Football Columns
I really enjoy writing an almost monthly column for the ORANGE AND BROWN REPORT, a Cleveland Browns' fan magazine published by SCOUT.COM. For more information or to subscribe to THE OBR go to WWW.CLE.SCOUT.COM. Below is a column I wrote in 2006 about pass coverages.
HEAD INJURIES, FROM A COACHES POINT OF VIEW
I had a treat last Sunday, I got to watch the Browns game on TV. That is something that probably everyone who reads this magazine who is not at the game does every Sunday, but for those of us who coach college football and have games on Saturday, Sunday is our work day. I know where IÕm at Sunday means grading the game film from the day before, showing the film to our team, playing a J.V. game (yes, colleges play J.V.'s), and starting our game prep for our next opponent. There usually is no time to watch football games on TV.
Last Sunday we did not have a J.V. game so I got to watch most of the Browns/Steelers game, which will be remembered for two things: the debut of Colt McCoy as the Browns quarterback and the hits that James Harrison laid on Josh Cribbs and Mohamed Massaquoi. The hits by Harrison and its after effects ruined the game for me, and had such a strong affect on me that it changed what I'm going to write about this month.
Every couple of years head injuries become a hot topic with the football media, but then seem to disappear. A series of recent events has kept head injuries in the spotlight for an extended time, and I finally think that things are going to happen on all levels of football to hopefully help prevent and treat them. However, what needs to be done and what will be done are two separate things.
When talking about head injuries you are speaking about two kinds, the injury from a big hit like Harrison's on Massaquoi, and the after affects of the repeated pounding a player takes using his head over and over again to lead on blocks and tackles.
The recent attention on head injuries and concussions probably started with the 2006 suicide of former Eagle Andre Waters. After examining remains of Mr. Waters' brain, doctors claimed that Mr. Waters had sustained brain damage from playing football that led to depression and ultimately to his suicide. In a New York Times article dated January 28, 2009, neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu of the University of Pittsburgh, a leading expert in forensic pathology, determined that "Mr. Waters' brain tissue had degenerated into that of an 85-year-old man with similar characteristics as those of early-stage Alzheimer's victimsÉthat the damage was either caused or drastically expedited by successive concussions Mr. Waters, 44, had sustained playing football."
Another recently publicized story is that of former NFL lineman Tom McHale, who died in May 2008 at the age of 45. His brain was the sixth of a former NFL lineman who died young examined by doctors, and the sixth to show chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive condition that results from repetitive head trauma. Think of punch-drunk fighters. Dr. Daniel Perl, director of neuropathology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, stated in another New York Times article dated January 28, 2009, ÒÉwith a sixth case identified, out of six, for a condition that is incredibly rare in the general population, there is more than enough evidence that football is clearly strongly related to the presence of this pathology." In lay men's terms this means that CTE is a lot more common amongst current and former football players than previously thought.
What is scary to me is that not only is it a concern on the pro level, but research is showing that concussions are having a lasting affect on players on all levels of football. Articles in the May 4, 2009, issue of USA Today, and the January 21, 2009 issue of Time Magazine, shared the research of a study from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, showing that when high school athletes suffer concussions, as many as 40% return to action prematurely and set themselves up for more severe injuries. The Time article also told of Jaquan Waller, a 16 year old North Carolina high school football player who died after coming back too soon from a head injury.
Journalists like Alan Schwarz of the New York Times are keeping the safety of athletics on the front burner in the media. When you have time check out his articles online, especially the one on helmets dated October 20, 2010. If you have a child playing youth football it will send a chill down your spine.
How many more head to head contacts are we going to have in college and pro games before we have another similar tragedy? As scary it is when watching at home, seeing players on both sides down on one knee, the stadium silent, the injured player(s) lying still on the ground, it is even more scary in person up close. As a long time college football coach, I have been witness to several scary head to head contact moments. The worst was when a 200 pound linebacker (who was also a track All American) collided with a 250 pound All American tight end right in front of our bench, right in front of me. I thought the linebacker was dead. The tight end was not that much better. The linebacker never played a down of football again. He did not move for a long time, and the look on the faces of the attending doctors and trainers were ominous. I never want to go through that again, I said to myself at the time. However, that type of situation which use to be a maybe once a season occurrence, now happens three or four times. How often do we now see this situation on televised games, both college and pro?
Organized football has to take things into its own hands and it must start at the top and go all the way down to the youth leagues and CYO. Three obvious things must happen. The first is to get everything consistent on the medical side, from testing to treatment. Concussions and other head injuries must be tracked from level to level for each individual player. Trainers and sports medicine doctors must be involved in all policy making. Athletic trainers have been calling for this for years, so an athlete who had a history of concussions on the high school level does not start over again when he enters college.
The second thing that must be done involves a major change in how we teach and coach the game. Concussions greatly increased in numbers when more and more players started to treat their helmets as a tool instead of a protection device. Back when helmets were leather and did not have facemasks, players on both sides of the ball rarely lowered their heads to make a tackle or fight for an extra yard. Now it happens on every play.
Troy Polamula is one of the great players of the NFL. At least once a game he will blitz hard off the edge and will attack whatever is in front of him by lowering his head plowing through whatever is in his way to make a big play. This style of football has made him All American and All Pro. However, it has come with a cost, with media reports listing his concussion count for his college and pro years at at least seven. But kids on the lower levels want to be like Troy, and how many of them imitate his style on Fridays night and Saturday afternoons?
The third thing that must happen is the NFL must take an honest, active roll in making football safer. Too often in the past the NFL has ignored findings and recommendations from trainers and doctors, by either ignoring them or listening only to their own hand picked physicians. At least the NFL has finally gotten rid of Dr. Ira Casson, the leagues official doctor on these matters until very recently. In January of this year he testified in front of Congress and stuck to his guns, stating there is no correlation between football and head injuries, something he has been in denial about since his appointment in 1994.
The NFL must lead the way to tackle a leading health issue on all levels of football, the avoidance and treatment of concussions. And, until the NFL takes the lead in this issue, it will always be a problem and a threat to the health of players on all levels of football. Giving out fines and suspensions for unnecessary and dangerous hits is a start, but they must do so much more.
The NFL can not have one of its players make irresponsible comments like, "When you get a guy on the ground, it's a perfect hit," like Harrison said about his tackle on Cribbs. Nor can the NFL have a coach like Mike Tomlin say "They were legal hits, not finable hits, He played good football. James is always ready to deliverÉ" like he did in support of Harrison's play. And the NFL can not have referees not call penalties on plays players are later fined for.
When is this going to stop? How many more players on high school fields to Super Bowl Stadiums are going to be carried off on stretchers because of head injuries? When will the NFL lead the way and change the way we block and tackle, and enforce rules about head to head contact? Are we going to wait for that day when a player on an NFL team is not going to get off the field alive?
As a coach I take issue with what Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin's responses to Harrison's play. Until someone knocks some sense into coaches like Tomlin and players like Harrison, things will never change in the NFL. And if things don't change in the NFL that means in youth leagues across the country, under Friday night high school lights in every community, there will be young players lowering their heads and launching them into an opponent in pursuit of that "perfect tackle" that Harrison referred to, that Tomlin called a "legal hit."
back to topINTRODUCTION TO PASS COVERAGES
It really wasn’t that long ago when things on defense, especially pass coverages, were a lot simpler. The Sixties really weren’t that long ago, were they? When that decade started pro football was finishing what most thought was the great revolution from two-way players to two-platoon football. But, besides this personnel move, the game was still the running game it had always been and defenses, especially coverages, were very simple. So simple, some NFL teams didn’t even have multiple coverages, actually doing the same thing every down, every game. Playing any type of zone was frowned upon, the toughness of the league demanded man on man battles.
;Remember, in the “Greatest Game Ever Played” a few years earlier Johnny Unitas handed off to Allen Ameche to beat the Giants in overtime to win over the hearts of America’s sports fans. And the biggest match up on any field on Sunday afternoons was still Jim Brown going head-to-head with Sam Huff.
Then things happened very fast, both figuratively and literally, and by the end of the decade the game would be changed forever, and would closely resemble the game we all love today. The Cowboys signed the world’s fastest man, the 1964 Olympic hero Bob Hayes. And what they found out was not only was he the world’s greatest track athlete, he was a tough and competitive football player. For the first time teams just couldn’t ‘put someone on him,’ he was too fast and athletic for any defensive back to cover man-for-man. And then the AFL hit stride and all hell broke loose. After watching their favorite NFL teams grind out the ground game for 16-13 victories during the 1:00 games on the east coast on CBS, fans were then turning to the 4:00 AFL games on NBC and saw Sid Gillman and his Chargers throwing passing routes on three levels and no matter what the coverage someone got open. Oakland’s Al Davis wouldn’t get outdone, so he did the same thing but found a QB with a better arm (Daryl Lomonica) and faster receivers (Warren Wells and Co.). The Chargers and Raiders were playing in shootouts with scores like 42-38, and America’s eyed were glued to the AFL instead of pro wrestling. Suddenly quarterbacks like Joe Namath and Len Dawson would be telling Curt Gowdy and Al De Ragtis how they “read” the coverage and we all know what happened in Super Bowl III and IV.
Even in the best and most innovated offenses that preceded these events in the Sixties, there really very little reading of defenses and coverages. When Otto Graham ran Paul Brown’s offense in Cleveland in the Forties and Fifties, with it’s innovative screen passes and trap plays, Otto ran Brown’s plays that were sent in using another of his coaching innovations, the messenger guard. Otto knew his meal ticket was Paul Brown, and 99% of the time he did what he was told. A dozen years later you had Joe Namath telling his team in the huddle to listen for the audible on the line of scrimmage. Yes, things happened fast.
Probably the two biggest influences since the Sixties have been the Howard Schnellenberger and Bill Walsh affects, which both brought the running game back into the passing game. Schnellenberger was a Bear Bryant protégé, who as an NFL assistant and then as head coach of the Colts and then later Miami University, attacked the whole field using both the run and the pass and the defense had better be ready. Bill Walsh did the same thing, but with a moving quarterback who was told to just move the chains and touchdowns would soon follow. Now everyone in the NFL, east coast, west coast, and everyone in between, runs a variation of these offenses.
NFL defenses for the last forty years have had to make adjustments to multi attack offenses. Plus, when was the last time the NFL helped out the defense in the rules department? Most major changes in the actually structure of the game have almost always been to benefit the offense. Holding, except for the most flagrant of incidences, is legal. Receivers are pretty much allowed to roam free off the line of scrimmage, and quarterbacks are electronically attached in communications with their offensive coordinators to receive plays and advice instantaneously. Meanwhile, almost anything the defense has come up with has gotten outlawed. Remember when teams would break the huddle with 15 defenders, with guys running off the field depending on the offensive formation? It did not take the league long to outlaw this defensive innovation. Touchdowns sell commercials.
Which leads us all to the latest efforts in defense calls, especially in the department of coverages, and the latest coverage du jour, variations of Bill Belechick’s New England Patriot’s two deep coverage.
Before we go any further, lets talk about how defenses are called, usually three ways. First what front will be used, then what coverage, then any blitzes or stunts. For example, a call like Patriot Shade Fire Cover 2 Weak could translate into a 3 man front (Patriot); an offset nose guard (shade); some sort of blitz off the edge of the strong side (fire); with a two deep zone look, possibly with man coverage on the one receiver side (weak). There is no universal language shared by teams, even though many teams run the same stuff. Each defensive coordinator wants to put his own stamp on his own defense, which means more jargon than is usually necessary. Another topic for another column.
Defensive coverages in the NFL have evolved in the last twenty seasons or so into combinations of both man and zone. Teams would cover better receivers with a corner back man-for-man, but also with a safety behind them in some sort of zone to help out. “Man Free” defenses gave athletic safeties like Felix Wright or knockout artists like Jack Tatum the chance to play centerfield on top of team’s defenses. The idea was to occupy the receivers until Lawrence Taylor or John Randle could run down the quarterback, either sacking him or forcing him to throw. Sure, you’d give up the short stuff because it wouldn’t lead to too many touchdowns, especially if your offense was pretty good at scoring them.
So what are teams doing now against the likes of Peyton Manning and Randy Moss? One thing Bellichek has really emphasized in New England, and he started it when he had Taylor in New York, is defense players who can play more than one position, moving the personal mind games advantages back to the defense. Safeties that can come up and play linebacker, linebackers that can also be affective rushing defensive ends, are very common today.
But remember Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are no dummies, and guys like Antonio Gates are big and athletic and can catch passes with two defenders hanging on. How do you cover the studs?
Next time we will get into more specifics about pass coverages, but please remember all this change over the last forty years or so has given us today a great game, structured to let big athletic competitive athletes make plays. Putting players in positions to be successful, and we as fans love it, either sitting in the stands at our favorite stadium or watching it at home on television.
Two thoughts for you to think about until next time as far as defensive coverages go:
- Talent How do you cover the Randy Moss’s of the world? How many times have we seen players like him with two defenders hanging on to still go up and come down with the ball?
- The Running Game How much defensive backs, especially safeties, have to worry about the running game strongly affects the pass coverage a team runs. It may seem like an oxymoron, that the passing game is so reliant on the running game. You could go back to all the Super Bowls John Elway didn’t win until Terrell Davis came along, or to as recent as the current Steelers, to see the effects of a good running game and defenses trying to stop it along with a solid passing attack.