ChiefsPlanet - Chiefs Steve Spagnuolu

The difference between Jim Johnson' defense and Steve Spagnuolo' defense.

New York Giants' Steve Spagnuolo was pupil of Philadelphia Eagles' Jim Johnson

by Mike Garafolo/The Star-Ledger
Saturday January 10, 2009, 6:42 PM
The NFL is a copycat league. It's just that the duplicates are never exactly the same as the original.

In the case of Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, it has been said for two seasons now that he runs an Eagles-style defense because he was a pupil of Philly's defensive coordinator Jim Johnson. But the truth is, Spagnuolo's defense has evolved to become much of his own scheme.

"It's like the West Coast offense," said Eagles coach Andy Reid, who probably has the most experience of anyone in seeing both defenses -- the one he routinely sees in practices every day and the one he game plans against at least twice per season.

"Mine is a little bit different than Mike Holmgren's was, and Mike's was a little bit different than Bill Walsh's was. You kind of put your own little flair to it.

Sunday, in an NFC Divisional Playoff game between the streaking Eagles and the defending Super Bowl champion Giants, Spagnuolo's "flair" will attempt to stifle the red-hot Brian Westbrook and the rest of the Eagles offense while Johnson's well-developed, time-tested schemes will be matched up against a fired-up Brandon Jacobs and a now-proven Eli Manning.

The similarities between the schemes will certainly be evident. But the differences in blitz packages, coverages and the way the coordinators use their personnel will be just as clear to the trained eye.

The most basic assumption about both defenses is that Spagnuolo and Johnson are enamored by the blitz. But retired linebacker Ike Reese, who played under Johnson from the time he arrived with Reid in 1999 through 2004, said "it's really not that way."

Both will dial up the pressure, Reese said, when they smell a vulnerable offense -- on third-and-long, after turnovers and following any momentum swings on the other side of the ball. The difference, though, comes where and how the teams decide to bring pressure.

Spagnuolo prefers to blitz up the middle more than off the edges. Johnson likes to bring his extra rushers from outside the tackles.

"He loves to use (safety) Brian Dawkins on the outside," Reese said. "He doesn't want to get him caught up in the middle with the offensive linemen. He wants to get Brian matched up with a back or a tight end on the outside, so you'll see a lot more safety blitzes coming from Jim than you will Spags."
Giants rookie safety Kenny Phillips concurs.

"I don't get to blitz a lot," Phillips said. "But I always get blocked every time I go anyway, so I don't really get mad."

Spagnuolo's pressures also are often zone blitzes, meaning he's bringing only five or six rushers with zone coverage behind them. He'll often bring a linebacker up the middle, a cornerback from the slot and drop the defensive end on the opposite side into coverage.

Johnson, however, is more daring with his blitzes.

"They bring safeties from depth, they bring corners from width," says Fox analyst and former Eagles offensive lineman Brian Baldinger. "Anybody's liable to come on any given snap without any pre-snap read. The Giants sort of tip their hand a little bit when they overload the pressure and bring it."

Well, most of the time. But there are exceptions, such as the one game Reese watched the Giants defense and thought it could have been Johnson who was calling the game.

"That Super Bowl was basically a Jim Johnson-type of game being called where he brought people from all angles," Reese said of the game plan put together by Spagnuolo, a rising star in the coaching ranks after the Super Bowl who has built on his resume this season.

"(The Patriots) didn't know who was coming from where. It was never the same blitz. They might give you the same look, but it was a different guy coming."

The differences don't end there.

LINEBACKER ROLES VARY
The first difference is the way the Giants often bring their linebackers to the line of scrimmage at the snap. Antonio Pierce, Danny Clark and Chase Blackburn will often show blitz at the line. Sometimes they'll go, sometimes they'll back off and other times they give a step or two forward and then back out to cover a running back or the short flats.

Baldinger calls it "mugging the line" and says it's a tactic to confuse opposing blockers and create one-on-one matchups with the blitzers or down linemen that are featured in the specific pressures.

"It hurts them in the passing game. You give up a little bit," Baldinger said. "It opens up the middle of the field that much more. Those guys are able to get back to their landmarks, but they do lose a little bit."

Baldinger said mugging the line also hurts the run defense because it eliminates the second level of defense. That was the case on Brian Westbrook's 30-yard touchdown run at Giants Stadium in Week 14. There were nine Giants at the line and, once Westbrook got past that front, which was only one player deep, there was no one else to stop him.

Lately, the Eagles prefer to keep their linebackers at normal depth. That wasn't always the case. When Johnson had Jeremiah Trotter in the middle, he knew to play to the 270-pounder's strength, which was to play downhill and disrupt the "A" gaps between center and guard.

According to one of his former teammates, Trotter wouldn't mug the line; he would try to run through it.

"Trotter was asked to be a disrupter," Reese said. "He would get penetration and allow (former Eagles defensive tackles) Corey Simon or Hollis Thomas to not get double-teamed. We used to say Trotter was used as an extra lineman at times."

Now, middle linebacker Stewart Bradley is asked to play off the ball and move backward into coverage and side to side -- not just "from 'A' gap to 'A' gap," which was always Pierce's contention when Trotter was praised and voted to the Pro Bowl ahead of him.

EAGLES ARE ZONED IN
When Johnson had Bobby Taylor, Troy Vincent and Al Harris as his cornerbacks, he played plenty of man coverage and employed zero blitzes (six or more rushers with the safeties vacating the middle of the field) even though he admitted it's "not my style."

Now, with smaller, less physical corners in Sheldon Brown, Asante Samuel and Lito Sheppard, Johnson is calling more zone blitzes.

"We ran a lot more man coverage when we had those bigger guys," Reese said. "But part of it is also that you have new guys back there in Asante Samuel and Quintin Mikell. Jim had to get adjusted to those guys and how they can handle a zero blitz."

In general, Baldinger sees a pair of defenses that are "sound on the back end," meaning they guard against big pass plays. But he said the Giants are the more conservative defense and will play more Cover-2 (a pair of safeties deep instead of one or none to devote another man to the blitz) than their division rivals.

"The Giants trust their front four more than the Eagles do," Baldinger said.

TEACHER A MAN OF 'STEAL'?
The Giants' Philly-style scheme was born of Spagnuolo's experience working under Johnson. But now, there are little wrinkles in Johnson's defense that originated with Spagnuolo.

The most obvious change came when Johnson started using four defensive ends in obvious passing situations -- something Spagnuolo employed early last season when he lined up Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, Mathias Kiwanuka and Osi Umenyiora alongside each other in perhaps the most intimidating pass-rushing front in NFL history.

Johnson will line up any combination of the five ends on the roster: Trent Cole, Chris Clemons, Victor Abiamiri, Darren Howard, Juqua Parker.

"I think 'Spags' has influenced the whole league, not just the Eagles," Pierce said. "Every team uses their best pass rushers now, regardless of whether it's a linebacker or defensive end."

Still, it's interesting one of the people stealing from the pupil is the teacher.

"It goes back and forth, probably more so that way to this way because 'Spags' came from there," Kiwanuka said. "But when you're winning and you're doing it in a great fashion, everybody's going to notice and try to do the same thing. No sense in trying to reinvent the wheel."

http://www.nj.com/giants/index.ssf/2..._spagnuol.html