What’s In A Front?

For all but a handful of years in the early 1980s, the Minnesota Vikings have fronted their defense with four down linemen and three linebackers. A 4-3 front. For those handful of years in the early 1980s, the Vikings aligned in a 3-4. It was a strange site then. It’s a strange thought now. Bud Grant and his defensive coaches were willing to try anything to replace one of the greatest defensive lines in the history of the National Football League. The Purple People Eaters. The ageless and irreplaceable Jim Marshall retired after the 1979 season. Alan Page was sadly in Chicago. Carl Eller departed after the 1978 season. Doug Sutherland (RIP) was the last and least known of that brilliant front four. His final season in Minnesota was 1980. In 1981, the Vikings trotted out three down linemen and four linebackers. It felt like a bizarre dream. At the time, I figured that Grant and the guys switched to the 3-4 to get four fine linebackers on the field. Matt Blair and Fred McNeill on the outside. Jeff Siemon and Scott Studwell on the inside. The problem with that plan was that those fine linebackers were four fine off-the-ball linebackers. The 3-4, as we know it today, is often highlighted by the pass rushing talents of the outside linebackers. Blair and McNeill could run sideline to sideline, stop the run, and cover a back or tight end. They were among the best in the league at all of those things. They didn’t terrorize quarterbacks. They certainly didn’t terrorize quarterbacks like Robert Brazile or Lawrence Taylor. It wasn’t until Chris Doleman was drafted in 1985 that the Vikings had an edge player that could routinely disrupt a quarterback’s plans. That was also the last year that the Vikings aligned in a 3-4 front. Doleman went on to a Hall of Fame career as a 4-3 defensive end. From 1981-85, the Vikings defense aligned in a 3-4 front. It feels like something from another team’s story. After 36 years, the Vikings are returning to a 3-4 defensive front. 

What’s in a front?

In the 1870s, American football emerged from a chaotic blend of rugby and soccer with the introduction of scrimmaged downs. A free-flowing game became a more schemed match between offense and defense. At the time, and for most of the next sixty years, the defense was a mirror image of the offense. A seven-man line and a four-man backfield. A seven man front. End-tackle-guard-center-guard-tackle-end. Offenses had to stay in that alignment. Defenses chose to match it. Why wouldn’t they? Damn near every play was a run up the middle. Every play was a close-quarter fight of ground acquisition. It was a grueling and brutal game. In an effort to make the game less brutal and jazz it up a bit, the forward pass was introduced in 1906. The rules around the bold, new play were so restrictive that it didn’t have much impact. It wasn’t until the more liberalized rules of 1933 that the forward pass inched the game closer to the wide open affair that we love today. When the game finally started to open up a bit, coaches and players decided that they needed another layer to their defense. They needed players to back the line. Linebackers. Basically, varying combinations of the seven-man front (mostly the interior three: guard, center, guard) stepped back from the defensive line. They provided a level of defense that now had the freedom to fill as needed from side to side and front to back. The tackles and ends filled the gap left by their former line-mates. That left the defenses that chose to evolve with a four-man front and three linebackers. A 4-3. 

Does it really matter whether a football team fields a 4-3 defense or a 3-4 defense? More often than not, when the ball is snapped, at least four of the defenders are tasked with harassing the quarterback and the remaining defenders are tasked with defending against a potential pass. Sometimes, the play is the run. The hope then is that the run is stopped while on the way to the quarterback. Does the player’s position on a lineup card matter much after the ball is snapped? In today’s game, the defense’s alignment at the snap, or moments before the snap, is often a ruse. A 3-4 before the snap and a 4-3 at the snap? Who knows? Maybe it’s actually a 2-5 when the chaos starts. Maybe it’s a 5-2. When you get down to it, isn’t a 3-4 always a 5-2? The only thing that matters is that the defense stops the offense. That always happens after the snap.