Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

JohnTurney wrote:

Jay Z wrote:I would agree that the zone was a safeties' defense. To the extent that cornerbacks were overshadowed in many cases, as they were with the Dolphins. It kept getting worse and culminated in the post 1977 rule changes.

What Miami was able to do was play cover-2 ... back then it was called "double zone" in a lot of publications ... it was a 5 under 2 deep. There was also a 4 under 2 deep where the SAM backer would take the TE man-on-man (Cover-2 latch) . ... Steelers and Bud Carson is also credited with it.

It's hard to know how much they did it, and how much they mixed it in with their cover-3 stuff

With Lambert the Steelers added the Tampa-2 thing...with the MLB takeing the so-called hole.

Side note there is one shot of a similar thing in the early 1950s...I think it was one OLBer
going to the hole and looked like 4 under, 2 deep with the OLber in hole...

Back to Miami---Scott and Anderson - with their abilities they could cover 1/2 the field...that allowed them to run more cover-2 IMO

I think it's more that they were considered more prominent than CBs. 1970-77 was really the only time it happened. Miami was probably the biggest example but there were other teams. Prior to that safeties were DBs who were too slow for CB. After mostly too, nickel started becoming important immediately after the rule changes. It was because of zone, the bump rules etc. that allowed Jack Tatum et al to be effective. Some safeties tried to be big hitters after Tatum but speed became more important, the bumping needed to be in play as well.

Jay Z wrote:I think it's more that they were considered more prominent than CBs. 1970-77 was really the only time it happened. Miami was probably the biggest example but there were other teams. Prior to that safeties were DBs who were too slow for CB. After mostly too, nickel started becoming important immediately after the rule changes. It was because of zone, the bump rules etc. that allowed Jack Tatum et al to be effective. Some safeties tried to be big hitters after Tatum but speed became more important, the bumping needed to be in play as well.

One guy who has kind of been forgotten is Jerry Logan. He has always impressed me on film. Probably the smallest SS in the NFL, but a very good tackler and always around the ball. He never really had big INT totals, but he was a very good player and one of the first zone safeties with the Colts. I think its interesting that Logan started on the 64 Colts, 68 Colts, 70 Colts & 71 Colts....4 really good defenses that had different mixes of players. Logan was the glue guy for that team.

Great call Bryan ... I thought Logan and Volk were underrated, especially Logan, who might have gotten more notoriety had he taken Namath's pass to the endzone in SB III. That play had to have haunted him forever ... For me, he was the key to the Baltimore Zone ... After getting exposed by Matt Snell in the SB, the Colts had to move Curtis to MLB ..

Brian wolf wrote: ... Youre probably right but I felt either safety was better than Captain Crash and as good as Donnie Shell ...

I would agree with this. I would love to get TJ Troup's thought on this. My opinion is that Cliff Harris was very effective but he was more of a product of his surroundings. Imagine playing safety on a team that has a great pass rush with Harvey Banks Martin, Bob Lilly, Randy White, etc. but also has a front seven that chokes off the run as well. You could pretty much just freelance the entire time. The Steelers had the same thing going, and Mike Wagner said as much in his America's Game episode where he would play entire games and not really have to do anything. But the difference IMO is that the Steelers had a great pass defense, while the Cowboys' pass defense was their team weakness. Good offenses could get big plays on the Cowboys through the air against the Flex.

Paul Zimmerman put Cliff Harris on his all-time NFL team at Free Safety, but I don't think Harris/Waters were the heart of that Doomsday Defense. They were beneficiaries of it. I do think that Anderson/Scott were the heart of the No-Names. There was a direct correlation between Scott's arrival and the upturn of Miami's defense....Anderson slowing down and Scott's departure resulted in the team becoming mediocre....Scott's injury in 1974 postseason and Oakland's exploiting Miami's secondary to win the game...Miami remaining competitive in 1975 despite losing the core of their offense.

Bryan wrote:

Jay Z wrote:I think it's more that they were considered more prominent than CBs. 1970-77 was really the only time it happened. Miami was probably the biggest example but there were other teams. Prior to that safeties were DBs who were too slow for CB. After mostly too, nickel started becoming important immediately after the rule changes. It was because of zone, the bump rules etc. that allowed Jack Tatum et al to be effective. Some safeties tried to be big hitters after Tatum but speed became more important, the bumping needed to be in play as well.

One guy who has kind of been forgotten is Jerry Logan. He has always impressed me on film. Probably the smallest SS in the NFL, but a very good tackler and always around the ball. He never really had big INT totals, but he was a very good player and one of the first zone safeties with the Colts. I think its interesting that Logan started on the 64 Colts, 68 Colts, 70 Colts & 71 Colts....4 really good defenses that had different mixes of players. Logan was the glue guy for that team.

Jerry Logan got very little publicity. I remember him for catching Jim Brown after he went 46 yards to the Colts' 18 yard line early in the third quarter of the 1964 NFL Championship game. It was the standard Cleveland Browns' sweep, JB got by Logan who kept up the pursuit and made the tackle. On the next play Frank Ryan threw for a TD to Gary Collins, putting the Browns ahead 10-0. I saw the game on TV and JB's run has stuck in my mind's eye.

You can see it on youtube.