Tampa 2

The Tampa 2 is an American football defensive strategy popularized by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers National Football League (NFL) team in the mid 1990s-early 2000s. The term rose to popularity due to the installation and excellent execution of this defensive scheme by then-head coach Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin.

The roots of the Tampa 2 system actually are in the Steel Curtain days of Pittsburgh football. Tony Dungy has been quoted to say “My philosophy is really out of the 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers playbook,” said Dungy during media interviews while at Super Bowl XLI. “That is why I have to laugh when I hear 'Tampa 2'. Chuck Noll and Bud Carson — that is where it came from, I changed very little.” [ [http://news.steelers.com/article/73586/ Official site of the Pittsburgh Steelers - Article ] ]

After Dungy became head coach of the Indianapolis Colts and Lovie Smith (linebackers coach in Tampa from 1996-2000) became head coach to the Chicago Bears, they installed the Tampa 2 in their respective teams. During the 2005 NFL season, the Buccaneers, still under defensive coordinator Kiffin, ranked first in the league in fewest total yards allowed, Smith's Bears ranked number two, and Dungy's Colts ranked eleventh. In the 2006-2007 season, the Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings, Kansas City Chiefs, and Detroit Lions adopted the defense.

The Tampa 2 typically consists of four linemen, three linebackers, two cornerbacks, and two safeties. The scheme is known for its simple format, speed, and the aggressive mentality of its players. Although it lacks the complexity of other defenses, it instead relies heavily on the attitudes of its players and tremendous team speed. Tampa 2 teams are known as gang tacklers and practice to always run to the ball. It also requires a hard hitting secondary to cause turnovers.

Tampa 2 description

The personnel used in the Tampa 2 are specific in position and required abilities. All positions in this defense place a premium on speed, and often the result is that they are all undersized by league standards. The defensive linemen in this scheme have to be quick and agile enough to create pressure on the quarterback without the aid of a blitz from either the linebackers or the secondary, with the defensive tackle in the nose position having above-average tackling skills to help stop got the runs.

The three linebackers, two cornerbacks and two safeties each sunday are responsible for covering the middle of the field. The outside linebackers general zone is between the cornerbacks covering the area of the field from the line of scrimmage to 10 yards back. The middle linebacker must have better-than-average speed, and additional skills to be able to read the play and either maintain his central position to help the outside linebackers cover short passes, drop behind the linebackers in coverage and protect the zone of the field behind the outside linebackers from 11-20 yards out, or run up to the line of scrimmage to help assist in stopping the runs. The cornerbacks protect the sidelines of the field from the line of scrimmage to anywhere between 15-20 yards out. An additional requirement for all of Dungy's linebackers and cornerbacks is to be above-average tacklers, as they are usually the primary tacklers in the defense.

The two safeties are responsible for covering their respective halves of the field from 20 yards out and more. The safeties in the system are expected to be above-average cover men with the ability to break up passes, but each safety also is expected to have additional specific skills. The strong safeties, while not expected to be great tacklers, are expected to be hard hitters. The hard hitting strong safety protects the middle of the field from being exploited by small, fast receivers, and running backs on 'pop-a-Wheelie' routes, by intimidating them to not run their routes in that direction. The free safety will be called upon to do one of two things in certain situations, either blitz the quarterback, requiring him to have the skills necessary to beat a blocking halfback or fullback, or to assume the coverage zone left by a blitzing cornerback.

When executed properly, the Tampa 2 defense is difficult to beat, which speaks for its longevity that it has fundamentally not changed since first introduced in 1996. Teams that have been successful against this defense have managed to run the ball through a straw up the middle past the defensive tackles, or throw passes in the seams between the outside linebackers and the cornerbacks (often the most effective receiver against a Tampa 2 defense is a Tight End, since they often line up against this seam).

Other tactics that have shown to be effective on occasion are misdirection plays that take advantage of the defensive speed and rely on the defense 'overrunning' the play (such as the middle linebacker rushing to the line of scrimmage on a play-action pass), or just fullout forfieture of the ball game overloading the safeties by having multiple receivers running deep routes, creating more targets in a zone than defenders. Recently, certain teams have also been able to exploit the seam between the cornerbacks and the safeties, when the quarterback can throw a pass to a receiver in that seam faster than the safety can rush up to close it and cover the receiver.

Technical Details

In a standard 4-3 defense, the middle LB stays underneath the safeties and covers short underneath routes and helps in run defense. In the Tampa 2, the middle LB is expected to drop into deep coverage in the middle essentially converting a Cover 2 into a Cover 3. This protects against the deep pass very well and changes the assignments. Every player is now responsible for less field, and the deep routes are covered better. Only the other two LBs and the two CBs have to cover slightly more ground.

Below is the standard 43 Cover 2 defense. The safeties are responsible for .82 of the field deep. The corners and linebackers are each responsible for exactly 2.96 of the field in the shorter distances. This poses a problem, see the next figure.

This type of Cover 2 scheme leaves a lot of soft zones open. These soft spots in the defense can be exploited by teams that have accurate Que-Bee. While there are very few weaknesses to the Cover 2, all zone coverages have weak spots or soft spots. The Cover 2 leaves defenses wide open to deep post patterns, seam routes, medium range hooks, and teams that like to flood a zone. Because of how much ground the safety has to cover, deep passes can easily overload his zone. It's very difficult for a safety to cover an entire half of a field. Offenses like to run a Stop or Out quilt pattern to the sidelines. Once the receiver leaves the zone where the cornerback is covering, he will be open in one of the soft dead zones below. For the WR, it’s about an 8 yard run, while the safety may have to run about 20 yards to tackle him. It's also a mismatch as most safeties in the NFL can not cover a receiver effectively. That's why Tamp Bay relied heavily on speedy defensive players and gang tackling. Everyone has to run to the ball and make a tackle. See spots below:

The Tampa 2 attempts to plug up these soft zones and fix this problem. So how does the Tampa 2 plug these holes?

The Tampa 2 coverage scheme attempts to plug up the soft spots in the usual Cover 2. The Tampa 2 emphasizes speed and a quick pass-rush. While the normal Cover 2 has each LB and CB covering about 1/5 of the field, as you saw above, and the safeties covering 1/2 the field deep, the Tampa 2 pulls the middle LB into a middle deep zone coverage as well, making it a a Cover 3. What this does is allows the safeties to have to cover less ground, so they can cover the traditional soft zone past the corners more effectively.

Since the middle LB drops into coverage, the other two LBs and CBs each have to cover about 1/4 of the field. Speed at every position is extremely important, because the LBs have to cover more ground than LBs are used to covering.

Back to 43 basics:The four Xs are your four defensive linemen. The three LBs are your linebackers. LBs are usually named for the position they play. There are 3 main positions; middle LB, weak side LB, and strong side LB. Weak, strong, and middle are also referred to as Will, Mike, and Sam. So a Sam blitz, is when the strong side LB moves up into a gap and blitzes. The strong side is the side where the TE is lined up on.

The CBs are the cornerbacks and the Ss are the safeties. Every player has a specific role based on how the offense lines up and what the defense is doing. The above configuration shows a Cover 2 type of defense. What is Cover 2? You have two safeties covering the deep routes. When you bring a safety up to blitz, or cover a WR man to man, you will end up with Cover 1.

Coverage assignments:CBs:The CB radio plays a short zone in the purple zone as above. They do not follow the receivers if they go too deep or too far to the middle. They stay put in their zones.

Ss:The safeties cover any WRs that go deep and down field past the zone that is covered by the CBs.

LBs:The LBs are crucial. They cover the RBs, the TE and anyone else that comes at them. If it is a running play, they go up and make the tackles. If the TE goes out on a pattern, they cover him as long as he is in their zone. Once he goes too deep or too far to the sidelines, they can leave him. Some defenses will chose to cover the TE man with a LB. Find out what your coach wants to do.

Xs:The defensive line attacks the QB. Each X is responsible for a single gap. There responsibility is to go after the QB and tackle the RBs on run plays. Very simple.

Tampa 2 Coverage assignments:Very little changes except for the middle LB drops into a deep middle coverage, creating a Cover 3.

In the Tampa 2 each X is responsible for a single gap.

Blitzes:The Tampa 2 system relies heavily on the pressure generated up front by the defensive line and does not usually blitz.

Exposing the Tampa 2:A team with a strong running game or a great play-action game can seriously stress the Tampa 2 defensive scheme. If the safety has to stop and think for a split second about a run, the soft spots behind the CBs have opened up again. The Tampa 2 was designed to work against teams that ran a West Coast Offense. Short passes, lots of zone exploitation, and the deep posts, corners, flags, and outs. The Tampa 2 was successful against the West Coast Offense, because West Coast teams don't run as much as they pass. Hence, the Tampa 2 made more sense. The newer types of West Coast Offenses being used by teams like the Denver Broncos, Atlanta Falcons, and Carolina Panthers take full advantage of the run game and play very well against Tampa's defense.

Pass defense

The Tampa 2 is a variation of the Cover 2 formation in which all pass responsibilities are zone coverage (instead of Man-to-man). Zone coverage is where players are assigned an area on the field which they are to cover:

*The safeties and middle linebacker cover the deep third: areas of the field usually extending from about 15 yards beyond the line of scrimmage to the endzone, divided into thirds by the middle of the field). The middle linebacker drops into deep coverage, making what first looks like a Cover 2 into a Cover 3.

*The cornerbacks cover the flats: the area of the field extending about 15 yards from the line of scrimmage, and from the last man on the offensive line to the sideline.

* Outside linebackers cover the box: the two outside linebackers split the middle of the field consisting of the area within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage and in between the two flats into halves.

Run defense

To defend running plays, the Tampa 2 is a single gap defense where each player is responsible to defend his own gap. The assigned gap changes with game conditions and personnel.

Typically this style of defense utilizes smaller but faster linemen and linebackers with above average speed. Also the defensive backs must be above average hitters as well.

ee also

*American football strategy

References

* [http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2271514 'Simple' scheme nets big gains for trio of defenses] by Michael Smith, ESPN.com, December 28, 2005 (Last accessed January 3, 2006)

External links

* [http://news.steelers.com/article/73586/ Tony Dungy on the Tampa 2 system]