Phillips shouldn’t wrack his brain over defensive scheme

By Andy Targovnik  |   Friday, February 09, 2007  |  Comments( 38 )

Dallas Cowboys
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Here's a piece of advice for new Dallas Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips: Don't lose sleep over whether to stick to a 3-4 defense or implement a 4-3 scheme. It really doesn't matter that much.

That's not to say this writer is naive enough to think that playing the proper defense isn't important. Of course it is. But in the Cowboys' case, it's the players who will make the scheme successful, not the reverse.

Look at the Indianapolis Colts. For a good portion of the season, the Colts' Tampa-2 defense looked like an unmitigated disaster. Opposing running backs were taking chunks of yardage at will. The Colts even gave up 400 yards on the ground to the Jacksonville Jaguars in early December.

Surely, all the pundits said that no team could ever win a Super Bowl playing defense like that. And they were right.

But notice that Tony Dungy didn't change the scheme. He just calmly waited for his best defensive player to return. And return, he did.

When Bob Sanders was inserted back into the Colts' secondary, suddenly nobody could run on them. Kansas City's Larry Johnson, one of the top running backs in football, couldn't go anywhere in the first round of the playoffs. The Ravens' Jamal Lewis was stifled the following week.

Sure, Indy's run defense was far from stellar in the AFC Championship game versus the Patriots. But the most important play of that contest occurred in the fourth quarter, when Tom Brady was attempting to run out the clock. With only 2:30 left, on a critical third-and-4, Sanders came out of nowhere to knock down Brady's pass. That play forced New England to punt the ball back to the Colts one last time.

Had Sanders not made that play, the Patriots would have run out the clock, and the Colts never would have even gotten to the Super Bowl.

In the Super Bowl itself, Sanders was responsible for putting the Bears' Cedric Benson out of commission with a couple of bone-crushing hits.

Now, take the 2006 Cowboys. For the first half of the season, their defense was rock solid. While nobody was mistaking them for the New York Jets' "Sack Exchange" of the 1980s, they were putting ample pressure on opposing quarterbacks.

Then something happened: Greg Ellis, the team's star pass rusher, got injured and was lost for the year.

After a couple of decent games without him, the defense faltered. Without Ellis pressuring opposing quarterbacks, the Cowboys couldn't stop anybody - not even the Detroit Lions.

Thus, more important than anything, the Cowboys have to upgrade their talent on defense, most notably at end.

Ellis' presence on the field disguised the shortcomings of Marcus Spears and Chris Canty, who combined for just two sacks on the year. True, it's tougher to get penetration on a three-man line than on a four-man line, but good players perform no matter what the scheme.

On the 1986 Giants, Leonard Marshall played in the same 3-4 defense as Spears and Canty did this past season, and Marshall registered 12 sacks. To be fair, that was a legendary defense -- one that forced opposing offensive lines to account for legendary linebackers Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson.

And that's the point: The more talent, the better the results. The Giants could have been in any scheme, and the results would have been exactly the same.

So while a coach should certainly put his players in the best position to maximize their talent, it's more often than not the players who make the coach look smart.

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CommentsComments: 38  |  Sign Up  View all comments
No.1
A.J		12:48 PM
02/09/2007
hey andy, boring article, you're no anthony carroll...your articles are about as entertaining as BRUCES post on these...
No.2
bruce		02:15 PM
02/09/2007
andy,if you want more trashy and exciting posts,then go to raider nation,they are still talking in awe of the raider fan who bit...
No.3
fr8ttrain		02:22 PM
02/09/2007
I think adding Phillips was a very sensible move. With his defensive expertise the Cowboys should improve, especially if they can...
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