JKool

Billy, I wasn\'t trying to avoid the debate - I just can\'t figure out exactly what it is we\'re disagreeing about. Here are a couple of things, so of which may help and others are merely me trying to understand the problem:

(1) Execution. This is something players do independent of their talent (at least as I understand your use). Thus, it seems to me that it is a combination of two things: (a) smarts/memory/visual recognition, and (b) doing what the scheme requires. (b) is of obvious interest, since it makes execution and schemes almost synonymous. Without a scheme, there would be nothing to execute. Maybe I missed your point here, but that sounds right to me.

(2) Coaching also has three parts, one of which will sound interestingly familiar: (a) selecting appropriate packages of players, (b) motivating players, (c) selecting a good scheme (defensive play). (c) appears to have coahing include schemes.

(3) Ah ha! As I wrote this last one, I thought perhaps our disagreement is here: I think of schemes as the set of defensive plays that you will utilize during the game - perhaps it has more/less meaning to you?

(4) You keep saying that schemes are less important than players and coaches. Is this because players and coaches USE schemes? Is it because without players and coaches, there would me no schemes? Those don\'t make one or the other more important in my view, they just make one depend on the other - I guess I\'m just not sure what \"more important\" means here. My view is that schemes are just another part of the mix (I think players, coaching, and schemes just are the defense, I guess - one is not more important than the others).

(5) Here is an example. Let\'s say that the zone-blitz is a scheme (since I think it is). It is often said, and I agree, that this is one of the greatest revolutions on defense in the last 10-15 years (and I agree). In a zone blitz more of the second line (LBs and DBs come than the OL thought would, and a DE or DT drops into a zone coverage as the others blow by). When this innovation first came about, it didn\'t matter too much who was playing, since teams that hadn\'t seen it too often before couldn\'t adjust the line blocking very effectively (certainly not on the field).

Now, in anticipation of your response to my example, I suppose we could say that without speedy/savvy palyers and a quick DE/DT, we couldn\'t run a zone defense in the first place (but I don\'t see how that makes the idea of a zone blitz not the nightmare and that it couldn\'t be executed with just about any NFL calibre player). Also, you might cavil that it is coaching that is the thing here - without a coach who knew when to implement the zone-blitz, there would be no good zone blitzes. Again, I think it is the scheme that is important to it\'s success (the innovation created the problems for the OL, not the coaches); also, you might argue that it is just bad coaching on the other teams part not to be ready to adapt to such a defense (but coaching had to change once there was a new kind of threat - the zone blitz scheme).

(5) Given what I have said here, I don\'t know how to answer your question about which has been the bigger problem for the Saint\'s D - since it is my view that the goodness of the defense depends on all things being in proper alignmnet (the coaching, the talent, and the excecution OF THE SCHEMES).

What say you?

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks