalo”?
“Hoping” refers to what might have happened while “they aborted” refers back to what actually happened. This strikes me as a sentence where proper grammar plays tricks on communication. Keeping the verbs “hoping” and “aborting” in the present tense seems like the correct grammar but your intent is to directly compare future and past in the same clause.
"Those who fear disorder more than injustice inevitably produce more of both." -- Rev. William Coffin
I think you are spending too much thought on this.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die, anymore than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw
by Tyler Jorgensen on Feb 3, 2011 11:37 AM PST up reply actions
Ah lax woidz
"Those who fear disorder more than injustice inevitably produce more of both." -- Rev. William Coffin
I have to admit that now that I understand what the Hawks were trying to do with that line, I *really* think it doesn't work with the cover 2.
With a classic cover 2, you’re looking for 11 guys to play within their roles, make plays but at the same time don’t get themselves so far out of position that someone else has to cover for them, creating a hole someone else has to cover, etc. With a defensive front like the bandit, you’re starting out with the defense overshifted to one side. That’s a nice look to throw at a team from a cover 2 every once in a while, but every down I think that teams just start to do what, well, everyone started to do against Seattle after Week 4 or so: run motions to make the strong side weak and vice versa and run at the undershifted side of the bandit.
It’s almost as bad as if the Hawks were running a cover 2 and the D-Line coach decided to utilize zone blitzes with the front 7 on practically every down. There’s a point where a cool little gimmick turns into something the opponents can ram down your throat.
I think the plan is play a cover-1, not a cover-2
ET plays over the top, Lawyer/Kam plays in the box and the CBs play bump-and-run man coverage. Right now, we lack the personnel to play the scheme, but that’s the plan for the future.
by Greetings from the Lord Humongous! on Feb 4, 2011 10:08 AM PST up reply actions
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