A solid look vs. one-back run sets.

WITH TWO LINEBACKERS SITTING INSIDE, THE ONE-BACK SETS CANNOT GET A RUN FOR THEIR MONEY

Over the years, we had been getting along quite successfully with a 4-4 defense that enabled us to present a lot of different looks and to defend both the run and pass without necessitating a lot of changes.

As one-back offenses started growing in popularity, we found ourselves having difficulty stopping their running game. The runners were finding seams in our spread defense.

In our base, or normal, alignment (Diag. 1), we always set two linebackers (Mike and Plug) between the tackles - aligning to the strong side as dictated by the tight end and aligning opposite.

(Note: The second, unnumbered diagram in each of the accompanying alignments shows the particular defense against another popular offensive alignment.)

The one-back running attacks often hurt us when we would bump our Plug (weakside LB) out onto #2, or onto #3 vs trips to his side, forcing our Mike LB to cover runs from tackle to tackle. [ILLUSTRATION FOR DIAG. 2 OMITTED]

This could put Mike into a bind. In his pursuit of outside plays, the opposing back could cut back behind him for long gains. And whenever Mike started exercising caution while pursuing the run - looking for the cutback - he would have trouble getting to the ball carrier at the POA. We had to come up with an answer, and we found it in the "Solid" adjustment shown in Diag. 3. We started keeping our two linebackers inside against one-back sets.