Art of Smart Football

With The Essential Smartfootball, it was satisfying to see Brown's selection compiled and presented to a larger audience. This time around, The Art of Smart Football, takes many of Brown's contributions from his blog, Yahoo Sports and Grantland and presents them as he typically does, with a welcoming dialogue of mature reflection and clear analysis.  The content of this book is a complete package of contemporary football trends to afford the fair-weather fan to seasoned coach a competent perspective to fully appreciate what you'll see on the field this season.

As we explored when assessing his last book, Brown is the pacesetter of intellectual football discourse today.  There is no reason sports analysts should continue in the morass of the old media storylines (dumbing down what is delivered to their audience), when Brown has been showing how it can be done without losing the reader's interest.  The book is not heavy on football jargon or diagrams (though there are some great illustrations), so it is an easy read that one can digest quickly or casually pick up at their leisure.  This would be a great read in the coming weeks as everything he covers here, will be the narrative every weekend from the college to pro level.

There's no reason you shouldn't have this offering in your library.  Grab it at Amazon today....the electronic version (Kindle app for mobile) is as easy as it gets.

Making a mark

Finally got through the Chris Brown book....I'm surely missing the boat on the many fine reviews that were offered when the book was published months ago.  Its exactly as you think it would be; clear, articulate and entertaining football dialogues from the creator of Smartfootball.  Brown does what he does, easily better than anyone else, covering the ever evolving world of football, schemes, and the players and coaches that shape it's landscape.  It would've been easy (and acceptable) if Brown simply republished many of his fine works, but he goes above and beyond by taking his great articles and further researches and defines narratives.

Smartfootball: The Book

The prevailing thought I had when breezing through this extremely easy to read paperback is the depth and distinct flavor Brown provides that is so lacking in any other mainstream football publication available.  To think how much Brown has obviously labored over these writings, collecting data, outling and refining the message, diagramming, etc.....and you've been reading his stuff for FREE for years!  Then you figure how many bullshitting sportswriters that are getting fat book deals to pour out some narrative drivel that doesn't give you any insight to the game at all (what a crime).  Brown should be getting paid to do "his thing" full time because he clearly is an industry leader.

Chris Brown for nearly the past decade (and easily the past 4 years) has truly shaped how coaches, fans, and passers-by engage in football discourse.  He has single-handedly raised the bar from spastic Chris Berman inspired dogshit to dispassionate, analytical reflection.  Go to any fan site or SBNation blog and you'll see the people regurgitating Smartfootball and doing their best to talk his talk (how many times did you see "Constraint theory" before it was on Smartfooball?). Enough cannot be said about his impact on the game (in my opinion) and how we all see football today and in the future.



Leave something behind

I'm not sure if I've ever addressed this before, but this site started years ago as a lark, but with the intention of giving something back to the many coaches who have embraced electronic media.  In particular, Tom Brandow, architect of the old AOL site, "Tobyz Football Site" that spearheaded much of what you see about (coaching) football online today.  This spawned the Hugh Wyatt blog (OG of football blogs) and Jerry Campbell sites. Now we have the Huey's message board (and weekly whiteboard sessions) and various spinoffs.

As a newer project, here is a url you can reference that should become a repository of sorts.  Game film for historical archives (you can really learn so much from the older film).  Nothing from the NFL and all film will be greater than three seasons old.  Bookmark it or set up an RSS feed from the link, but it is something that will grow each week.  Do what you will with the video, it's there to stimulate thought and increase the knowledge base.
Football Video Files for downloading

Assorted Football Documents / Templates for downloading

Virginia Tech Robber

Without an original thought in my head, I am going to piggy-back on a brilliant article recently authored by coaches Chris Brown ( http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2009/07/deconstructing-virginia-tech-defense.html ) and Chris Vasseur analyzing the evolution of the Va Tech Hokie 42 from an 8-man Robber, to their current, 7-man front quarters look. The article can be read here;

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Deconstructing-How-the-Hokie-D-becomes-deadlier?urn=ncaaf,178348

Both contributors are great minds of the game and Coach Vass has run the 44 "G" with Hokie "Tuff" front (bear) and Robber concepts for years.

As an aside to that piece, I am offering this treatise on Robber that may illustrate the evolution of the game from the days of our youth into what we have today. Fans of 'defensive football' will no doubt have an affinity for the violence associated with the likes of Buddy Ryan's 46 defense and other unrelenting, aggressively swarming dominant defenses of the 80s.

What does that have to do with the Robber? Well, sports fans, quite a bit. When we reminisce of these grand days of Hollywood football, we often do not account for WHY certain schemes were successful when they were, and are can be puzzled at why we don't see these schemes much any more or why they aren't as dominant as they once were.

What you'll find with the Robber and 46 is though their concepts are different from one another, the reason behind their success isn't. The ability to stuff the box with more defenders than could be blocked means someone is coming free (because you ran out of people to account for all those defenders). What broke (or accelerated defensive Darwinism) Robber, also broke the 46.

Offenses of the era were hamstrung by painting themselves into a (formation) corner by relying on 2 back, tight end formations in an effort to bring more numbers to the point of attack than the defense had. Rather than fight fire with fire (keep adding additional bodies to block), the solution was to stress the defensive front (and coverage) by REMOVING numbers from the box (think of the adage, "you've got to spend money to make money"). By displacing one of the two backs outside the box, the offense gained a horizontal stretch on the defense. This had the ability to stress coverage and run-support to a breaking point. More and more, offenses began finding strength in going on the attack of these explosive defenses (Seifert-era 49ers were notorious for their exploitation of using William Floyd & Ricky Watters in these coverage-stressing roles).

The following is an illustration of Va Tech Robber during the infancy of its dominance, the 1998 season. With players like Keion Carpenter, Pierson Prioleau, Loren Johnson, and Corey Moore, the Hokies were just starting to develop a stride of aggressive defensive players that they would carry through the new millenium.


These shots are against a young Syracuse Donovan McNabb. The Orangmen eventually won this game, which many feel Syracuse squeaked by based on the ineptness of Tech's offense, coordinated by Rickey Bustle (now HC at ULL), and not the result of defense. These shots best capture what the "robber" was made for, and also show what caused it to evolve.


The first graphic beautifully captures the numbers matchup of the formation du jour of the era, 2-back pro. With just a single receiver split on one side of the formation (flanker I), the corners could essentially lock down any 5-7 step vertical throw, allowing the FS to "rob" and put the defense at a +1 advantage in the run game (8 offensive players - 8 box defenders + 1 FS).

In the Va Tech Robber, the Corners align in typical Cover 3 leverage, looking to shuffle into the 3 step and bail into 5 step game. They bail to take away deep 1/2 vertical throws, knowing they have help on pass inside with the deep hole safety.

he key for the FS is the TE, if he releases vertically and gets depth on the underneath linebackers, he is free to take the TE man-to-man in a speed matchup he is sure to win. If the TE stays in for protection, or releases shallow, underneath the linebackers, the FS is free to "rob" any inside breaking route from either of the single receivers (typically this would come from the backside X). The read is clear and distinct, allowing the FS to confidently play this technique against any 2-back offense with a TE.

You'll note the depth of the FS in these pictures, playing at almost LB depth around 8 yards. A reach, arc release, or down block from the TE initiates a run read for the FS, allowing him to aggressively fit the alley support as an unblockable defender in the run. Typically, in the 80s and 90s, that is essentially all offenses did, anyway (run/pass out of 2-back sets). The FS in robber is flat-footed and looking to move forward at the snap.

In this first example, we find the Orangemen in a 2-back pro-formation, running a play-action pass at the Hokies. Notice the FS's shoulders turning immediately to the #1 receiver as McNabb's shoulders square up and declare that this was not a run.

At the snap, the FS reads the high-hat pass read, and follows McNabb's shoulders to the now vertical X receiver running a post. With the corner in phase over the top of the receiver, the FS "robs" this route from the inside-and-underneath and finishes the play with a pass break-up.

The "robber" allowed the Hokies to essentially double-cover a single receiver, while at the same time, had it been a run, get an additional defender in to stop the run. With only 3 possible immediate vertical threats, the FS was able to quickly check off to the most dangerous man and aggressively play ball.

This game may serve as an illustration of the constant cat-and-mouse game offenses and defenses play with formations vs coverage, as you will see Syracuse's option attack test and experiment how they could best match up against one of the best 8-man fronts of the era. Syracuse uses 2 tight ends, 2-backs, and at times 3-backs, to attempt to stymie the onslaught of Tech's aggressive front, but as this next example shows, it is addition by subtraction that wins the day for the offense.

The next play here shows a completely different look. No longer are the Orangemen presenting 3 vertical threats, but now they have 4 vertical threats spaced horizontally, forcing the Hokies to account for these 4 over the 53 1/3 yard width of the field.

Now the chess match begins.

What is the 'right' decision?



Do you cover/respect the vertical threat of these 4 receivers? To do so, means you can no longer support the 8 man box



Do you treat the gifted McNabb as a runner and stay in an 8 man front? To do so, means you can no longer support the 4 verticals with only 3 deep defenders



To stay in Robber, would put 2 receivers on 1 FS, making an easy read for the QB to find which one will be open.

The Hokies chose the conservative approach, minimizing their liabilities by matching the formation, checking to Cover 4, and fortunately, bottling the receivers allowed the defensive line time to finally sack McNabb..

If you remember the game, McNabb was a terror running on the perimeter out of these spread sets. That aggressive offensive concept has been all too familiar throughout the last decade of football (and one the Hokies, themselves, would employ with Michael Vick the next year).

For more 'study' of the old Hokie Robber, check out the game film at;