ee : 46 Defense! [ written by Mike Lowry Copyright (c) Mike Lowry 1998Our base 46 defensive alignment is an § man front and is an attack, blitzing front where we want to be aggressive and control the offensive front. We use our 46 defensive alignment as a supplement to our 50 defensive scheme and it is has proven to be very effective over the years for us. Our 46 defensive front is defined as a double eagle 50 front with the strong safety covering the tight end. We move the strong safety up from his cover position in order to put immediate pressure on the offensive line, as well as the offense as a whole. We support the 46 8-man front with a 3-deep secondary, many times matching up man to man or using a man-free type of coverage scheme. Our base 46 defensive alignment is shown below: FS Cc Cc Ww $ E T N T ss E x OO [70 x% QB zZ Strong Safety - cavers the tight end and plays him tough vs. both run and pass. DT's cover the offensive guards head up. Nose - covers the offensive center head up. DE's - align 2 yards outside of the EMOL (end man on the line of scrimmage) LB’s - align over the offensive tackles at 3-5.We actually define our 46 defense as one of our 0 defenses, as again, we are actually aligning in a 50 double eagle, only now we have the strong safety moved up covering the tight end. We can apply virtually every 50 scheme to our 46 defense without missing a beat. That is one reason we can use the 46 defensive front with relative ease and it has proven to be easy to teach and easy to implement...if we take the approach that the 46 defense is just like our 50 defense, only with the strong safety moved up on the line of ‘When taking this approach, we can simply teach our players some differing alignments, only with the same exact technique as our 50 defense, We don't need to teach a whole new defensive package if we stick with the basic ideas of our 50 defense. There are a few diserpancies between a straight 50 and the 46 defense, however, we have found ‘at the high school level that if we approach the 46 defense as one of our base 50 alignments then the kids have a lot easier time understanding what we are trying to do when we align in the 46 defensive front. Our secondary coverage does not differ at all for our various cover schemes. The only thing we must be aware of is the alignment of our strong safety, Even with his alignment ‘we can use him in most 50 cover schemes. In fact, his natural alignment in the 46 defense allows us to “hide” many of our base pass covers. The 46 defense also proves to be a good defensive front for us to shift in and out of. We can also use the 46 defensive front in the many stemming and presnap movements that we incorporate within our defensive movement package. Of all defensive fronts, the base 50 fronts provide us with the most leniency to shift in and out of. We can use the 46 defense, along with our other base 50 fronts, to stem and shift in and out of throughout the course of the game. If our base 50 defensive technique and responsibilities are sound then we shouldn't have any problems including the 46 defensive alignment within our defensive movment schemes, Again the 46 defensive front alignment allows us to disguise many of our 50 defensive front and intentions very well and while we can show an $ man front initially, we can mave out of the front before the snap or rotate into another front and/or coverage after the ball has been snapped. Either method is effective and again, the 46 defense provides us with a g00d front to either attack from, or to hide our 50 base defensive intent, We can apply all of our 50 defensive stunts and blitzes directly to the 46 defensive alignment. Again, the only difference for us when we are in our 46 defensive alignment is that our strong safety moves up and covers the tight end head up, while our defensive interior three (the nose and two defensive tackles) align in a “TNT” or “double eagle” alignment. Once again, for our defensive purposes, we still refer to this as one of our base 50 defenses and we can apply all of the rules, reads, stunts, stems, shifts, and blitzes from our 50 defensive package Let’s take a look at some of our base 46 alignments versus various offensive formations and then we will look at some of the techniques and defensive movements from the 46 alignment.