Talk:Nickel defense

JERRY WILLIAMS INVENTS THE NICKLE IN 1960?? Jerry Williams was on the staff of the Eagles through 1963 and I saw plenty of their games and I never once saw the nickle, nor heard about it. Also, in 1960, Mike Ditka was playing college football at Pitt. Missaeagle (talk) 19:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Issues, 8/2014
I have a number of issues with the article as it currently stands. First, I see no compelling evidence of the practice discussed in the first paragraph (nickel used only for a 4-2 front). It seems to be someone's personal preference. If Bill Arnsparger's book on football defense can be used as a reference (Coaching Defensive Football, pp 279-284 for example), he doesn't care what the front is when he talks about the backfield.

Second, the article, by focusing primarily on the use of five defensive backs as a strategy to slow down the passing game, neglects the whole history of the 4-2 as a base defense, derived ultimately from the wide tackle six (i.e the wide tackle six becoming a 4-4, and then becoming a 4-2, by relabeling DE to LB to SS). There is plenty of evidence for this ("The New Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football", p. 133, conversation with Rob Rust, and Homer Smith's football book, the chapter on defenses, for another).

Third, the phrase nickel now is used to talk about a defensive front where two players are in a three point stance. The specific phrase is nickel front, and while the usage is not universal, the phrase nickel defense doesn't adequately disambiguate the nickel front from the nickel backfield.

Fourth, the final sentence is wrong and should be removed:

"The 3-4 teams that line in the nickel usually put their two outside linebackers in three-point stances, in front of the offensive tackles, and they move their two base ends at defensive tackle, while the nose tackle is not on the field."

I can find no evidence of this practice prior to the year 2000. In Bill Arnsparger's book, copyrighted 1999, five and six man backfields are invariably set up by removing one or two linebackers. There is no mention of a two man front. Likewise, in the book Defensive Football Strategies, copyright 1990, there is no mention of the nickel front in the chapter on nickel backfields.

The first two man front I am aware of is the one used by Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick in the 1991 Super Bowl (Halberstam, "Education of a Coach", Ch. 9). The front was then rare until the last half of the first decade of the 21st century. At this point, you see coaches such as Dom Capers, Rex and Rob Ryan, Mike Nolan using a variety of one and two man fronts. Now, I cannot speak for whether the removing of a nose tackle is the usual practice in a modern 2010+ 3-4, but my personal observation is that these kinds of coaches mix it up and the removal of any particular lineman on a three or four man front is pretty arbitrary.

There are proposals to merge the zone defense articles with the defensive coverage shells article into a comprehensive pass defense article. If that were to happen, the parts of this article talking about the pass coverage use would be fruitfully moved back to that article, and another set of articles on the 4-2, and 3-3 as base defenses, needs to be written.

Dwmyers (talk) 18:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC)


 * After looking at the usage of "nickel front", it does not appear to apply to just two man front lines. It seems to be a misnomer. People, rather than saying nickel backfield, are using the phrase "nickel front" when there is no differentiation between what the front actually is. 67.166.223.58 (talk) 15:12, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I've rewritten the final line. After a reread, it's pretty clear the original author was talking about a common way to switch from a 3-4 to a 4-2 front, and not, as I originally assumed, a shift to a 2-4 front. Two man fronts are very rare until the second half of the first decade of the 21st century. But the article is still suffering from a serious case of single point of view-itis.  It only wants to talk about the  nickel in the context of pass defense, and wants to ignore the existence of any version of the nickel other than the 4-2. Dwmyers (talk) 15:38, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Merge Proposal
Removing the merge proposal. Behind the the team's choice of 3-4 or 4-3 this is probably the second most common defensive play and since no one else has commented on the suggestion in over two years I see no reason for it to remain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sulfurboy (talk • contribs) 03:58, 9 January 2013 (UTC)