LEAKED: Comprehensive breakdown of 3-4 Defense by Mike Pettine

[GunnerBill]

5 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I think you may have it mixed....as far as I recall, we didn't much "run the no huddle" with EJM, Jeff Tuel, and Thad Lewis in 2013 - perhaps thinking of 2009?  So many poor seasons, so many poor ideas...they blur in my mind at times.

 

 

On this your memory definitely fails you. Nathaniel Hackett was 100% running the no huddle with EJ and Thad. They didn't the week Tuel had to start and they abandoned it altogether after the Atlanta loss in Toronto but until then - yep. They ran no huddle a lot. 

[Foxx]

Pettine was so good, he got a HC job in Cleveland the following year.

[CSBill]

21 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

Pet was a good coach here precisely because he didn't force his 3-4 on what was essentially 4-3 personnel. He ran a hybrid that usually had 4 down linemen with their hand in the dirt. Then a couple of years later his mentor arrived and forced his 3-4 on what was very firmly 4-3 personnel and ruined the defense.

 

Good job Rex.

 

Rex was such an awful coach.

 

What's the hiring mantra: "Hire slow and fire fast."  . . . At least Terry and Kim got the last part right.

 

 

7 hours ago, NoSaint said:

 

Yards is typically what you see in rankings.  

 

 

Maybe I'm old school, but aren't points more important?

Edited July 4, 2019 by CSBill

[eball]

Why is this a "leak?"  Were confidential secrets disclosed or something?

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

50 pages?!  Although understanding this would be a boon to QBs reading and understanding opposition defenses, Billy Joe says “TL,DR”.

[fansince88]

9 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I dunno about NFL characterizing defenses and offenses "first and foremost" by yards.  The sites I'm familiar with list PPG first, YPG about 7 slots over. 

 

I think you may have it mixed....as far as I recall, we didn't much "run the no huddle" with EJM, Jeff Tuel, and Thad Lewis in 2013 - perhaps thinking of 2009?  So many poor seasons, so many poor ideas...they blur in my mind at times.

 

I'm not "pretending", I just see it differently than you.  There's no question the D was more exciting to watch, with pressure on the QB and INTs and all that...but when it comes down to the bottom line, it's all about whether or not the other team scores on ya.  My eyeball test says Pettine ran a gambling, blitz-heavy D.  As the saying goes, live by the blitz, die by the blitz.  We were porous against the run, sometimes at the worst times.    I think Wannstache's D was so boring and his play calling so predictable that Pettine's D looked amazing in contrast. 

 

There's also no question that it's not just the case of a totally impotent O putting the D in bad situations all the time....I think memory may be shading your viewpoint here.  We did have 2 games with 3 TO and 1 game with 5 TO.  But we also had 4 losses that were 7 points or less and 1 that was 10 points -- that's half our losses.  In fact, one could argue that offense was more competent than last year's offense...if you like yards as a metric, we had 10 or 11 games with >300 yds offense in 2013, only 8 games with >300 yds offense this past season.
 

I'm not saying Pettine did a bad job, I don't think it's as impressive as our memories (or the contrast to Wannstache) make it out to be.  I'm not going to keep debating whether it's "slight" or "significant" improvement though....the bottom line was, we went home with a 6-10 record, same as last year.

It is about Wins and losses. We didnt get enough wins because teams ran the ball well against us. I agree 100% with you mam!

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

20 hours ago, MJS said:

Mike Pettine's defense here was decent. He got turnovers and sacks and such, but it was definitely a boom or bust defense. We got routinely gouged in the run game.

 

My favorite was Jim Schwartz with his Wide 9 formations. He really got the best out of our players.

 

.....that's what I remember as well....inconsistent from week to week....one week we'd rival the Great Wall of China followed by WikiLEAKS next week..............

[dave mcbride]

13 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Well, I dunno how Football Outsiders decides what is a good D, but 2013 Pettine D was 20th in points allowed vs 2014, 4th.  

 

That means under Pettine, 19/32 teams were better.  60% of NFL teams were better.   That's not even average.  I can't call that good.

You?  I mean, I guess you can, you just did, but it's very puzzling as to why.

 

I mean, "yea!" you force all those turnovers and get all those INTs, but at the end of the day, if you're allowing the opponent to score points, does it matter?

I call "shenanigans" on the claim "Pass D is simply more important".  I think this is a case of Stats don't lie, but you need to look and think carefully about what they mean, really.  One reason pass D was great was because teams knew they could run the ball down our throat so they did, bypassing the stout pass D.  

 

We had 414 rush attempts against us in 2014 vs 471 in 2013.  Football Outsiders explains that by....?????  (*crickets*)

 

 

How can it be a top-10 defense if it's 20th in points?  At the end of the day, points are what win or lose football games.

 

I will give you improvement from 26th to 20th.  It's about a 20% improvement?  I call that "slightly improved"

 

If that makes you all happy "more than slightly improved", good to be you!  I'm happy for you!

 

Um ... no. The Bills offense was 30th worst in turnovers surrendered (31st in the INT category, meaning only one team threw more), and the Bills defense had the 32nd best defensive field position on average when they trotted out on the field—i.e., dead last. The bills offense was 26th in TOP and 30th in plays run too. All of that has a HUGE impact on the points allowed category. Dig a little deeper rather than simply throw out “points!” as a determinative category. 

Edited July 4, 2019 by dave mcbride

[NoSaint]

4 hours ago, CSBill said:

 

Rex was such an awful coach.

 

What's the hiring mantra: "Hire slow and fire fast."  . . . At least Terry and Kim got the last part right.

 

 

 

Maybe I'm old school, but aren't points more important?

 

Call yards old school, new school, or dumb... but yards tend to be what your hearing when you have an announcer say 8th ranked defense.

 

and points are important. Among a variety of stats. If a defense is facing 3 more drives a game and starting each on average 10 yards closer to the end one - they could easily allow more points and be better. Especially if creating turnovers and short fields for their own offense along the way. 

Edited July 4, 2019 by NoSaint

[Foxx]

30 minutes ago, NoSaint said:

 

Call old school, new school, or dumb... yards tend to be what your hearing when you have an announcer say 8th ranked defense.

 

and points are important. Among a variety of stats. If a defense is facing 3 more drives a game and starting each on average 10 yards closer to the end one - they could easily allow more points and be better. Especially if creating turnovers and short fields for their own offense along the way. 

historically, defenses are ranked by yards given up.

[DrDawkinstein]

2 hours ago, Ridgewaycynic2013 said:

50 pages?!  Although understanding this would be a boon to QBs reading and understanding opposition defenses, Billy Joe says “TL,DR”.

 

And on top of it, some of the WORST Powerpoint skills I've ever seen. Can barely read a lot of the slides with poorly chosen font colors over background pics.

[nucci]

Blitz everyone and ignore the run?

[Hapless Bills Fan]

10 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

Um ... no. The Bills offense was 30th worst in turnovers surrendered (31st in the INT category, meaning only one team threw more), and the Bills defense had the 32nd best defensive field position on average when they trotted out on the field—i.e., dead last. The bills offense was 26th in TOP and 30th in plays run too. All of that has a HUGE impact on the points allowed category. Dig a little deeper rather than simply throw out “points!” as a determinative category. 

 

I don't know about this "turnovers surrendered" stat or where you find it...but we're talking about the 2013 Bills with the Pettine D, correct?

In turnovers on offense, in 2013 Pro Football Reference shows the Bills at #20

In INTs, in 2013 Pro Football Reference shows the Bills at #16, with 15 INTs thrown by our QB

Plays run, looks like 3rd. 

 

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about, although it's in response to my post about the 2013 Bills.  I guess I could dig up TOP and so forth but it's really looking like we're not on the same page somewhere.

 

[TigerJ]

On 7/3/2019 at 11:57 AM, Royale with Cheese said:

Leave the Korean out of this.

While I like generally what the Pegulas have done as owners, they should have recognized the situation they were creating in the hiring of Wrecks Ryan.  He has tunnel vision for his 3-4 defense.  When he was hired, it was a given that's what he would run.  There should have been a conference with his GM, Doug Whaley, where they talked about the Bills defensive personnel and what it would take to run Ryan's defense effectively before he was ever hired.  I was originally in favor of retaining Jim Schartz.  The exact capacity in which he were retained would have taken some work.  Ideally, I think the Bills would have been better off hiring a creative offensive guy as a head coach and retaining Schwartz as a DC.  If Schwartz wanted the head coach job as a condition for staying, I would have pushed for a strong OC.

[LSHMEAB]

On 7/3/2019 at 8:09 PM, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

 

I'm not "pretending", I just see it differently than you.  There's no question the D was more exciting to watch, with pressure on the QB and INTs and all that...but when it comes down to the bottom line, it's all about whether or not the other team scores on ya.  My eyeball test says Pettine ran a gambling, blitz-heavy D.  As the saying goes, live by the blitz, die by the blitz.  We were porous against the run, sometimes at the worst times.    I think Wannstache's D was so boring and his play calling so predictable that Pettine's D looked amazing in contrast. 

 

This could be partially true. I think I'd have liked Juan Castillo as DC after the Wannestadt debacle.

[row_33]

I have found the 3-4 gave me more pleasant memories the last 46 years with this team

 

its a fact but it doesn’t need to have any bearing on the future 

 

 

[dave mcbride]

15 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I don't know about this "turnovers surrendered" stat or where you find it...but we're talking about the 2013 Bills with the Pettine D, correct?

In turnovers on offense, in 2013 Pro Football Reference shows the Bills at #20

In INTs, in 2013 Pro Football Reference shows the Bills at #16, with 15 INTs thrown by our QB

Plays run, looks like 3rd. 

 

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about, although it's in response to my post about the 2013 Bills.  I guess I could dig up TOP and so forth but it's really looking like we're not on the same page somewhere.

 

Egad. I was looking at 2018. My apologies. Still, the numbers in 2013 were disadvantageous for the Bill D. The offense was 19th in most turnovers given up, 31st in TOP, and 22nd in plays per drive; the D had the 30th best average starting field position. Opponents also scored 4 return TDs against the Bills (a higher than normal number): 2 INT returns, one fumble return, and one punt return.

Edited July 5, 2019 by dave mcbride

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

On 7/4/2019 at 6:43 AM, CSBill said:

 

Rex was such an awful coach.

 

What's the hiring mantra: "Hire slow and fire fast."  . . . At least Terry and Kim got the last part right.

 

 

 

Maybe I'm old school, but aren't points more important?

 

You are right on both fronts AND ironically Rex’s mythic defensive genius was based on his good yardage against rankings.. (he typically middling in points against, which was the reality) 

 

good and great defenses prevent points.  Yards are the dumbest of metrics. 

 

[billsfan905]

Really cool! I'm sure this is bastardized quite a bit from what he really ran in the NFL, but Pettine did make his 3-4 defense work from high school all the way to the NFL. Most likely the presentation is a condensed version for high school coaches to learn more about the 3-4 (Glazier Clinics are generally run for high school level coaches to learn). 

[Rocky Landing]

This is a really interesting document. I'm going to be glancing at this for a while. I wonder how much some of these coverage concepts have evolved since 2005. But, this is a really educational read. Even just seeing the terminology used in such a format really helps.