Transcription
Welcome back to Football 101. Today we're going to be looking at personnel. Personnel is the type of players brought onto the field. Every play, different types of players are needed for each situation. There's both personnel for offense and defense.
First, let's take a look at the offensive personnel. As we just established, with personnel, it is the type of people you bring on the field. And for different situations, you need different players. For instance, for offense, if you intend to run the ball, you would want to bring big, heavy guys out on the field. And if you wanted to pass the ball or go far, you would bring your small, skinnier guys out, like a bunch of wide receivers, so that you can throw the ball and get down the field fast.
Personnel is depicted using a series of numbers. For offense, it is two numbers. The first number is the number of backs or running backs or fullbacks on the field. And the second number is the number of tight ends on the play. And so remember, since there's a QB and always five offensive linemen, at the very least, you are always going to have six out of the 11 players on the field. Personnel only needs to depict the backs and tight ends cuz then the receivers are what's left over.
So let's say you had 12 personnel. That means there's one back on the play and two tight ends. And then by rule of just figuring it out, you have, remember, five offensive linemen, one quarterback, and then now one back and two tight ends, if you add that all up, you get nine, which means there's two wide receivers on the play cuz 11 players on the field, and you have nine of them as the other things. Let's go over a couple examples here. When we look at this, what are there? There are two backs and one tight end. This is 21 personnel. Let's look at another example. On this play, you have one back and one tight end. So, this is 11 personnel. Let's take a look at this one. What do you have on this play? You have one back and one tight end. This is 11 personnel again. And then let's take a take a look at one final example here on this play. What do you have? You have two backs and three tight ends. Also take note that this 23 personnel you're looking at here is the common personnel for goal line and it is actually called goal line personnel.
So now let's move on to defensive personnel. Just like offensive personnel, every play different types of players are needed. Just like for offensive personnel, a team will utilize different personnel for different situations. While offense can in most situations choose whatever personnel they want, the defensive personnel in most situations is reactive to what the offensive personnel is. This is due to the fact that the defense is trying to counter the offense. And this is also why refs are um mandated to give time to the defense if the offense ever changes their personnel.
Personnel on defense is depicted by three numbers separated by dashes. The first number is down linemen. The second number is linebackers. And the third number is defensive backs. For example, 4-3-4. What is this? Well, there are four down linemen on the play, three linebackers on the play, and four defensive backs. For anyone who doesn't quite know what those are, real quickly, we'll go over them. Down lineman, defensive linemen, those two names are synonymous. Linebackers are kind of self-explanatory. And then defensive backs is everything from safeties to cornerbacks. It's just really like your pass defense.
Although the personnel is usually shortened to a nickname such as nickel for defense, there are five core defensive personnel's base, nickel, dime, quarter, and goal line. So yes, while you do see the number system used as we just went over, it will be more common for defense that you just hear these shortened nicknames instead of the numbers unlike offense. So let's go over each one of these.
Base. Each team has a base defense. This is the defense that they prefer to run and build their defensive philosophy around. There are two options for a base defense, 4-3 and 3-4. The first number in these formations refers to the number of defensive linemen, remember? And the second number refers to number of linebackers. In a 4-3 formation, the defense will have four linemen, three linebackers, two cornerbacks, and two safeties. In a 3-4, the number of quarterbacks and safeties are the same, but the number of down linemen and linebackers are flipped. So, three down linemen, four linebackers.
Next up, let's go over the nickel formation. Nickel defense removes a linebacker from the field and replaces him with a defensive back. It is called nickel because a nickel is worth 5 cents and a nickel formation puts five defensive backs on the field. For a 4-3 team, a nickel defense would typically look like 4-2-5. Four linemen, two linebackers, five defensive backs. While a 3-4 team will use a 3-3-5 setup.
Next up, we have dime. Dime defense removes an additional linebacker or down lineman from the field in favor of another defensive back. It is called dime not because there are 10 defensive backs on the field, but rather because it adds another defensive back on the field. And just think it this way, two nickels make a dime. So, two nickel corners make a dime defense. A 4-3 team will typically use 4-1-6 grouping while a 3-4 team will use more 3-2-6 grouping for dime.
We've got two more personnel groups for defense left to go over. And first off, we have Quarter. Quarter's defense is only used when the defense is certain that the offense is passing the ball. It puts seven defensive backs on the field. And because of this is extremely vulnerable to run. Both 4-3 teams and 3-4 teams utilize a 3-1-7 grouping for this defense. Also, the reason it is called quarters is because the field is divided into quarters with their lines of zones.
And finally, just like how offense has a goal line personnel, defense does as well. Goal line for defense is a heavy defensive formation usually utilized in short yardage situations are at the goal line. It will put five to six defensive linemen on the field and crowd the box with additional linebackers.
So now that we understand both offensive and defensive personnels, we can get into personnel matchups. As brief as briefly touched in both sections above, defensive personnel is reactive to offensive personnel. For example, if the offense brings out four wide receivers, the defense will most likely respond with dime. And now I'm going to put a chart up on the screen where we can see everything of the basic most basic counters for the offensive personnel for defense.
In this list of most common offensive personnel sets and defensive counters, one can see matchups that drive every play on the field. While having the correct defense to match the offense goes a long way, it does not win the play for the defense. It merely levels the advantage for both sides. For example, if the defense has a 4-3 defense, two quarterbacks, and the offense comes out in 20 personnel, three wide receivers, then the offense will have a wide receiver that is either uncovered or covered by a player of a non-optimal position, such as a linebacker having to cover a wide receiver. The defense is not in the correct personnel, so the offense has an advantage. Although, if the defense comes out in nickel personnel, three quarterbacks, remember, to match the offensive 20 personnel, then the playing field is level. Three wide receivers to three quarterbacks.
There are also situations where playing a defense that is not the technical counter could be optimal. Let's take the previous example where the offense comes out in 20 personnel and the defense comes out in the base 4-3. If this happened is likely because the defense might be trying to blitz. Usually a defense always has two safeties. This is why in 4-3-4 only two of the four DBs are quarterbacks. If a defense wants to blitz, they could sacrifice their ability to have two safeties as the shell by putting one safety up in man on one of the three wide receivers or having three cornerbacks and one safety. While this would take away a defender in the pass game, it would add a blitzer. If the blitz executes well, the defense gained an advantage over the offense.
As we just covered, the defense can try mixing up their personnel to add blitzers or try gaining an advantage in a different way. While the offense can also do this, too, by utilizing dual threat players to gain an advantage over the defense. For example, you can obviously take the 49ers, but in this example, we'll stay general. If the offense has a team with a player who holds the ability to play both running back and wide receiver, then the offense can line the player up in a way that is misleading. For example, a play like this, the offense could come out in 12 personnel, so the defense matches with their base defense. The trick is the back on the play is the dual threat player. Before the play starts, the QB motions the back out into a receiver position. This now makes the play 0-2 personnel, effectively forcing the defense out of the personnel counter, and the defense is not given time by the ref to change their personnel since the offense did not substitute any players. The offense has now gained the advantage over the defense on the play that is about to happen.
This is why teams like the 49ers are so dangerous where they have Christian McCaffrey who's able to play wide receiver and running back. They have Debo Samuel who can play wide receiver and running back. And they have George Kittle who they line up all the time as a fullback and who obviously can play tight end. This is why they're dangerous because they can force the defense into the wrong personnel by using and mixing up their players into positions that they aren't generally listed as.
While both teams could try to gain leverage with personnel mismatches, the play is usually not decided by this. Sure, if the defense sacrifices pass defense for blitz and the QB gets sacked, you could argue that personnel could be the play decider. But in most cases, personnel is just the situation for the play. Personnel gives an insight to both teams and everyone watching what is about to happen before it happens. Although if a team catches onto the hints in the personnel, they could gain the advantage.
Altogether, defense personnel matches offensive personnel. And when it does this, the defense does not gain the advantage, but just levels the play. Every scenario outlined in the previous chart shows a balanced replay. Both the offense and defense could try to gain the advantage by offsetting the chart. Examples we just went over, but both teams personnel is what constructs the play that is about to happen. Personnel is the driving but not deciding force of the play.
Thanks for watching once again. This is the second episode of Football 101. Already I'm already seeing I don't think this series is going to get much views, but I think it's going to be a very helpful series, so I'm going to go through with it. There's a niche crowd out there who would want this, and that's why I'm excited for this. I already had some great comments on the last video that I uploaded last night. And so I have a feeling that this is the response we're going to get for this series. Low views, but just like a a small community who loves this. And so I'm going to keep these going. We'll have this playlist. My other stuff's going to keep going up. But Sunday's tomorrow. You know what that means? Football's on its way. So all right, everyone. Stay safe. Have a nice weekend in serum.