Sugaring the A Gap

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No Rumble this isn't your typical  Friday Night sugaring the A gap.    This is a good article and something we have done often in Cincinnati and hopefully a featured return when Burfict comes back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New head coach Mike Zimmer has been experimenting with pressure packages throughout the offseason and preseason, and in the first regular season game against the St. Louis Rams continued a strategy he's favored his entire career.

Image courtesy of Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

Mike Zimmer is neither the kind of defensive coordinator to rely on the predictive playcalling of the previous regime, nor the kind of coordinator that relies on aggressive blitzing, like Houston, Arizona and Oakland did last year.

And though the defenses haven’t been “revealed” in the preseason, a lot of what Mike Zimmer has done in Cincinnati has shown up in camp and in the exhibition games that give us some clue as to his philosophy, and they appeared in the game against St. Louis.

On first and second down, Zimmer defenses tend to play to the fundamentals, but when they encounter a “passing down,” Zimmer really likes to let go.

One of the best ways to create unbalanced pressure while still dropping enough players into coverage—something that inspired the creation of the zone blitz—is to fake pressure and create pressure from somewhere else. Generally speaking, this is best done through showing pressure up the middle, often called “sugaring the A gap,” the two gaps between the center and the guards.

This is an extension of the nomenclature used to designate gap assignments, with the B gaps between the guards and tackles and the C gaps between the tackles and the tight end (or the sideline). Sometimes, the alley between the tight end and the sideline is referred to as the D gap, or simply the alley.

The important point here, though, is that showing “double A gap pressure,” or presenting a possible blitz through both A gaps, causes the most trouble for offensive lines and quarterbacks in determining blocking assignments.

The double A gap blitz is a product of Jim Johnson, the legendary former Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator, and it developed as a consistent defensive tactic in response to the increasing effectiveness of the West Coast Offense. Famously, Steve Spagnuolo used the tactic to great effect as the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants in 2007, responsible for New England’s ominous Week 17 close game and their famous loss in the Super Bowl that same, record-setting year.

Mike Zimmer’s use of the blitz package mirrors its most common usage patterns in recent history, as Tim Layden writes in Sports Illustrated:

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It begins most often with the defense's nickel personnel—five defensive backs—on the field with four down linemen and two linebackers in a 4-2-5 configuration (although it can be run from various other sets). As the offense reaches the line of scrimmage, the two linebackers move menacingly into the A gaps. If the quarterback is under center, the 'backers are eye-to-eye with him. "At that point it's mental gymnastics," says Jon Gruden, the former Raiders and Bucs coach who's now an analyst on Monday Night Football. "There's no doubt there's going to be some penetration in the middle if they blitz, and it's going to mess with your blocking schemes."

In terms of how it affects pass protection schemes, it’s pretty simple. The defense is showing a seven-man blitz, which creates issues. If the protection unit is in man protection, then there’s a man that’s free (because teams are often in 6-man protection, at best). If the protection unit is in slide, or “area” protection, then a running back is responsible to cover the backside of the slide because the offensive linemen move into the gaps (zones) they are assigned to protect, leaving the backside free.

 

http://vikingsjournal.com/_/minnesota-vikings-news/minnesota-vikings/sugaring-the-a-gap%E2%80%94zimmers-pressure-du-jour-r92

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Coaches leave footprints, and sometimes they're easy to spot: Cincinnati's stadium is named for Paul Brown, the Super Bowl trophy for Vince Lombardi, a chain of steak houses for Don Shula. Twenty-one coaches are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and dozens more are regulars on television, radio and the Web. And then there are the rest, whose tracks are much harder to find. Unless you know where to look.

Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson died in July of complications from melanoma. He was 68 and had coached for 42 seasons at four colleges, in two professional leagues and with four NFL franchises. Except for his first job in the business, when he was hired at age 26 and spent two years as head coach at Missouri Southern, Johnson had always been an assistant on defense and never the boss. He performed exceptionally and was deeply respected by his peers. "He was hard on players and hard on coaches," says Rams coach

 

 

http://www.si.com/vault/2009/12/28/105890984/lasting-impact