2026 has shown us modern defense is about versatility

And before I give you my theme, before I give you what I think the answer is, Let's go back real fast and look at thematically, you know, over the past several decades, what's dominated defense.

Let's go back to the 90s.

I'm assuming a lot of people listening to this podcast right now, maybe you formed your football identity in the 1990s in some fashion.

So you probably remember the decade pretty well.

The hot defensive trend of the 1990s was the zone blitz.

Dick LeBeau was in Pittsburgh.

He had kind of invented it in Cincinnati in the 1980s, but he really didn't get to unveil it until he had the right pieces for the zone blitz.

And he became the architect of that Blitzburg defense.

Steelers went to the Super Bowl in 95, played the Cowboys.

But the zone blitz where you are sending a blitz, you're sending five or more rushers, but you're not playing man behind it.

That was revolutionary because it was always assumed in the past that if you sent five or more rushers, you wouldn't have enough defenders to fill all the zones.

Traditionally, the thinking was, Well, if you're a cover three team, there are four underneath zones and three deep zones.

If you're a cover two team, there's five underneath zones and two deep zones.

Either way, there's seven zones.

And if you rush five and try to play zone, you can only drop six.

So ultimately, one of those field zones is going to be open.

So you can't play zone behind a blitz.

That was the thinking.

And then Dick LeBeau was like, the hell you can't.

And he obviously came up with a way to move his pieces around so that you, the quarterback, wouldn't know which zone was going to be open.

And basically Dick LeBeau said, yeah, fine.

It's a math contest.

And let's make the quarterback figure out where the math works in his favor.

Where's the opening on the field as I'm moving all my pieces around post-snap? And I'm also sending dudes like Kevin Green and Greg Lloyd off the edge at you.

It was great.

And before I give you my theme, before I give you what I think the answer is, Let's go back real fast and look at thematically, you know, over the past several decades, what's dominated defense.

Let's go back to the 90s.

I'm assuming a lot of people listening to this podcast right now, maybe you formed your football identity in the 1990s in some fashion.

So you probably remember the decade pretty well.

The hot defensive trend of the 1990s was the zone blitz.

Dick LeBeau was in Pittsburgh.

He had kind of invented it in Cincinnati in the 1980s, but he really didn't get to unveil it until he had the right pieces for the zone blitz.

And he became the architect of that Blitzburg defense.

Steelers went to the Super Bowl in 95, played the Cowboys.

But the zone blitz where you are sending a blitz, you're sending five or more rushers, but you're not playing man behind it.

That was revolutionary because it was always assumed in the past that if you sent five or more rushers, you wouldn't have enough defenders to fill all the zones.

Traditionally, the thinking was, Well, if you're a cover three team, there are four underneath zones and three deep zones.

If you're a cover two team, there's five underneath zones and two deep zones.

Either way, there's seven zones.

And if you rush five and try to play zone, you can only drop six.

So ultimately, one of those field zones is going to be open.

So you can't play zone behind a blitz.

That was the thinking.

And then Dick LeBeau was like, the hell you can't.

And he obviously came up with a way to move his pieces around so that you, the quarterback, wouldn't know which zone was going to be open.

And basically Dick LeBeau said, yeah, fine.

It's a math contest.

And let's make the quarterback figure out where the math works in his favor.

Where's the opening on the field as I'm moving all my pieces around post-snap? And I'm also sending dudes like Kevin Green and Greg Lloyd off the edge at you.

It was great.