So I can’t sleep tonight and when I can’t sleep, I think about football. @Larry_Williams posted a pretty great clip of Rob Ryan seemingly absolutely off his rocker the other day at his USC press conference and it got me thinking about the good ‘ole BV days when we would run his dad’s famous 46 bear defense.
Here’s a clip of Rob giving a basic explanation of how the Bear defense works:
This is the defense that Buddy Ryan ran with the 1985 Bears, which might be the best defensive team in the history of football, he then took it to Philadelphia where it became (less popularly) known as the Eagle front and it helped launch Reggie White’s career as arguably the greatest D-lineman to ever play the game.
Its most traditional form, like the way its presented here by Rob, isn’t seen a whole lot these days because of the way offenses like to spread everything out. But the bear front alignment of moving a guy down so both guards and the center are covered is still very popular and difficult to block.
And it was also one of BV’s favorite alignments, particularly in that 2016-2018 time frame when we legitimately had the best DL in all of football.
I dug deep in the My Thoughts (Long) archives and found this clip of us running a very traditional 46 bear look against NC State in 2018.
That’s Clelin Ferrell on the outside shoulder of the left guard, Sexy Dexy over the center, and Christian Wilkins on outside shoulder of the right guard. I mean, what are you even supposed to do with that if you’re NC State?
Anyway, Rob Ryan is a little goofy, Rex has a foot fetish, and even their dad was known for being a bit of a handful and got in a fist fight with the OC for the Oilers in ‘93, but those guys know how to coach defense.
Here’s a clip of Rob giving a basic explanation of how the Bear defense works:
This is the defense that Buddy Ryan ran with the 1985 Bears, which might be the best defensive team in the history of football, he then took it to Philadelphia where it became (less popularly) known as the Eagle front and it helped launch Reggie White’s career as arguably the greatest D-lineman to ever play the game.
Its most traditional form, like the way its presented here by Rob, isn’t seen a whole lot these days because of the way offenses like to spread everything out. But the bear front alignment of moving a guy down so both guards and the center are covered is still very popular and difficult to block.
And it was also one of BV’s favorite alignments, particularly in that 2016-2018 time frame when we legitimately had the best DL in all of football.
I dug deep in the My Thoughts (Long) archives and found this clip of us running a very traditional 46 bear look against NC State in 2018.
That’s Clelin Ferrell on the outside shoulder of the left guard, Sexy Dexy over the center, and Christian Wilkins on outside shoulder of the right guard. I mean, what are you even supposed to do with that if you’re NC State?
Anyway, Rob Ryan is a little goofy, Rex has a foot fetish, and even their dad was known for being a bit of a handful and got in a fist fight with the OC for the Oilers in ‘93, but those guys know how to coach defense.
