The Viking Pro 4-3 Defense
MONTE KIFFIN
Minnesota Vikings
It is a pleasure to be here. I
know that most of you are high school
coaches and I happen to coach in pro
ball, but I did coach in college for
many years. What I am going to try to
do today is give you some things that
you can use in all levels of coaching.
You don't need to know all the pass
coverages and stunts we use in the
pros. What I want to do is give you a
few ideas that you can incorporate into
what you are doing. If there is one
basic thing I have learned over the
years in college and the pros, it is
that everything goes back to basics.
To start with you have to have a
philosophy. It doesn't matter whether
you are in high school, college, or
pros. You have to have a defensive
philosophy that you believe in. Your
players have to believe in it also. I
am going to relate some of the
philosophies we have with the Vikings
and at the same time tell you some of
the philosophies I had in college.
The first thing we teach from day
one in camp is that the name of the
game is pursuit. You have to teach the
defense to fly to the ball. That fact
has not changed. On defense you must
fly to the ball and gang tackle. You
can talk about it all you want, but if
you don't practice it on the field, you
won't do it in the games. You have to
coach this in practice every day. We
do it at the pro level. Even though the
pros are paid well, you have to work on
this to get them to do it.
The second thing we believe in is
technique. ‘The whole defensive scheme
comes together because of defensive
techniques. You have to coach
technique individually. One of the
great things I learned early in
coaching was that team work will come
together if the individual position
coaches have done their job in their
areas. The defensive line coach knows
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there are only a limited number of ways
that a defensive man can be blocked.
There is the hook block, drive block,
down block, drop-back block, chop
block, pass flow, and trap block. The
defensive line coach takes his tackles
and teaches them the techniques against
those blocks over and over. He must
continue the repetitions until they get
better. That is how that tackle gets
better. When you come together in a
team drill it won't matter what the
offensive play is because the defensive
tackle is playing against the block of
the man blocking him. The defensive
tackle doesn't care what the play is.
He is aot looking in the backfield. He
is watching the offensive tackle and
reacting to his block.
The third thing I want to talk
about in the philosophy is--does your
defensive package have a realistic
scheme? That encompasses a lot of
things. It doesn't matter what type of
front you run. Make it realistic and
let your player play the scheme. Don't
ask your player to do something they
can't do. I think it is important to
give your players a chance to play and
execute the technique you are asking
them to do. What we are getting at is
this--some years you will have great
players so you will have a great
defense. It wouldn't matter how good a
coach you are, but the reason you coach
technique and have a simple scheme is
for the years you don't have great
players. You may not have a great
defense, but you can have a good
defense if you coach defensive
techniques. You are going to have a
great defense when you coach hard and
have great players. What you have to
do is coach defense Like you will never
have great players. Coach so that when
you first line guy goes down with an
injury, your back-up guy can come in
and not hurt you. ‘The back-up guy isnot going to play as well as the first
line guy, but he is going to give you a
chance to win.
In the little time I have left, I
want to show you the basic scheme ve
use with the Minnesota Vikings. Even
though it is the Vikings, don't be
mislead. It is a basic scheme. In
college we called it an EAGLE front.
Here at the Vikings we call it an UNDER
front. It is a basic 8 man front.
Believe it or not, in the pros you have
to stop the run first. I know everyone
thinks that pros pass so much that no
one should be concerned with the run. T
know in high school you have to stop
the run first for sure. If you can't
stop the run, teams will never pass.
Even at our Level we have to stop the
run first. The reason people throw the
ball is because the defense is in an 8
man front stopping the run. It is a
lot easier to hand the ball off and run
it than it is to throw it. You can
play an 8 man front, but if you don't
know what you are doing and have people
positioned right, teams can still run
the ball. If you don't have your
players positioned right up front, you
can't stop the run. We count people on
defense and try to overload one side or
the other with our front and coordinate
our secondary.
It has always been my philosophy
that if you play gap control on defense
you will give your players a chance.
There are a Lot of great coaches that
play 2 gap football. I am not going to
tell you what to play. Personally, 1
have never coached 2 gap football. In
all my years in college and pros, I
have never coached 2 gap football. Tf
you do that you are telling your player
to Line head up and play both gaps on
his right and left. ‘That takes a great
football player. The year that you are
even with the offense in talent you
will lose. If you have the great
athletes every year, it doesn't matter.
You will always win.
When we talk gap control we are
going to put players in a shade
Eechnique where he is not going to get
hooked. Now we tell our players not to
get hooked. If he does he is not good
enough. If we don't have anyone
better, we widen until we are lined up
somewhere that we can't be hooked. We
have an all-pro in Keith Mallard. He
has the B gap in our EAGLE front. We
don't expect him to make the tackle in
the A gap. We tell him to line up on
the outside half and take the B gap.
If you take your nose tackle, line him
head up and tell him to take both gaps,
he is going to get hooked. We shade
the nose and give him only one gap.
Let me get into what the Vikings
call an UNDER front. You can run this
a lot of different ways. ‘That is why I
think you will get something out of
this. We run it as a 4-3 alignment.
However, this scheme can be built into
a 3-4 scheme which many colleges use.
In pro ball we play the 4 down
linemen because the pass rush is
important to the success of your
football team. Our defensive ends are
pass rush people. On occasion we would
take a Chris Dolman and drop him off in
coverage. In high school I imagine you
would have more people to play down
than up. Usually, it takes more speed
to play up in the LBer position. The
scheme with 4 down linemen is simpler
because they will always be down. They
don't have to learn to cover the pass.
Our SAM LBer always flips to the tight.
end side. Our MIKE LBer, who was Scott
Studwell, always goes to the tight end
side. Our WILL LBer, who was Jesse
Solamen, always goes to the split end
side. Keith Millard always goes to the
split end side.
In our EAGLE COVER~4 we are shaded
to the tight end side. Our free safety
is going to support to the split end
side. The front is kicked to the tight
end so the secondary goes the other
way. The strong safety has deep
middle. The secondary coverage is a 3
deep zone. We count people on defense.
The offense has a guard, tackle, and
fullback to block. We have a tackle,
end, Will LBer, and a free safety. In
our scheme, the free safety should make
the tackle because he is the free man
with no one blocking him. The Mike
LBer is a flow LBer. He keys the backs
and flows. He doesn't take on guards.
The nose tackle plays a shade to the
tight end and keeps the center off the
Mike LBer. The Mike LBer has the A
gap oh the weak side.
Tt they run a lead play to our weak
side they are going to make 4 or 5
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yards. In this defense our defensive
end is going to work up field. We are
not coordinated to stop the ball run
into that area. We are not forcing the
ball to the free man. ‘he front has to
be coordinated to the secondary. When
we read run weak, we get the SLAM call.
This gives the eagle tackle and end
inside slants to the A and B gaps.
The defensive end is going to get
hooked and we will give them that
block. The Will LBer takes the
fullback's block on from the inside
out. ‘This forces the running back into
the unblocked free safety.
oS
The next thing a good offensive
coach is going to do is read the force
and crack block with’ the split
receiver. The corner is going to read
the crack and come up to play the run.
We always keep someone in what we
call the HOLE. That simply means the
middle of the field or middle third. If
we rotate strong the free safety is in
the hole. If we rotate weak the strong
safety is in the middle. The weakness
of this scheme is to the strong side
because we don't have a strong safety
force. We are in 4 coverage with a
SLAM call on the weak side. We are
going to make up for our weakness to
the strong side with a call. We are
Boing to stunt to the strong side. The
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Sam LBer can't get hooked by the tight
end. We give a STUNT, REX, or GAP
call. That gives our nose tackle and
defensive end direction calls. If we
give those stunt calls, the center will
block the Mike LBer on runs weak, but
we don't care. TI am not going to ask
Studwell to whip the center who is
scooping weak with our nose tackle
stunting strong. He is going to do the
best he can to get across the center or
come under him. Remember that center
is paid to block him and he should get
him. The block the center can never
make is the reach on the stuating
tackle into the strong side. Even an
average tackle should beat the center
if he is stunting into the gap. ‘The
Sam LBer lines up toe to toe. That
means the LBer's inside foot should be
on the tight end's outside foot. If he
is an all~pro tight end, we get wider.
The better blocker the tight end is the
more outside we are going to play. The
strong safety lines up on the tight end
to disguise the coverage. At the snap
of the ball he gets into the middle
third looking for the drop back or
play-action pass. If the ball is run
at him, he stays back. We don't want
to get beat with a flanker post on a
play-action pass because he is the HOLE
player. We should not need the strong
safety on the run.
On run plays to the tight end side
the stack LBer or Will LBer is going to
make most of the tackles. Everyone to
the tight end side is working like hell
not to get hooked. They are turning
the ball back inside. The Will LBer
does not have to be big or strong. He
has to be able to run and hit. We
cover him up so no one can get to him.
You can get by with a guy who loves to
It is easier to stop the running
game in pro ball than it is in high