Rey M

[BengalChris]

(09-12-2016, 06:24 PM)jungle93 Wrote: From what I read they played with only 2 linebackers for 90% of the game.  I need to learn what nickel and dime packages are.  Thanks for the scoop.  

Well, the definitions provided are mostly correct. The designations are old school and were around back when I was a kid.

Nickel means 5 defensive backs. Usually the 5th one is a corner cause you're playing to defend the pass. The designation of nickel was used because a Nickel is 5 cents.

The term Dime came along later when teams started passing more and defenses responded by playing 6 defensive backs and they just went to the next larger coin to get its name, a dime.

Normally you take out a LB when you go to nickel and either another LB or DT when you go from nickel to dime.

Sometimes you will see an extra safety come in for a LB spot while the team runs a nickel behind that. This is a dime with 3 CBs and 3 Ss. But other things happen as well. You might bring in a pass rushing LB for a DT and move a DE to DT spot.

Sometimes you will see 3 defensive linemen or even 2 (very rare, but NE used such a formation for most of a game to thoroughly confuse an opponent once).

The game plan this last week was clearly to play a zone and clamp down on Marshall and Decker. They had only 5 catches between them. This meant smaller LBs and we saw DE Hunt in at DT a lot.