Don’t Stop Frontin’: The Mind-Boggling Multiplicity of NFL Defenses « Grantland

Good read, even if there isn’t a single mention of the Patriots, one the originators of the multiple front defense. As I’ve been saying for years, 3-4 vs. 4-3 is just semantics now, those vanilla defenses are just too easy for modern offenses to pick apart. Now you need a combination of athletes and space-eaters, moving around the front and not giving away their intention. Who’s blitzing? Who’s two-gapping? Who’s dropping? It gives the offense a ton to think about rather than the old straight-up 3-4 where it will be the same thing down after down.