Three seconds or more

There are three different ways to play great pass defense and all of them involve the number three.

When describing the nature of spread offense, I love to pull from lessons I took from the late Jonathan Tjarks. Particularly the way he liked to evaluate teams based on how players fit together and players based on how easily they could fit with others into a winning team concept. He had a great brand name for the overall process he called “the patterns of basketball.”

There are similar governing dynamics to football that we’ve explored in a few posts. For instance,

• In spread 201 I explain how the relative running ability of the quarterback dictates what the tight end has to do as a blocker.

• In spread 301 I went over how the most important piece (truly regardless of system) is the outside receiver.

Defense has similar rules, including what I’ve called “the rule of three,” which is an explanation for how teams need to be set up in order to defend spread passing offenses. Well there’s one more piece to the “rule of three” on defense I didn’t get into in that initial offering we’re going to dive into today.

Anyone remember the “seven seconds or less” Phoenix Suns? Who were committed to pushing the ball down the floor to take as many shots in transition as possible? Defensive football is often defined by the reverse timeline, can you cover for three seconds or more?