Nickel might be familiar in the future

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by 70Chip

In 3rd down situations, though, I think it's absolutely necessary to have a 3rd corner so you can defend the slot. The defensive coordinator has to play the percentages in terms of down and distance. If the offense comes out in 3 wide on 1st and 10, it is often so he can run against the nickel.

The bottom line is that you are correct in that you can't robotically mirror the offense. The nickel as a base defense, however, would not serve us well since we have a hard enough time stopping the run with 3 LBers. It would be effective, as I said before, against the Eagles because they pass so much that even when they have 2 WR in the game you can treat the TE as a 3rd WR. I think even they would like to get more balance, though, so you might be playing into their hands a little bit.

Yeah, against Cover 2 or Cover three looks with 3 LBs, the QB has an easy throw to either the TE or the slot guy right in between the linebackers. On third and medium, a smart veteran QB would take that throw every time it was given to him.