Fire Zone Philosophy

[Painter]

When Tom Coughlin introduced Steve Spagnulo as the Giants new Defensive Coordinator, a year ago, he made particular mention of his familiarity with the Fire Zone philosophy. He didn't say Fire Zone blitz, even though he could expect it to be inferred. What he was referring to was more than scheme, it was a mindset which recognizes that pressure on the opposing Quarterback has become essential to successful pass defense, and with it to overall success on defense.

But what does Fire Zone mean in more specific and practical terms; how does it work? The first element of the Fire Zone is to rush more defensive players than the offense has blockers to account for them. It can involve both numbers and location. Almost always, it involves rushing more than four defensive players which means at least five whether playing a 4-3 or 3-4 front. And that constitutes a blitz.

However, that's not all which is involved. Its essence is to blitz unpredictably with linebackers, defensive backs and combinations of both while keeping the Secondary from being undermanned and exposed by dropping one or more Dlinemen into zone pass coverage.

Dropping linemen into zone pass coverage often mean zone coverage behind them, but not always. There may still be man-coverage, and even a double on the opponents best receiver. It does seem. however, that the Giants most often play a three deep zone behind their blitzes which they employ on average about 12-15 times a game.

Whatever shell is played behind the blitz, it is important that the rushers get at least enough pressure to hurry the QB, and that those who aren't rushing clog the passing lanes, and try to identify the hot receiver. 

So, we have blitz (rushing five or more players) and zone blitz ( Dlinemen dropping into coverage), where then does the term, Fire Zone come in? Although not precisely defined, it is considered to mean creating a fire zone or clear path for a blitzer to the QB by overloading one side of a blocking scheme. That may be accomplished not only by attacking with a second blitzer, but also by stunting and looping Dlineman so that they don't rush straight ahead from their original position but overload one side of the offensive protection.

While strictly speaking the term, Fire Zone means blitzing and a propensity to blitz- not all the time, but at almost any time, in almost any situation- certain of its fundamental elements have been employed by the Giants without actually blitzing. For example, it's not uncommon when the Giants are playing their Four Aces package to see them stunt or loop Dlineman while dropping one into coverage and adding a Linebacker to the rush often through a gap vacated by a Dlineman.  Only four rushers, but with a look that can be as confusing to the QB as if there were more. Any extra fraction of a second he takes to figure out that it's only four is to the defense's advantage.

I suppose we could sum it up by saying that the Fire Zone philosophy is to aggressively apply pass rush pressure on the opposing Quarterback by employing extra rushers from any and all angles at any time with the conviction that the more a quarterback is attacked, the more are the chances he is going to be hit, and the more he is hit, the more innacurate he'll become.

How effective were they in attacking?  How about a season with 53 sacks, 61 knockdowns, and 45 hurries. That doesn't include what they did in postseason including the Super Bowl when they sacked and hit Brady a combined 23 times. Philosophically sound it would seem.

Cheers!

[MightyGiants]

Excellent work Painter.   Here is an article that covers zone blitzes.  It includes some diagrams and it covers the zone coverage concepts.  Painter's work is at a pretty high level, so this article might be useful to fully understand it.

http://espn.go.com/ncf/columns/davie/1430750.html

[bamagiantfan]

Well done Painter.

I think the 7th paragraph was the key to the Giants effectiveness in post season. Much of what QBs saw, or thought they were seeing was new. The perception of a blitz, or fear of one, was confusing for opposing QBs late in the games, and just as effective as an actual blitz. Farve in particular was looking for his hot reciever several times when there was actually only a 4 man rush. The problem was that the four men were three D-linemen and one LB. Technically not a blitz but it was read as one. Farve threw the hot read as the receiver ran his normal route. Result: Incomplete.

Brady was looking for the hot receiver all day which is why Welker ended up with so many catches. Brady never had a chance to look for Stallworth, usually the second read on most passing plays, and he was therefore a non-factor. Moss didn't have time to get deep in Brady's mind. The trump card for the Giants in the Superbowl was that they were able to get pressure with four rushers. Even when Brady read it right and thought he could get the ball downfield, he got pressure and sometimes sacked. That was a killer for them. The Superbowl was perhaps the most confused I have ever seen Tom Brady. He just couldn't figure out what was coming or where it was coming from. It was very well disguised and/or different than anything Brady had seen on film from the Giants previously.

[BLD]

A piece of info to add on this subject:

A fire zone blitz scheme is slightly different than the standard zone blitz scheme.



Both schemes are designed to pressure the QB.
The fire zone is designed to take away his hot read as well.
There are many methods used to do this, but the idea is to lead the QB to think that his hot read is going to be open, but then drop a DL into the throwing lane of the hot read's route.

It takes very solid data to know who is the hot read for each team in their various formations and personell packages, but when it's effective, it's dynamite.

[MightyGiants]

Thanks for the input and welcome BLD.

[BLD]

Mighty,
it's dorgan.
Apparently I registered on here quite a while ago.
It took me a couple of weeks to remember what my log in name was!

I've never been accused of being bright!

[Painter]

You could not be more correct, bgf.  I am grateful to you for having expanded on that aspect which is a fundamental feature of the Giants defense, and which paid such dividends against Brady in SBXLII.

These numbers illustrate the Giants pressures on Brady's 53 pass drops:

3-man pressure: 3 (all in the 2h)

4-man pressure: 35 (11/1h; 24/2h)

5-man pressure: 14 (6/1h; 8/2h)

6-man pressure:  1  (in the 2h)

4 sacks came off 4-man pressure; 1 off 5-man. 11 of 18 other hits came off 4-man pressure.

It's pretty clear that the Giants were able to pressure Brady, especially through the first 3 Quarters, by disguising their 4- and 5-man pressures, and not having to sell out. It does seem, however, that it may not have been the best choice to go with 3 or 4 rushers and Dime defense with just under 8 minutes left in the game which resulted in the Pats 12 play drive for the go ahead TD. However, I'm not going to second-guess why. In any case, I think it makes my point, and yours in particular.

Cheers! 

[bamagiantfan]

Painter, I think some injuries and players leaving the lineup for a few plays during that 12-play drive, may have dictated some of the Defensive sets. I agree, it was out of character and a strange decision but not much need to question it now. Who knows, it might have set up some things for them later in the game.

[Painter]

I think that may have been part of it, bgf. I know for a fact that when Alford clobbered Brady up the middle at the start of the Pats final futile series, he had just subbed in for a winded Fred Robbins.  And we do have to credit Brady and his receivers, Welker, Moss, and Faulk for being damn good at what they do. They practically have a patent on that sort of thing.

Cheers! 

[jimmyz]

I would imagine that when the blitz is so successful, that the oline begins to looks for it even when we bring 4.  Would you say this leads to a lot of one on one blocking, in which case the advantage goes to the D?

[bamagiantfan]

I think so JimmyZ. I don't see any reason why the QB would be the only one confused. When the tackle lines up with Umenyiora over him, he probably locks in on Osi as his responsibility. Then if Umenyiora drops into coverage, the OLT has to look elsewhere to see if a blitz is coming from that side, a Defensive Tackle is stunting into his area, or quite possibly both. Even with a 4 man rush, that would leave one guy blocking two and several O-linemen blocking air. Since Brady isn't very mobile and they rarely keep a back in as a blocker, that's a bad scenerio for the Patriots.