Help with basics of NFL

[Nugget699]

I first took an interest in American Football around 1999/2000 and fell in love with the 49ers, and have followed the league closely ever since. I recently purchased Total Pro Football, and, despite owning Madden never really understood the finer points of managing a professional NFL team. But, with the help from you guys I hope to have some of my questions answered. Before I begin, let me add, I do have a fairly strong idea of positions, however, its more the "slang" terms that I don't understand. Ok, now with the questions... 1. What is a "Flanker"? Having played TPF I seem to get the gist that its a WR position but where do they line up on the field and what role do they play as opposed to the standard WR? 2. Whats the differance between a "Free Safety" and a "Strong Safety" as it seems they both play the same sort of role in defense. 3. I have heard the term "Elephant End" used a lot, and I have seen it being used in TPF, so what exactly is Elephant End? 4. Who would usually be selected as Punt and Kick returners? I usually select my second string WR's but some people suggest my second string RB's. 5. Whats the differance between a 4-3 defense and a 3-4 defense? 6. Whats the point in all the differant formations such a shotgun formation, what advantages would that have over I Form? 7. On certain plays the D-Line will spread out and leave a gap in the middle as opposed to bunching up next to each other. What sort of adavtanges does this have? If you guys can answer any of theses question I will be ever so grateful, also, if you guys can suggest any books like the dummies guide to American Football then please do, as I would like to purchase a book to have as a reference. Thank you in advanced.

[ThrowTheBall]

1. A Flanker is a wide receiver who is off the line of scrimmage. In football, the offense must 7 men on the line scrimmage, of which, only the men on the ends can be eligible receivers. The Split End is the Wide Receiver who is on the line of scrimmage, but is split off. Hence the name. On the other end, in a base set, you have the Tight End is so-named because he is in tight with the offensive line. The Flanker will be the wide receiver who is out wide, but a couple of steps behind the line of scrimmage so that is not considered one of the 7 men on the line. 2. The strong safety will line up on the side of the offense that is considered the strong side because it is where the tight end is lined up. The Free Safety will occupy the other side. 3. There is about as many different football vocabularies as there are coaches. The only time Ive ever heard the term elephant end was by Bo Pelini to describe one of his defensive ends. I'm not saying there is no such thing as an elephant end on offense, but it's probably a term used by some coach. Could be a term for a second Tight End. 4. That's really a judgment call. The players typically used as returners in modern football are running backs, wide receivers, and defensive backs. I look for big plays in the return game, so I will use the best possible player. Speed+Hands+Agi, etc. 5. In the 4-3 Defense, you have 4 down linemen and 3 linebackers. In the 3-4, it's just the opposite with 3 down linemen and 4 linebackers. As far as picking one or the other, it would depend on your personnel (players at each position) 6. Each formation has it's own particular advantages and disadvantages. The I Formation is considered a good balanced formation to run and pass out of. You can also use broken I sets like the strong I and Weak I. The Weak I makes it more difficult for the defense to determine the strength of the formation, and the Strong I gets the fullback in a position where it is easier for him to hit his block quickly. The Shotgun is historically primarily a passing formation. It gets the QB some instant depth, therefore making it easier for him to start making his reads. Some teams today though use the shotgun as a running formation. West Virginia runs alot of veer option from the shotgun, and will run the ball about 70% of the time. Northwestern and Michigan State also run alot from the Gun, and of course Urban Meyer is popular for using the shotgun as a triple option formation. 7. Im not sure if youre talking about rush technique after the snap or an alignment, but Ill try to cover both. Usually, the defensive line will line up with the ends tackle, and the tackles somewhere in between, depending on the play call. If they line up extra wide, it probably means they anticipate the pass, and want to give their ends a strait line to the QB. The line itself may rush extra wide for a couple of reasons, one would be to force the offensive line spread out giving more space to blitzing linebackers. The other would be to better contain an outside run that they might be anticipating. I hope I helped you understand a little. If you have any more questions go ahead and fire away.

[cappyboy]

1: Pretty well answered by Throw. But I will add this. Ideally, I'd want my best speed guy at flanker. Because with the split end usually right on the line of scrimmage, he may be called upon to block for a runner and you don't want to take that weapon out of your arsenal if you don't have to. 2: There's actually a bit more to it than what Throw said. Although the positionings are right. With the strong safety because he's lined up on the tight end side, he's usually considered to be a run support guy and needed to be a big hitter. While the free safety needs to be more skilled in pass coverage. He's kinda like a center fielder in baseball in that he has to cover a lot of ground to make sure deep passes aren't completed. If you ever see a receiver double covered on a long pass, it's most likely the corner assigned to the receiver and the free safety. #3: Again Throw is right. There are as many terminologies as their are coaches. But you know, I've been watching the game since the late 70's and following tactics since about the late 80's/early 90's and I can't remember hearing "elephant end" all that much. But you did say you follow the 49er's. Maybe that's like a Mariucci or Nolan thing. 4: Another that's all a matter of taste. Since receivers, backs and DB's tend to be the fastest guys on the team, they tend to get to get the job. I will say though that I like what you're doing. Many teams today don't follow your lead. They will use starters as their return men and that always annoys me. It's a second position you have to adjust if your starter/returner gets hurt. I always like to use reserves on returns. It lets them specialize more in returning the ball and will ideally lead to better field position to start the drive from. 5: Throw's got it. But I can definitely see how this would confuse. I'm also a soccer guy and in soccer the order is reversed. In football defensive formations are described front to back. In soccer they are described back to front. So very good question for you to ask. 6: The point to all the different formations is simple. If you only use one or two during a game, it makes you predictable. If the defense can see what's coming before the ball is snapped, that makes it all the more likely they will stop you. As for the advantages of certain formations. Something like the shotgun is meant to spread the field. Thereby either giving your receivers more room to make big plays or give your running backs bigger holes up the middle. While a more compact formation like the I is meant to compact the defense and enable you to either work the fringes or dive over the pile. 7: Without greater understanding of what you mean, I can't really build on Throw any. His answer seems to cover the bases. As for football books, I'd go out and get John Madden's series first. Granted the individual player references are all badly out of date now as the first one goes back to the mid 80's. But the grounding in them is as solid as you'll find anywhere. I'd also have you go and get Sunday Morning Quarterback by Phil Simms. In it, Simms goes over many of the simplications you may hear from other broadcasters like "If Kansas City is going to win this game, Priest Holmes must run 25 times." and explains why these things are over-simplications. Even though they may be true as far as they go. Overall, Nugget, a very good set of questions. The fact that you seek out these kinds of answers rather than just accepting second hand opinions on them speaks well of you as a fan of the game. Shame your Niners can't be doing more. They do deserve better than the misery they've suffered the last couple years. Enjoy the rest of the season and better luck to your boys in 06

[Sagitta]

Re: #3 The Packers webvsite says... [quote] Today, Larry McCarren, former Packers player and current sports director for NewsChannel 5 (WFRV-TV), explains what is meant by an “elephant end.” “Some teams individualize the names for various positions, and the Packers have done that with what they call their elephant end. In Green Bay's defensive system, the elephant end is the one who generally lines up to the weak side of the offensive formation (the side away from the tight end). Ideally, his strong suit would be pass rushing and the movement parts of the game. “Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila is the Packers' starting elephant end. The elephant is somewhat of a misnomer in that the elephant end is usually the smaller of the two defensive ends. “The first I heard of the term was back when Ray Rhodes was the defensive coordinator for the early Mike Holmgren teams. In his system, the elephant was a hybrid between a linebacker and a defensive end, a player like former Packers player Tony Bennett. The term has stuck around, but, as is often the case in football, it can mean different things depending on the team and the system.” [/quote]

[ThrowTheBall]

^ | | | That's what it means in Pelini's system.

[Nugget699]

Firstly, let me start by saying those answers have been really helpful, thank you very much, but the problem is you've been too helpful so i'm gonna' try and get more answers out of you all :p . Firstly, lets start with question 7 again, which you guys didn't understand. 7. Look at the following two formations, see how in the first one the D-Line is all in a line and how in the second formation there is a gap down the middle? Why do they do that? I can understand that the linebackers are there, but surely the Offense will see the gap and change to a rush play and just charge through that gap? [IMG]http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/4968/dline15rw.gif[/IMG] [IMG]http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/2884/dline20vf.gif[/IMG] 8. One I forgot to ask last night, whats the points in having Offensive philosophys like West Coast/Run n Gun etc.? Obviously if you have a great RB and a weak QB you should focus more on the running game, but it makes you too predictable, so surely after 3 or 4 weeks of teh season the teams will be sussing out that you rush more then throw etc. 9. How do players make the Hall of Fame, in TPF I have simmed something like 30 seasons and watched players grow in skill and what have you, yet some RB's that seemed to have just a good a career as the next didnt make the HOF while others did? 10. This is something that I have real trouble understanding. What is the point in having all the players on the Roster? Coming from a Soccer background I do understand the need for depth in case of an injury crisis, but even then, a professional team will only have around a squad of 25-30 in Soccer. Admittidely there is less positions in Soccer but it seems the NFL clogs up there Salary Cap with players who are more then likely never going to even get on the field. 11. Whats the point in Blitzing? If its charging at the QB then surely everyplay is a blitz, and why don't teams constantly blitz all the time? and 12. Finally, the most common question of them all, whats the differant between an RFA and a UFA? I have a basic knowledge, but its probably better to allow you guys to explain everything from the beginnings about this one. Cheers for your help guys.

[cappyboy]

Okay man, let's see what we can do here. 7: In the first graphic, it looks like you have an all-out blitz on. So the linemen and the linebackers are all together to try and overwhelm the offensive line. Since you have four D linemen (the O's) and four linebackers (the squares) it looks like this play is a run blitz designed to stop a really quick back. In the second graphic, you're right. The offense could easily try a run up the middle. But with the square linebacker's path crossing directly behind it, they probably wouldn't get more than like three or four yards. 8: Basically it's human nature. Some guys like to run the ball a lot. Some like the passing game better. Ideally you should play to what your talent does best. But that doesn't always happen. Which is why you hear talk about whether X player can play for Y coach. 9: It's really subjective. But basically you have to either put up numbers that are truly extraordinary for your position or revolutionize how your position is played in some way. And then after you've been retired for five years, you're eligible for the Hall. Unless of course you die first. Then you're eligible immediately upon death. 10: Yes, but in soccer you have a cap on how many substitutions you can use in a game. There is none in football. Over the last 20 years or so, the NFL has been increasingly using what are known as situational substitutions. Like you may have a running back who excels at catching the ball for third down situations. Linebackers who excel at rushing the quarterback but can't defend the run for blitzing situations. Four and five wide receiver passing formations. And also most of your special teams players (like kickoff and punt coverage units) come from this reserve base. So while it wouldn't seem most of these guys would get on the field, more do than you might first guess. 11: There may be a pass rush on the majority of plays but that's not the same as a blitz. You've probably heard it said that a team is rushing three or maybe four. When that happens those three or four may be trying to get to the quarterback. But you'll still have seven or eight guys covering offensive players or defending zones of the field. In a blitz, you surrender most if not all of your coverage in order to try and sack the quarterback. And the reason teams don't blitz every play is because if you can't sack the QB, the best most desirable outcome is to rattle him and ruin his timing. If you always blitzed, he'd adapt his timing to the blitz and get the ball away before you arrived. 12: An RFA is a Restricted Free Agent. Which means he can sign for another team but your team gets the choice of either trying to match the other team's offer or letting him go. A UFA is an Unrestricted Free Agent. Which would be like if you lost your job and went looking for a new one. You'd be an unrestricted free agent in the job market. You could accept any job without having to consider the old employer's feelings about it. As for all the questions, it's not a problem in the least. You're talking about my game here. God forbid there comes the day when I don't love talking about football.