Although most of the glory goes to the offensive players on a football team, who we covered yesterday, I prefer defenders. It probably goes back to when I was a kid and played defense on my soccer team but I think playing defense is harder and more glorious than playing offense. After all, especially in football because of its complexity, the offense has a big advantage. It knows what it’s going to try to do. The defense has to make up for that knowledge gap through savvy anticipation and quick and flexible reactions.
Although there is a lot of variation from team to team, here are the three major groups of defenders:
Starting from the closest to the line of scrimmage where the ball starts each play are the defensive linemen. Defensive linemen vary from huge to gigantic based on their team’s strategy. Their assignment is to prevent the opposing team’s running back from sneaking through their line or, if the attacking team tries to throw the ball, to find a way to hit the quarterback before he can throw the ball.
The next defenders back are called linebackers. Linebackers are usually faster than defensive linemen but still almost as big. They make the majority of the tackles on the field.
Last are the defensive backs. Defensive backs may well be the best athletes on the field. Their job seems almost hopeless. They need to mirror everything the fastest players on the offensive side, the wide receivers, do to prevent them from catching the ball. Defensive backs need to do this without knowing what pattern the wide-receivers are going to run in and do it running backwards. It sounds impossible, and often it is — so defensive backs will team up amongst themselves to cover a single wide receiver or an area of the field. The best among them though, don’t need any help to shut down a wide receiver, and this can be a big strategic advantage for their team because it frees up another defender to do something else.