Zero2Cool
13 years ago

Good, hard, sharp, and sure tackling is the very essence of a successful defense, and no player should hope to be placed upon a team unless he has become adept in this most important of football fundamentals. No team is going to be severely beaten, even if it has no offense at all, if it is composed of eleven good tacklers....

—GLENN SCOBEY (POP) WARNER

May 1927

On a November Sunday in Cleveland last year, Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez completed a pass to wideout Braylon Edwards in the shallow left flat. Browns cornerback Sheldon Brown jumped forward to perform the essential job that Pop Warner had described 83 years earlier: Tackle the ballcarrier. (Huddle. Repeat.) Football plays can end in various ways: with touchdowns, field goals, incompletions, fair catches, dead-ball penalties and stepping out-of-bounds. But most end with the ballcarrier being taken to the ground by the defense. It is absolute. After a tackle, whistles are blown, the ball is spotted and the offense must draw up another play and start anew.

But tackling has also become one of the most uncertain elements in the modern NFL, altered not only by evolutions in strategy (sideline-to-sideline passing attacks supplanting between-the-numbers power running) and performance (more elusive athletes with each passing year), but also most recently by rules changes designed to protect ballcarriers from injuries by limiting concussive, helmet-to-helmet hits. The pure, unbridled, bone-jarring tackle is a fading memory.

As Brown moved up on Edwards, his instincts told him to blast headlong with little regard for the consequences, tactical or physical. There are two basic ways to tackle: either "break down" into a balanced crouch to reduce the possibility of getting juked in the open field, or barrel into the ballcarrier at full speed. Brown had played his first seven NFL seasons for the Eagles under the late defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, who gave his troops only one option.

"Coach Johnson taught us to never break down, just keep running through like knives," says Brown. "And if I miss on the correct side, one of my teammates will be right behind me, running like a bat out of you know where, and he'll make the hit and maybe force a turnover. One of the knives will hit." (Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who worked under Johnson in Philadelphia, says, "Arrow through snow" that's what Jim used to say: Attack like an arrow through snow.")

As an Eagle, Brown lived Johnson's credo. In January 2007 he laid out Saints running back Reggie Bush with a blowup hit by driving hard upfield on a swing pass, a shot so monumental it made the cover of SI six months later. But here, against the Jets, Brown hesitated. The previous month, after the notorious Oct. 17 afternoon so packed with violent, concussive hits that it became known as Black Sunday, the NFL announced it would stringently enforce rules against head shots. That clouded Brown's mind. "I tried to break down and then come up," says Brown of the play on Edwards. "He dipped his shoulder, and that got him lower than me, and I took the brunt of the hit. They talk about defenseless receivers. I put myself in a defenseless position, and I hurt my shoulder. I was confused with all the changes, and I made an adjustment." (Though his forward momentum was stopped, Edwards never did go down—four other Cleveland defenders threw themselves into the play, and the whistle blew with the Jets receiver still standing.)

Brown is sitting on a shaded bench outside the team's headquarters in Berea, Ohio, after a morning practice during training camp. He covers receivers for a living, but he makes tackles, too, and it's much too late to change his approach. "Not trying to be dirty, but I've got to play the game the way I've always played it," he says. "I've got to run through tackles. If [league officials] punish me, they punish me."

For a very long time, coaches at all levels taught players to tackle with their shoulders. "It goes all the way back to playing the game without face masks [which entered the NFL in the mid-1950s]," says Patriots coach Bill Belichick, for whom the history of the game is an avocation. "Guys were taught to lead with their shoulder and turn their head to the side to protect their faces. Then equipment changed, and techniques changed. Players were taught to generate all their power in a straight line. Both hips, both legs. That allowed you to put your face in the middle of the runner, keeping your eyes up. It was a fundamentally better way of tackling."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1189947/index.htm 

Tim Layden wrote:


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Zero2Cool
9 years ago
Nearly five years later and the question yet to be answered.
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DarkaneRules
9 years ago
It's sad and you know it drives coaches crazy.
Circular Arguments: They are a heck of an annoyance
Fan Shout
Mucky Tundra (3h) : If they knew about it or not
Mucky Tundra (3h) : I don't recall that he did which is why I asked.
Zero2Cool (7h) : Guessing they probably knew. Did he have cast or something on?
Mucky Tundra (14h) : Did they know that at the time or was that something the realized afterwards?
Zero2Cool (9-Apr) : Van Ness played most of season with broken thumb
wpr (9-Apr) : yay
Zero2Cool (9-Apr) : Mark Murphy says Steelers likely to protect Packers game. Meaning, no Ireland
Zero2Cool (8-Apr) : Struggling to figure out what text editor options are needed and which are 'nice to have'
Mucky Tundra (8-Apr) : *CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP*
Zero2Cool (2-Apr) : WR who said he'd break Xavier Worthy 40 time...and ran slower than you
Mucky Tundra (2-Apr) : Who?
Zero2Cool (2-Apr) : Texas’ WR Isaiah Bond is scheduled to visit the Bills, Browns, Chiefs, Falcons, Packers and Titans starting next week.
Zero2Cool (2-Apr) : Spotting ball isn't changing, only measuring distance is, Which wasn't the issue.
Zero2Cool (2-Apr) : The spotting of the ball IS the issue. Not the chain gang.
Mucky Tundra (2-Apr) : Will there be a tracker on the ball or something?
Zero2Cool (1-Apr) : uh oh
Martha Careful (1-Apr) : Too bad camera's can't spot the ball as well.
Mucky Tundra (1-Apr) : So will the chain gang be gone completely or will they still be around as a backup or whatever?
Zero2Cool (1-Apr) : The method for measuring first downs in the NFL will switch from chain gangs to camera-based technology in 2025, the league announced.
Martha Careful (1-Apr) : A big step in the right direction. Just put in the college system is very very good.
Zero2Cool (1-Apr) : NFL has passed a rule that allows both teams to possess the ball in OT during the regular season
Zero2Cool (1-Apr) : Touchbacks on kickoffs will now bring the ball to the 35-yard line.
beast (31-Mar) : It might of gotten more popular recently, but braiding hair (even men) in certain cultures goes back for centuries.
Martha Careful (30-Mar) : Is men braiding their hair a new style thing? Watching the NCAA men's tournament many players have done
Zero2Cool (29-Mar) : Ha. Well, it'd be nice for folks to reset their own password. Via validated email 😏
beast (29-Mar) : Monopoly was supposed to be an educational game, that show how evil capitalism was and how we should avoid it
beast (29-Mar) : Lol, I was thinking username would be better, as then I wouldn't have to keep an email up to date lol 😂
beast (29-Mar) : Zero2Cool (25-Mar) : I was thinking email because I think it'll make folks keep it up todate lol
wpr (29-Mar) : sure is
Zero2Cool (29-Mar) : Monopoly is a rip off of The Landlord's Game
wpr (27-Mar) : 28 days until the draft
earthquake (27-Mar) : Which seemed strange to my 9 year old self, that you could be a fan for a team other than the one you play for
earthquake (27-Mar) : Nothing eventful happened, other than it being clear that he was a bengals fan
earthquake (27-Mar) : And we went and hung out with him one afternoon, I must have been 9 or so
earthquake (27-Mar) : That’s wild, when I was a kid my friend lived in the same apartment complex in De Pere
Mucky Tundra (27-Mar) : Only career highspot was a 200 yard rushing game while playing for the Cardinals
Mucky Tundra (27-Mar) : He is a former Packer. Drafted out of Northern Illinois. Didn't do much in GB.
dfosterf (26-Mar) : Despicable
Zero2Cool (26-Mar) : Former NFL. I think Packers too
Zero2Cool (26-Mar) : NFL RB Leshon Johnson has been charged in a massive dog fighting operation, with the FBI seizing over 190 Pit Bulls
Mucky Tundra (26-Mar) : Some real irony of a QB as short as Wilson playing for the Giants
Mucky Tundra (26-Mar) : Giants country, let's be the tall beings of lore!
Mucky Tundra (26-Mar) : Russell Wilson signs with the Giants.
Zero2Cool (25-Mar) : I was thinking email because I think it'll make folks keep it up todate lol
wpr (25-Mar) : I don't think there is a significant difference. I use a user name for many. Others email.
Martha Careful (25-Mar) : email
Zero2Cool (25-Mar) : would it be better to use EMAIL or USERNAME to log into a site?
wpr (25-Mar) : Thanks Zero
Zero2Cool (24-Mar) : New forum has the ability to Thank a post now.
beast (24-Mar) : And the only time they have won the Championship in an even year, was the first time they did, in 2006.
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