Sporting Brain

Part I: Health

You’ve heard it thrown around a lot over the past week, and probably before if you are a 49ers fan, the Giants “Big Nickel Defense”. Well, what is it, why is it used, and why will we see even more of it versus the Patriots?

The Big Nickel is simply a Nickel defense (five defensive backs), but of the five defensive backs, three of them safeties. This means that a linebacker has been replaced with a safety and it protects the defensive against strong passing games. The 49ers used this a lot under Mike Nolan and the Giants seemingly use it on every non-apparent rushing down.

There are obvious pros to going to the Big Nickel and this involves great coverage downfield, leading to that strong defensive front getting more sacks, or pressuring a QB into doing things he doesn’t want to do, i.e. turnovers. At it’s core the Big Nickel truly gives that front four about three extra rushing seconds, and versus a QB like Tom Brady who doesn’t really roll that effectively this can be a recipe for success. So how do the Patriots combat it? A variety of ways, some of which showed up in their week 9 matchup:

1. An extra offensive lineman: In many sets during their regular season matchup the Patriots had six offensive lineman, plus a fullback, plus tight ends. This not only created better protection for the QB, but also allowed for traditional TE bump and cut passes, and draw rushes using a small RB (Woodhead in particular). Unfortunately this also backfired on the Pats a few times leading to turnovers
2. Slot Receivers/TEs: Putting a WR or one of the TEs in the slot versus the Big Nickel is risky but can pay great dividends, particularly when they replace Kiwanuka in that front. If you can get the guy open quickly and deliver the ball in front of him you are nearly promised a 15 yard gain since the DBs often cross each other up and mistackle in these scenarios.
3. Audible: One thing that the Giants can do well is fake the Big Nickel, showing as if they have five defensive backs, but bring one of them up on the line as the play unfolds. Recognition of this is critical and something that Brady can do very well. When he sees this type of alignment he’ll typically drop into a rushing formation and/or do one of the dump passes to the RB on the wide side.

Beating the Big Nickel, as with most scenario-focused football, is all about matchups. The Patriots clearly have the OL to deal with this, just watch their first meeting, but the fullbacks play a HUGE role in making this all happen. My guess is that you are going to see a lot more of Woodhead and even Faulk on Super Bowl Sunday. Those two guys can help the initial blocking on the pass, float to the outside for a dump, and even take the defense off their toes by running through the gut while stretching out the field with WRs.

Beating the Big Nickel is hard, but it can be done, just ask the Washington Redskins, who we will look to for part 3 of our Super Bowl preview.