What does "Bend but don't break mean"?

**Tolucaraven** · 05-02-2013, 01:10 PM

very simple= means giving up FG's instead of TD's.

**Shas** · 05-02-2013, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by JAB1985

youre basically describing it. Zones have larger areas to cover vertically in the middle of the field. Man coverage has to stick pretty much regardless, but speed is more utilized out further where they can separate by it than inside 20 where its minimized.

I don't want anyone to gloss over the bolded point about team speed.

The Ravens were better in the redzone because they have less area to cover. Covering less area is easier because you can be physical without fear of a receiver running away from you and getting separation. Between the twenties, however, the Ravens lacked the speed to cover vast expanses of turf, so they had to play off receivers and keep the ball in front of them.

The team identified this lack of speed up the middle in particular (ie, Ray, Ed, Bernard) as a big weakness. As I mentioned in a post a day or two ago, everyone can recall Vernon Davis in the Super Bowl openly mocking Ray Lewis when Ray couldn't keep up with Vernon over the middle, and we recall John Harbaugh pulling his headset mic to his mouth and telling Dean Pees "we better find an answer for that" after Davis burned Ray for the third time.

They never really found an answer, but luckily they were good enough in the redzone to hold on for the win at the end.

They now think they've found an answer in players like Elam, Brown and Simon.

If you refer to the thread on the Eric DeCosta interview the point that glaringly stands out is how the speed of these three players heavily influenced their selection over similar players with lessor speed.

**TheSpiderWebb** · 05-02-2013, 01:49 PM

This has pretty much been Pees' MO forever. Even when he was the DC for some pretty bad Pats D's they were usually among the top 10 in redzone defense. It's about being willing to give up plays in front of you, as long as you don't let them get behind you. Works best with a great offense that can pile up points, which we hopefully are moving towards.

**Bigfish** · 05-02-2013, 03:55 PM

Originally Posted by TheSpiderWebb

This has pretty much been Pees' MO forever. Even when he was the DC for some pretty bad Pats D's they were usually among the top 10 in redzone defense. It's about being willing to give up plays in front of you, as long as you don't let them get behind you. Works best with a great offense that can pile up points, which we hopefully are moving towards.

Good points. In defense of Pees, he never have the personnel to play an attacking defense and he made the best use of what he had to work with. Bend but don't break was the best option. It will be interesting to see what he does with the youth and speed he'll have this year.

**alienrace** · 05-02-2013, 11:19 PM

Originally Posted by blah3

Sometimes the bend don't break mentality is to play conservative and be less susceptible to the big play. That can go with not having the speed to cover all the open space as noted above. It can also be related to making the offense execute their offense without making mistakes for a longer period of time. So, you make then use 12 plays, hopefully they make a mistake, a missed pass, a stupid penalty....

This, exactly.

**redmike34** · 05-03-2013, 01:37 AM

There's a website called Cold Hard Football Facts which has a stat which they claim captures the essence of the 'bend-but-don't-break' defense, called bendability. It's actually very simple--they take the yards a defense allows and divide it by the points the team allows. Note--not the points the defense allows, all points allowed. They claim that doing it that way penalizes teams for giving up cheap points (pick-6s, kickoff return TDs, etc.). In any case, if an offense drives 80 yards on you, but they only get a FG, the bendability of your defense for that drive was 80/3 = 26.67 yards per point allowed. If they got a TD in the same scenario, it's 80/7 = 11.43 yards per point allowed. Clearly, a higher number is better.

Their bendability rankings for 2012 are here:

http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com...12/Final/BEND/

I don't know that I put a lot of stock into this being a be-all/end-all metric, but it is interesting. You can be good at this statistic by having a good defense, and/or by minimizing the amount of cheap points you give up. The way it works, a pick-6 (for instance) adds 7 points while adding no yards to the total, so you have zero bendability/infinite scoreability in that case. If your offense fumbles inside the 20 and you subsequently give up a TD, it's not zero bendability, but it's dang close. Nine of the top ten teams in this stat posted winning records for the season... and seven of those made the playoffs.

FWIW... I always thought it was an interesting way of trying to capture the idea in an actual statistic.

**moose10101** · 05-03-2013, 09:53 AM

Originally Posted by redmike34

they take the yards a defense allows and divide it by the points the team allows.

That's a start, but it's skewed by big plays, which are the polar opposite of bending. An 80-yard pass play gives the same value as a 10-play, 80-yard drive. If they factored in # of plays and/or time of possession, they'd probably have a better measurement.