Is the "Legion of Boom" approach obsolete?

[Mr. Scot]

An article by Diante Lee in The Athletic asks that question...

It's a question that's kinda relevant to us since we've invested a lot in the secondary so far. That, plus our GM comes from the team that built that unit. Worth noting though that the question is equal parts systemic and personnel related.

Excerpts:

Nearly a decade removed from the Seahawks winning a Super Bowl, it’s clear the elite talents of Richard Sherman, Bobby Wagner and Earl Thomas helped make the scheme iconic. But the framework that made it all possible comes back to Carroll, who used that defensive system to inform a unique approach to personnel management. The idea of the modern, long corner traces directly back to Carroll and general manager John Schneider, as do other height-weight-speed composite metrics used to identify the athletes needed to execute this system.

Yesterday’s successes will be today’s failures in the NFL, though. The defense that birthed and developed the Legion of Boom isn’t obsolete, but it cannot bear fruit on its own. The talent pool at wide receiver improves every year, and the spread of Carroll’s scheme led to every NFL offense developing their best Cover 3 and Cover 1 beater concepts while the Seahawks’ defensive stars began to atrophy. Seattle felt every effect firsthand: Following repeat Super Bowl appearances in 2013 and 2014, Seattle allowed eight or more yards per attempt in each of the next three seasons; more than 35% of attempted passes against the Seahawks have resulted in a first down every year since 2018; and the team’s defensive EPA per pass has fallen dramatically over that same stretch, according to TruMedia.

...

The NFL has been pass-first for a while, but teams responded to the Legion of Boom era with explosive-first football, looking to punish a defense as soon as the safeties roll into a single-high look. Compare any two-season sample of Seahawks football in the past seven years to 2013-2014, and you’ll find a staggering difference in the amount of 20-plus yard completions allowed. More often, teams began running receivers across the seams to stress underneath defenders, using play action to manufacture space in intermediate windows and aligning in 3×1 formations (like the right side of the diagram above) to attack mismatches in single coverage. It’s become less viable to line up every down in an “over” front (four down linemen who align to the tight end, as shown in the diagram above) and play Cover 3 and Cover 1 until the offense taps out.

Defenses have responded by reintroducing a method better suited to handle today’s game: the 3-4 defense, with more two-high safety looks. The thought leader of the NFL’s modern 3-4 scheme is former Broncos head coach Vic Fangio, whose coaching tree includes Chargers head coach Brandon Staley and Packers defensive coordinator Joe Barry. Fangio uses the odd front to stop the run on the interior and outside linebackers to control the edge while inside linebackers work in tandem with safeties to handle any potential play action throws or dropback passes. Even in the nickel/sub packages, Fangio’s defense keeps its edge defenders aligned outside of the tackle and its safeties deep. By aligning this way, his defense stays true to its commitment to controlling the edges with outside linebackers, instead of rolling a safety down in run support.

If the bolded part sounds familiar, it probably should

[LinvilleGorge]

I don't think really good DBs with really good measurables are ever going to be obsolete.

[Mr. Scot]

2 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I don't think really good DBs with really good measurables are ever going to be obsolete.

No, but their defensive approach was predicated on those characteristics, and we look for the same thing in the corners we draft and sign.

Snow's approach is different, but I've been of the opinion that our defense under Snow isn't as good as they've been hyped to be.

Could we be affected in a similar manner?

[LinvilleGorge]

I honestly don't think our defense has been "hyped". It's just been better than we expected when we all pretty much anticipated an all-time terrible D in Rhule and Snow's first year and the D was just run of the mill below average. Then there's the juxtaposition with the offense which has just been an outright unmitigated disaster and while the D has made improvements the offense has just continued to get worse.

Now I acknowledge that our D might actually be pretty bad in reality if teams actually had to go out there and try to put up points against us. 

[Mr. Scot]

4 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I honestly don't think our defense has been "hyped". It's just been better than we expected when we all pretty much anticipated an all-time terrible D in Rhule and Snow's first year and the D was just run of the mill below average. Then there's the juxtaposition with the offense which has just been an outright unmitigated disaster and while the D has made improvements the offense has just continued to get worse.

Now I acknowledge that our D might actually be pretty bad in reality if teams actually had to go out there and try to put up points against us. 

They were hyped early, and even at the end people were talking about them being "the #2 defense in the league".

What I saw though was overall a subpar unit, especially against the run.

[KSpan]

19 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

No, but their defensive approach was predicated on those characteristics, and we look for the same thing in the corners we draft and sign.

Snow's approach is different, but I've been of the opinion that our defense under Snow isn't as good as they've been hyped to be.

Could we be affected in a similar manner?

 

15 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I honestly don't think our defense has been "hyped". It's just been better than we expected when we all pretty much anticipated an all-time terrible D in Rhule and Snow's first year and the D was just run of the mill below average. Then there's the juxtaposition with the offense which has just been an outright unmitigated disaster and while the D has made improvements the offense has just continued to get worse.

Now I acknowledge that our D might actually be pretty bad in reality if teams actually had to go out there and try to put up points against us. 

I'd say that the 2020 defense was downright poor overall, and last year's defense was way overhyped based on their performance feasting on bottom-tier teams in the first weeks. Once the offense was figured out (a Rhule specialty) and the opposition discovered that Carolina had no solution for the off-tackle runs, the average to below-average reality of the defense became clear. There's some definitive talent there abut they need to prove the start of 2021 wasn't a fluke by doing it consistently against some quality competition. 

With that said, an offensive upgrade can go a long way toward making even a mediocre defense like Carolina's look much better, like we saw in early 2021. Maybe this year's offense will pitch in.

To the question posed by the thread topic though, I think pass rush trumps all (a la 2013). A killer secondary is never a bad thing though and can't hurt, but no one can cover receivers forever if there is no consistent pressure on the QB.

Edited May 15, 2022 by KSpan

[LinvilleGorge]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

They were hyped early, and even at the end people were talking about them being "the #2 defense in the league".

What I saw though was overall a subpar unit, especially against the run.

A handful of delusionally optimistic fans doesn't mean much. Honestly, if we field a defense in the top half of the league I'll consider it a decent performance. If we flirt with the top 10 I'll be very pleased with the D. Anything more would obviously be welcomed but would be wildly outperforming reasonable expectations IMO.

As for the offense... hell, anything that isn't isn't bottom 10 in the league has to be considered decent considering last year. Approaching average would be wildly outperforming reasonable expectations IMO.

 

 

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, LinvilleGorge said:

A handful of delusionally optimistic fans doesn't mean much. Honestly, if we field a defense in the top half of the league I'll consider it a decent performance. If we flirt with the top 10 I'll be very pleased with the D. Anything more would obviously be welcomed but would be wildly outperforming reasonable expectations IMO.

As for the offense... hell, anything that isn't isn't bottom 10 in the league has to be considered decent considering last year. Approaching average would be wildly outperforming reasonable expectations IMO. 

Early in the season, it was way more than a small group of fans. A lot of analysts were taking us seriously too. And while some caught on once the course corrected, others didn't.

[poundaway]

We were hyped early for sure.

Its hard to tell what we really have.     I'm more in the good defense camp because even with the drop off, we were still in the top 5 in several defensive measurements.

I guess we'll see this year.

[poundaway]

 

[Jesse]

Seattle dominated in 2013-2014 because they had superior talent and arguably the best secondary in the last 20 years. Teams have gone more 4 wide and empty than they did even in 2013 so you can’t just line up in base and run cover 1 or cover 3. 
 

I think I have a gripe with the article kind of assuming any odd front is going to be inherently bettered than an even front defense. You have to have three guys up front that can play anywhere on the line AND have linebackers that can run with receivers AND defend the run well. At the end of the day it’s Jimmy and Joes, not X’s and O’s.

[NAS]

It doesn’t help that offensive line is allowed to hold on almost every play in pass protection, not being able to hit receivers when they’re “defenseless”, bullshit defensive holding and PI calls.  

[Waldo]

Without Wilson no one would have really cared. A franchise QB and a great D? Sure, sounds great. Even with Wilson they couldn't duplicate those years. Don't forget Lynch either. The last SB they made he was there...

For us I think Snow's D is run soft systematically. I hope I am wrong but I need to see him pull that off in the NFL before I can believe he is more than a school DC. I really didn't like seeing Riddick and Burns last year playing DE and not edge with a 3 man big boy front. It just didn't work because of how vulnerable it made that unit in the run game. Add in an offense that can't score and you get 5 wins, no matter how good the DBs are. 

[Jon Snow]

Yes