Falcons pose dilemma for run defense

Jim Bates has been everything the Green Bay Packers could have hoped for in a defensive coordinator.

But for all he’s done to rebuild a defense that was one of the NFL’s worst last year, Bates’ run defense in particular faces probably its toughest test of the season Sunday at Atlanta.

The Falcons have the NFL’s top-ranked running game, and though they have good halfbacks in Warrick Dunn and T.J. Duckett, their run game’s success is predicated on singular quarterback Mike Vick. Vick has the running ability of an elite halfback, and on every snap, defenses have to honor his ability to get outside on bootlegs, which gives the dynamic Dunn more open space.

“(Vick) is a threat every time he has the ball,” Bates said Friday. “One of the most gifted athletes ever to play the game, probably the most gifted quarterback scrambler to ever play the game. And Dunn fits into this offense like a glove.”

At Vick’s NFL coming-out party in 2002, the Packers saw firsthand the major problem Vick and Dunn create when they’re on the field together. Vick entered the season, his second in the NFL, as a full-time starter after relatively limited playing time as a rookie.

The Falcons played at Lambeau Field in that game, and Vick single-handedly wore out the Packers’ defense on a hot (83-degree) day. One play in particular demonstrated how he and Dunn can stretch a defense: a rollout on which Vick threw back across the field to Dunn, who picked up 14 easy yards and nearly busted a big play. The Falcons haven’t shown that particular play this season, but it illustrates how a defense is stretched by sending the two most elusive players on the field in opposite directions.

“It’s hard not to follow the boot with that quarterback,” coach Mike Sherman said. “But now, you have Warrick Dunn carrying the ball. Which one do you stop?”
Bates’ defense goes into Sunday ranked 13th in the NFL in rushing yards allowed per game, and more importantly, ranked sixth in yards allowed per carry (3.6). Those ratings could change over the final eight games, but half a season is enough to suggest Bates dramatically has improved the Packers’ run defense without a major personnel addition in the front seven.

Last year, Bob Slowik’s one season as defensive coordinator, the Packers finished an abysmal 27th in the league in yards allowed per carry (4.6, a full yard more than this season). The run defense generally has been an Achilles’ heel in Sherman’s coaching tenure. In previous defensive coordinator Ed Donatell’s five seasons running the Packers’ defense, they finished in the top half high in the league in yards allowed per rush only once, in 2000 (ninth). Donatell now is Atlanta’s defensive coordinator.

The Packers have three new defensive starters from last season, though only one can be described as a major change. That’s at safety, where rookie Nick Collins has replaced Darren Sharper. The others are at linebacker, where Robert Thomas has replaced Hannibal Navies, and defensive tackle, where Corey Williams replaced Cletidus Hunt.

Bates also has played most of this season without one of the better defensive players from the past couple of seasons, linebacker Na’il Diggs, who’s missed six of eight games because of knee injuries.

Bates’ defense is significantly different than the one-gap scheme Donatell and Slowik used. Where Donatell and Slowik usually lined up the strong-side linebacker over the tight end, Bates has him off the line of scrimmage several yards. In Bates’ scheme, players are responsible for covering 1½ gaps — one gap in one direction, and half a gap in the other — whereas Donatell and Slowik were pure one-gap defenses. That means Bates’ defense is a little more read-and-react oriented, which is why he has all three linebackers lined up deep.

Probably more important than scheme, though, has been the tackling. It’s the most fundamental aspect of defensive football, and something the Packers have improved dramatically. Last season, the Packers’ defenders might have suffered from spending so much time and effort learning the complex blitzes in Slowik’s scheme that their attention to the fundamentals of tackling slipped. Either way, Bates said tackling was the priority when he took over the Packers.
“There’s going to be noticeable (missed tackles) you saw earlier in the year. ‘God, he looked bad on that,’ there have been some of those,” Bates said. “But it hasn’t been a rash of missed tackles in any given game. That’s fundamentals, angles — and it started way back in minicamps.”

Vick and Dunn will test those fundamentals more than any running combination in the league. Vick is averaging 6.0 yards a carry on his variety of bootlegs, draws and scrambles. In two games against the Packers — the 2002 opener and a playoff upset of the Packers at Lambeau in January of that season — he’s rushed for 136 yards on 19 carries, an average of 7.2 yards a carry.

Not coincidentally, Sherman drafted middle linebacker Nick Barnett in the first round the next year to add speed to his defensive front seven.

“I think we’re faster (than in ’02),” Sherman said. “I think Nick Barnett helps a little bit there as a seasoned veteran now, his speed and ability to break and turn. Across the defensive front we’re a little bit more (fleet) afoot than we’ve been in the past. We’ll see.”
source:http://www.packersnews.com/