Former Bucs DE Steve White

By STEVE WHITE
JoeBucsFan.com analyst 

 Steve White spent every season of the Tony Dungy era (1996-2001) playing defensive end for the Bucs. He’s spent countless hours in the film room with the likes of Warren Sapp, Rod Marinelli and more. Joe is humbled to have White, also a published author and blogger, as part of the JoeBucsFan.com team. Recently, White even contributed “Insider” NFL Draft content to ESPN.com. 

 Below is White’s weekly Bull Rush column that breaks down all things defense with a focus on the defensive line. It’s simply a can’t-miss read for the hardcore Bucs fan. 

With the 2009 season over, White has broken down every Bucs defensive lineman, shared takes on offseason preparation, and gotten into some serious Xs and Os. For football junkies, reading White’s work is like striking gold.  

Today, White analyzes how the Bucs could find success on the defensive line with their young defensive tackles.

Grab a cold beverage and enjoy.

I have my issues with us drafting Brian Price in the second round after drafting Gerald McCoy with the No. 3 pick in the first round, which don’t really reflect the way I feel about Price as a player.

He definitely has first-round talent and that he would have made us or somebody else a great undertackle. It more has to do with the fact that I have reservations about drafting two guys with such similar skill sets so early in the draft, and I also truly believe that drafting Price at that slot eventually cost us a fifth-round pick that potentially could have at least provided competition at another position, if not developed into a starter.

But let’s set all that aside for the moment.

Both McCoy and Price are here now, and GM Mark Dominik as well as Coach Morris both say they will team up with Roy Miller to form a disruptive defensive tackle rotation. The question is how do we maximize each player’s abilities both individually and collectively to get the most out of them as a group?

As you might imagine I have some ideas, so I thought I might share.

First of all, it’s important for fans to understand that playing nosetackle is as different from playing undertackle/3-technique as playing safety is to playing cornerback. Sure, you both belong to the same generic group whether its the defensive line or the secondary, but the technique with your footwork and hands are divergent, as are the schemes you will see thrown at you.

For an undertackle, you are going to be in a wide 3-technique with your inside hand on the ground on the offensive guard’s outside foot or wider. You will be tilted inside in your alignment to aid you in seeing the ball being snapped and you will have what we call a “credit card” alignment, meaning you get as close to the line of scrimmage as possible without being called for lining up in the neutral zone. Everything is about attacking off the snap and then playing whichever blocking scheme is thrown at you. There is no read and react, you force them to react to you as much as is humanly possible.

From this position you may see a zone-strong running scheme where the guard tries to overtake your outside shoulder and block you inside so that the running back can bounce it outside. There also is the opposite play, in which they zone-weak and the guard slip blocks you off quickly up to the linebacker and the backside tackle tries to scramble or cut block you to create a cutback lane.

You may have a base block where the offensive guard comes off low and hard at your inside shoulder on downhill between the tackle runs by the running back. You may also get a double team between the offensive tackle and guard, either on a downhill off tackle running play or on a counter-play strong. And then you have the occasional down block where the guard in front of you pulls outside and the tackle on your side blocks down on your outside shoulder to cave you inside.

Nosetackles don’t have the luxury of being in wide alignment. Instead, you line up with your inside hand down inside of the center’s outside leg. Your tilt is more pronounced in our defense and is referred to as being cocked. The secret about this alignment is when being double teamed, which a nosetackle will be A LOT, you don’t want to give both guys a lot of surface to hit.

If you go into the gap with your shoulders parallel to the line of scrimmage then you make it easy for the offensive line. The center takes one shoulder, the guard takes the other, and you end up playing the deep third back by the safeties. But if you can get into the gap with your shoulders more perpendicular to the line of scrimmage you still give the center your chest to block but you make it hard on the guard who only has your back to push on. In fact, the more the guard pushes you in the back, the more he is actually helping you defeat the center’s block, if you get good hand placement and arm extension on him.

Which ain’t easy. In fact, a nosetackle getting his hands into a center’s chest consistently on run blocks is one of the hardest things to do in football in my opinion.

Timing Very Different At Nose, Undertackle

Now some of the schemes a nosetackle will face will somewhat mimic what an undertackle sees but the timing is different because guards are usually backed off the line while the center is, of course, lined up on it. So when an undertackle is double teamed it’s more of a simultaneous block, whereas when a nosetackle gets doubled it’s more of a bang-bang scenario. The center punches you and then here comes the guard coming to clean you up. In that same vein, a nosetackle wants to be quick off the ball but he doesn’t want to fire up field. Instead, he wants to take a good short power step and shoot his hands so that he has a good base of strength with good balance.

Aside from the double team a nosetackle will see a lot of scoop blocks on zone-strong, where the center posts them and then heads up to the linebacker and the guard tries to cut or scramble them. If a nosetackle can’t play that block, it creates a huge soft spot in the defense because the linemen on the strong side are hustling to make sure the running back has to cut back. If he can cut back and hit the hole downhill where the nose should be, then he gets to get up a head of steam heading into the secondary. Not a good look.

There are a few centers still athletic enough to reach-block a nosetackle, and it can also be hell on a run defense if they are successful.

I remember back in the days when Frank Winters for the Green Bay Packers made that block into almost an art form. If you block a nosetackle inside you are moving him from one side of the formation to the other. At that point, the defense is woefully outnumbered on the weakside and that’s how you end up with breakout runs.

Line Stunts, Assignments Could Provide An Edge

A more rarely used but very effective blocking scheme against a nosetackle is the Wham block. It’s a total asshole move where a team uses an offset fullback or a flexed tight end to come in and blindside the nose after the center flashes them to get them going up the field. Guys get so excited about being unblocked that many times they never see the block coming, and MAN does it sting!

Probably, the No. 1 worry with such young guys playing for us in the middle is they will have urges to make plays that aren’t theirs to make.

What I mean is that McCoy may be getting reach blocked and see the running back appear to be on course to run inside of him. Well, natural instinct in that case is to forgo your gap and peek inside to help out on the tackle. But the difference between NFL running backs and college running backs is tremendous. And if you duck inside on most NFL running backs they will see it, bounce the ball outside right where you were supposed to be and make you pay.

You have to trust that your teammate that is supposed to have the gap inside will do their job and make the play while you continue to do yours. It sounds easy, but it goes against most football players makeup to not try to make every play no matter what.

So considering the fact that we have three guys in McCoy, Price, and Miller who are all of similar size, which is to say they are considered somewhat undersized in this day and age, but are all athletic and strong, how do we put them in the best position to win?

One word. MOVEMENT

And really, this doesn’t just apply to them, but to our whole defensive line.

Don’t get me wrong, the majority of snaps in most games we will have to line up and get after it. But we should also be mixing it up with line stunts on early downs and pass rush games on longer yardage situations.

In all reality, line stunts turn into pass rush games if it’s not a run anyway. But the point is with movement you keep offensive linemen off balance, you make them hesitant when coming off the ball, you keep our guys from being double teamed as much, you get the most out of our guys athleticism, and you also set yourself up well to get a pass rush versus play-action pass.

Also, and this isn’t a minor thing, you can save young guys from themselves by giving them an assigned place to go rather than have them trying to read and play a block correctly every single play.

Tons of people keep saying we need to get back to what we used to do in our defense and I couldn’t agree more. But it’s worth noting that even at the end of his tenure, Monte Kiffin probably wasn’t using as many line stunts as he could have or should have.

We can dictate to the other team where the ball goes with our stunts while helping each other defeat blocks. For instance, there is a stunt where our strong side defensive end and undertackle make inside moves on the snap of the ball. This creates a situation where the running back has to keep the ball strong and, when run properly, can’t cut back. On the same stunt the undertackle has the ability to pick the center off of the nosetackle so that he can get over the top strong and help out on the tackle. And guess what, if it’s a pass instead, the nosetackle just loops around strong to get after the quarterback while the defensive end and undertackle have opportunities to get quick pressure with their inside moves.

If you have ever read any of my missives here you know how I feel about pass rush games and with the addition of McCoy and Price along with Miller getting better in his second year, we could strike fear in the hearts of offensive linemen on third down.

Again, there are times when guys will have to win one-on-one battles but pass rush games even help with that. If we have success running a TEX game (tackle penetrate, end loop inside) then offensive tackles will be wary of kick-stepping out to defend the speed rush. If we have success with EX games (end penetrate inside, tackle loop outside) you can have the guard scared to follow the defensive tackle on inside moves worried a defensive end is on the way to blast them in their earhole.

As great as Warren Sapp was as at pass rushing one on one, his TEX games were devastating. It got to the point where you could watch film after our games and see offensive tackles immediately reaching out their inside arm on the snap for fear that he was coming for him. And, of course, that would make them late getting out to block the defensive end. That’s the kind of fear we need to get back to instilling in people.

No ‘Vanilla Football’

And best of all, if we can get back to running great TOM games (one tackle penetrates inside, other tackle loops), we can give both of our ends straight one-one-one opportunities while getting great push in the pocket from the penetrator and the looper has a chance for a cleanup hit. If we run that a few times, the interior offensive linemen will be so confused they will end up losing all of their technique and start taking bad pass sets, which once again only helps in one-on-one situations.

Now I know that there are some 4-3 teams that have these humongous defensive tackles teamed up with somewhat lighter undertackles, but it’s important to remember that in the so called glory days of our defense that was never the case here. Both Brad Culpepper and Anthony McFarland were at nosetackle and Sapp was at undertackle, so it’s not like this is unprecedented or an impossible situation.

What it does mean though is that we shouldn’t just be playing vanilla football. A lot of attention gets paid to blitzing but you have to have movement even when we are just in a four-man line. That’s how we did it back then, and that’s how we can have a lot of success now.

Otherwise, you are asking Price and Miller at just over 300 pounds to sit in there against double teams from, say, the Saints, which will bring guards pushing 350+ pounds and a center pushing 320.

Not a good look.

Before you ask, yes, I remain skeptical about Price starting at nosetackle, but at the same time I want my team to win and I want him to be successful. I think the best way for both of those things to happen is to keep our defensive line on the move. It’s worked before, and it can work again.

As long as that’s our actual game plan, that is….