This season’s addition to the must-listen Patriots list has been Mike Reiss and Tedy Bruschi’s podcast. Nowhere else will you hear two people who are more knowledgeable about the Patriots (unless you count BB’s weekly radio appearances on WEEI’s Big Show).
Tedy was a founding father of the “Patriot Way” and his insight and commentary is as good as it gets. Especially in this setting with Mike Reiss where Bruschi doesn’t need to worry about coming off like he biased towards the Pats.
This week Tedy answered a question that I submitted and I transcribed his answer below.
PatsPropaganda: Was there ever a time that a Bill Belichick game plan really surprised you?
Bruschi: Many times, I remember once we were against the Buffalo Bills. Where the real excitement starts is on 3rd down day. Because once you win on first down, second down you get them in those medium to long situations and that’s when you can throw all these complex schemes at them. We got the game plan and I looked at it and there wasn’t one down lineman. There were a couple defensive ends but everyone was sort of walking around. You could basically not put your hand down so you’d be running around trying to confuse the protection. That was a really different wrinkle we used for the Buffalo Bills one week. Especially when Rob Ryan was there, he’s now the DC of the Cleveland Browns. Him and Bill used to come up with some funky stuff where we would say “Rob-o we need some help deciphering this”. Linebackers were in the A gaps with linemen right next to them. It made it fun and interesting because you knew when you went in there on Wednesday or Thursday you’d have a chance to do something unique.
Some really great stuff from Tedy, though it probably makes a lot of Pats fans squirm to think all those complex and fun defenses were coming from one of the Ryan brothers. It certainly provides some insight into the effect Rob Ryan had on Bill Belichick from a game plan perspective and that type of scheming certainly sounds a lot like Rex’s style as well.
It’s also interesting to note the Patriots busted a similar defense out last season to help generate pressure, this time it was five linebackers and six defensive backs so it was dubbed the “Five and Dime”. But again there were no down lineman and everyone was just wandering around trying to create confusion.
Some Pats fans probably wonder why we don’t see more of this. Personally I think it’s because with a young defense you want them to be able to do the fundamentals first and foremost. Once you have those down (i.e. 2011) you can start to get a little more cute with your defenses and how you disguise them.
From the real 54 to the fan 54….
