TXBRONC
02-23-2009, 11:45 AM
We talk a lot about the 3-4 defense and so I understand some times things have to be merged but I hope this thread will be allowed stand on its own because it's as much about Rubin Carter as it is about the nose tackle in a 3-4 defense.
http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_11762940
terry frei
Middle man a rough role
By Terry Frei
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/23/2009 12:30:00 AM MST
Josh McDaniels wasn't yet 1 year old when the Broncos switched to the 3-4 defense in 1976. So as McDaniels and his Broncos staff peruse draft prospects and survey the possibilities in free agency, looking for a suitable nose tackle, perhaps the new Denver head coach doesn't even know he's trying to find another Rubin Carter.
The stumpy Carter did the grunt labor for the "Orange Crush." Even then, the position required a rare willingness to subjugate ego; in this era, it's even harder to find a talented D-lineman who can be both good at the nose tackle job . . . and be happy in it.
From his home in Albuquerque on Sunday, Carter said he had heard of the Broncos' return to the 3-4.
"The nose tackle has to be very unselfish, a role player, understanding that the scheme will not work unless he's capable of defeating man-to- man blocking, if you get it, but also facing up to double-teams and unfocused blocking," he said. "You can get hit by tight ends and by fullbacks, too, and in zone blocking schemes, it requires lateral footwork to keep a low center of gravity and keep the center off the inside linebacker. So it's a very demanding position. Just being able to anchor and hold the point when the blockers are trying to get to that second level, to the linebackers, is critical to the position."
One reason Carter didn't mind that often unsung role in his 1975-86 stay with the Broncos was that he was indoctrinated in hard work, long before making football his profession. Since retiring as a player, his coaching career has included stints with several NFL teams, including the Broncos, plus three seasons as the head coach at Florida A&M; and now has taken him to the University of New Mexico, where he recently joined new head coach Mike Locksley's staff.
As a youngster, Rubin often worked on East Coast farms with his parents, Charlie and Susie Mae.
"It certainly was a humbling experience," Carter said. "My parents were very strong- willed, and my mother had a tremendous faith through all the adversity we had to go through as a family."
The family had settled in Maryland when Rubin's father suffered a fatal heart attack while picking mangoes. Susie Mae took her two youngest children, Charles Jr. and Rubin, to Florida, and beginning at age 14, Rubin did odd jobs in the summers at a steel mill. As a star football player at Stranahan High in Fort Lauderdale, he also was a school janitor.
"I cleaned the same classrooms where I had been all day long," he said.
After he was an All-American as a senior for the Miami Hurricanes, he came to the Broncos as a 1975 fifth-round choice. He was available that late because at 6-feet and 256 pounds, he didn't fit the NFL front-four prototype. After Lyle Alzado, then a defensive tackle, suffered a season-ending knee injury at Cincinnati in the 1976 regular-season opener, Denver switched to the 3-4 and Carter found a home at nose tackle.
Under defensive coordinator Joe Collier, the Broncos weren't the first to play an adaptation of the college game's "Oklahoma" 5-2, but they helped popularize the alternative to the traditional 4-3. (Sound familiar? Football history is cyclical.) Barney Chavous and Alzado were the ends.
Behind them, linebackers Randy Gradishar, Tom Jackson, Bob Swenson and Joe Rizzo got much of the ink. When the Broncos blitzed, it most often was Jackson coming from the weak side, but offenses couldn't be certain that he'd be the extra body going after the quarterback in what at least looked like a conventional four-man rush. In the running game, the linebackers reacted and pursued. If Carter drew a double-team, even when it involved a glancing blow from the guard, the three defensive linemen often were doing the same thing as the traditional four-man front — occupying four of the five offensive linemen. Immediately behind (or around) them, there were four linebackers, not three.
Gradishar isn't where he belongs, in the Hall of Fame, because of an anti-3-4 snobbery among some football writers. One influential scribe, both at the time and later, argued that both the defense itself and (alleged) exaggerated tackle counts meant the Denver linebackers really weren't that great.
They were. And they got a lot of help from Carter.
With the right players, including a man in the middle who doesn't mind getting his nose dirty, it can work again in Denver.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_11762940
terry frei
Middle man a rough role
By Terry Frei
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/23/2009 12:30:00 AM MST
Josh McDaniels wasn't yet 1 year old when the Broncos switched to the 3-4 defense in 1976. So as McDaniels and his Broncos staff peruse draft prospects and survey the possibilities in free agency, looking for a suitable nose tackle, perhaps the new Denver head coach doesn't even know he's trying to find another Rubin Carter.
The stumpy Carter did the grunt labor for the "Orange Crush." Even then, the position required a rare willingness to subjugate ego; in this era, it's even harder to find a talented D-lineman who can be both good at the nose tackle job . . . and be happy in it.
From his home in Albuquerque on Sunday, Carter said he had heard of the Broncos' return to the 3-4.
"The nose tackle has to be very unselfish, a role player, understanding that the scheme will not work unless he's capable of defeating man-to- man blocking, if you get it, but also facing up to double-teams and unfocused blocking," he said. "You can get hit by tight ends and by fullbacks, too, and in zone blocking schemes, it requires lateral footwork to keep a low center of gravity and keep the center off the inside linebacker. So it's a very demanding position. Just being able to anchor and hold the point when the blockers are trying to get to that second level, to the linebackers, is critical to the position."
One reason Carter didn't mind that often unsung role in his 1975-86 stay with the Broncos was that he was indoctrinated in hard work, long before making football his profession. Since retiring as a player, his coaching career has included stints with several NFL teams, including the Broncos, plus three seasons as the head coach at Florida A&M; and now has taken him to the University of New Mexico, where he recently joined new head coach Mike Locksley's staff.
As a youngster, Rubin often worked on East Coast farms with his parents, Charlie and Susie Mae.
"It certainly was a humbling experience," Carter said. "My parents were very strong- willed, and my mother had a tremendous faith through all the adversity we had to go through as a family."
The family had settled in Maryland when Rubin's father suffered a fatal heart attack while picking mangoes. Susie Mae took her two youngest children, Charles Jr. and Rubin, to Florida, and beginning at age 14, Rubin did odd jobs in the summers at a steel mill. As a star football player at Stranahan High in Fort Lauderdale, he also was a school janitor.
"I cleaned the same classrooms where I had been all day long," he said.
After he was an All-American as a senior for the Miami Hurricanes, he came to the Broncos as a 1975 fifth-round choice. He was available that late because at 6-feet and 256 pounds, he didn't fit the NFL front-four prototype. After Lyle Alzado, then a defensive tackle, suffered a season-ending knee injury at Cincinnati in the 1976 regular-season opener, Denver switched to the 3-4 and Carter found a home at nose tackle.
Under defensive coordinator Joe Collier, the Broncos weren't the first to play an adaptation of the college game's "Oklahoma" 5-2, but they helped popularize the alternative to the traditional 4-3. (Sound familiar? Football history is cyclical.) Barney Chavous and Alzado were the ends.
Behind them, linebackers Randy Gradishar, Tom Jackson, Bob Swenson and Joe Rizzo got much of the ink. When the Broncos blitzed, it most often was Jackson coming from the weak side, but offenses couldn't be certain that he'd be the extra body going after the quarterback in what at least looked like a conventional four-man rush. In the running game, the linebackers reacted and pursued. If Carter drew a double-team, even when it involved a glancing blow from the guard, the three defensive linemen often were doing the same thing as the traditional four-man front — occupying four of the five offensive linemen. Immediately behind (or around) them, there were four linebackers, not three.
Gradishar isn't where he belongs, in the Hall of Fame, because of an anti-3-4 snobbery among some football writers. One influential scribe, both at the time and later, argued that both the defense itself and (alleged) exaggerated tackle counts meant the Denver linebackers really weren't that great.
They were. And they got a lot of help from Carter.
With the right players, including a man in the middle who doesn't mind getting his nose dirty, it can work again in Denver.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com