Fans, coaches, and keyboard warriors have been talking for years about the offensive revolution in football and how to stop it. But just how did we get here?
Somewhere in the time period between the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous, everyone categorized defensive football schemes as either a base 4-3 or a base 3-4. Essentially, itw as just assumed there would only be 4 total defensive backs on the field, and the rest of the nomenclature was to distinguish between the types of big guys out there trying to stop the run. The good ole days.
The 4-3 was the staple for most of the 1990s and 2000s, and Monte Kiffin’s Tampa 2 defense wound up becoming the dominant scheme in the early 2000s time frame, placing a premium on fast linebackers and good tacklers at cornerback and forcing offenses into long, plodding drives underneath as the speedy defense rallied to make gang tackles.