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Ramsdude
***How come even after the season was lost we still ran the exact same Ultra Soft Shell? Was not giving up the "big play" more important than talent evaluation or using a little creativity and branching off the Soft shell a bit since the O was doing anything anyway?***
***After Stafford went out, the defensive scheme looked awful similar to what they were running BEFORE he went out. lol If there was "change", it was minimal IMO. As for "half way through, too late for new things", I don't think anyone was calling for a whole new defensive scheme to be "installed" but rather some tweaks and a little less soft zone than normal therefore challenging the players to play better and learn and grow. The season was over. What better way to get your young guys some REAL time experience than in REAL games? That can't happen if you only play that Ultra Soft Zone 95% of the time***
They ran less of the "Ultra Soft Shell" from mid season to end.
You saw some more man concepts and even some presses.
The staple was Cover 6, but they mixed more for sure.
They did exactly what you asked for: "tweaks and a little less soft zone than normal"
Trying to remember the game, but they went to tight coverage and I thought, this would be interesting.. and sure enough they got burnt on a long ball for a TD.
What you can do is mix in coverages that are similar to your base scheme, which is what the Rams did.
What you can't do is flip this around and do way less of the base scheme. Reason is, your read assignments and coverage calls are going to be different.
What could happen is that 2-3 players read their assignments wrong and you end up with blown coverages all over the place. I saw that more in the second half.. which is a big tell that they mixed in more. The base scheme is already difficult enough to play well since the assignments are difficult to coordinate.