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
8 years ago
Nearly five years later and the question yet to be answered.
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DarkaneRules
8 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 (17h) : Agreed; you stinks
Zero2Cool (17h) : I'm not beating anyone. I stinks.
Mucky Tundra (18h) : rough injury for tank dell. guy can't catch abreak
beast (19h) : So far the college playoffs have sucked... One team absolutely dominates the other
beast (22h) : Well even if you weren't positive towards a guy, you wouldn't nessarily want to tell the media that (if they don't know about it)
Martha Careful (22h) : I think MLF want Love to look past the end half issues, and feel good about his play. Our coaches generally keep a very positive tone.
beast (22h) : I think a great running game will do that for most QBs
packerfanoutwest (23h) : Coach Matt LaFleur has said quarterback Jordan Love is playing the best football of his career.
beast (21-Dec) : Oh, that's how you keep beating buckeye, with cheating
Zero2Cool (20-Dec) : There is a rule that if your name starts with 'b' you lose 15 points. Hey, I don't make the rules, I just enforce them!
wpr (20-Dec) : and then there is Beast. Running away with it all.
beast (20-Dec) : As of tonight, 3 way tie for 2nd in Pick'em, that battle is interesting!
beast (20-Dec) : Lions vs Vikings could be the main last game as it could determine division winners or #1 vs #2 seed
Mucky Tundra (20-Dec) : Or if KC needs to win for the #1 seed
Mucky Tundra (20-Dec) : Right now it looks like the only prime worthy games are Det-Minny and KC-Denver (if Denver can clinch a wild card spot)
Mucky Tundra (20-Dec) : The entirety of week 18 being listed as flex is weird
Zero2Cool (19-Dec) : Matt LaFleur today says unequivocally "Ted Thompson had nothing to do with the drafting of Jordan Love."
Zero2Cool (19-Dec) : Apparently, the editing is what pieces comments together. That Ted thing ... fake news.
Zero2Cool (19-Dec) : LaFleur "opportunity that Ted Thompson thought was too good to pass up"
Zero2Cool (19-Dec) : Jordan Love pick was Ted Thompson's idea.
Mucky Tundra (19-Dec) : Kyle Shanahan on signing De'Vondre Campbell as a FA last offseason: “We obviously made a mistake.”
packerfanoutwest (19-Dec) : Alexander’s last season with GB
Martha Careful (18-Dec) : if I were a professional athlete, I would probably look to see who the agent is for Kirk Cousins and then use him
beast (18-Dec) : $100 million fully guaranteed Kirk Cousins gets benched for rookie
Mucky Tundra (18-Dec) : a lower case b
Mucky Tundra (18-Dec) : The real lie is how beast capitalized his name in his message while it's normally spelled with
packerfanoutwest (18-Dec) : haha that's a lie
beast (17-Dec) : Despite what lies other might tell, Beast didn't hate the Winter Warnings, it felt refreshing to Beast for some reason.
Zero2Cool (17-Dec) : whiteout uniforms in general are pretty lame and weak. NFL greed at it's worst
Martha Careful (17-Dec) : The Viking uniforms, the whiteout uniforms specifically absolutely suck
beast (17-Dec) : Thanks Zero2Cool, looks a lot better now
beast (17-Dec) : Seems like someone has a crush on me, can't stop talking about me
Zero2Cool (17-Dec) : Should be gooder now. The forum default theme went to goofy land.
Zero2Cool (17-Dec) : What the hell
packerfanoutwest (17-Dec) : yeah beast hates the Winter Warning Unies
Mucky Tundra (16-Dec) : Okay I'm glad to know it's not just something happening to me lol
Mucky Tundra (16-Dec) : Zero, did you copy the Packers uniforms from last night and white out the board?
beast (16-Dec) : Oh crap, is the board going to the Winter Warning Uniforms too?!? It's all white on white right now!
Zero2Cool (16-Dec) : WR Odell Beckham Jr is officially a free agent after clearing waivers.
Zero2Cool (16-Dec) : Packers are 6th in sacks.
Zero2Cool (16-Dec) : RB David Montgomery will undergo season-ending knee surgery.
Mucky Tundra (16-Dec) : Dan Campbell on onside kick with 12 minutes left: In hindsight, wish I didn’t do that
Zero2Cool (16-Dec) : They have that whole 12th man thing so ...
Zero2Cool (16-Dec) : Of the times we've played there, I just can't recall hearing our fans.
wpr (16-Dec) : Well done jdlax. Well done.
wpr (16-Dec) : I think more likely to be Pack fans that live in the area.
wpr (16-Dec) : Pack fans represent. I pointed it out early in the game to my wife. Announcers said Packers travel well.
Zero2Cool (16-Dec) : That was crazy to hear go pack go in Seattle of all plays. That 12 man thing an all
Mucky Tundra (16-Dec) : jdlax, good man!
jdlax (16-Dec) : Mucky, there were too many of us there to credit any single one but for sure i was 60% responsible.
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