Front three in the 3-4, what are there responsibilities?
- Thread starter Glenn Fohr
- Start date
The most important position in a 3-4 defense is the nose tackle. Until Elam plays up to his supposed potential they are going to have big issues.
To me, if he can't occupy two blockers we're done.
He didn't start really struggling until he got tired, which has been his MO; and several large dl share that trait. The staff did him no favors by not spelling him more than they did. To his credit, he would've died on the field had he played half that many snaps last year.
Playing fewer snaps, I think he'll do much better.
This gives a pretty good overview of the alignments, assignments and responsibilities. Some of the terminology can vary a bit between different coaches. For instance, the "Will" in this video is what we call the "Jack". And his "Mo" is our Will. Also, we elect to call one of our ends a tackle, which seems fine to do since basically the entire front 3 guys are essentially all defensive tackles in the 3-4 anyway.
The job of the line is to not get pushed back. If the Oline pushes the Dline back 3 yards each play like USM did us, eventually they will score. The Dline has to hold their ground or push into the back field. They can not be pushed back off the line of scrimmage.