only ran that fast because Deebo was right behind him saying “What you got on my drink?”

The Prevent Defense is the worst scheme every imagined. You start debating between time and yards, saying its ok for them to gain yards as long as it takes up time but with the rules of the game today it takes little time for teams to gain yards. You never really saw the prevent defense in the 85 bear, the 70s steelers. They dominated teams for 60 mins and never let up. This was the superbowl and they should have been playing their defense for 60 mins. The cadinals were on pace to have less than 200 yards that game, to put that into perspective the last place offense in the NFL average 245 yards a game. But when they went to the prevent defense the Cards generated 223 yards of offense in one quarter. If they would have taken 2 more minutes to score then yea the Cards would have won. Now I have to argue with Strkied idiots Strkied haters people who try to say the Cards dominated Pittsburgh for 4 quarters. Jeez I dunno what Dick L. was thinking but you don’t want to second guess him and especially after he won but don’t put the prevent in until 2:00 mins left in the game and we had scored another touchdown to make it 27-7, until then you play to win the game, not to lose it.

but that is not why Fitz scored the TD. In fact, it was because the safeties didn’t stay in prevent that he scored. If you watch the play, Troy and Clark are super deep but actually move toward the line of scrimmage to play the deep out routes. This moves both safeties to the sidelines and leaves a seam in the middle. If the safeties stay deep, you have to think Troy and/or Clark make the tackle after a big gain (maybe 20-25 yards) but certainly not a TD.

I agree with the point though: the prevent only prevents you from winning. But I can’t resist pointing out a fatal flaw in that article (at least as cited: I didn’t read the link). The divergence in risk taking strategies is only costly to the winning team if riskier strategies are rewading. It’s a poor understanding of risk to say playing risky pays off. A strategy is only “risky” if there is a higher upside in exchange for a higher or more likely downside. Otherwise, you’re not taking a risk, you’re betting on a sure thing. I don’t think anyone thinks passing all the time, especially if its deep (risky strategy), is a sure thing.

I love the prevent defense. That is exactly what the Cardinals were doing while Ben and Santonio marched up the field in the last 2 minutes of the game.

from ESPN:

Let’s say an offense is down five with two minutes to go, and has to drive 80 yards for the winning score. Facing a prevent defense, only short, quick tosses between the numbers are surefire completions. But even those take 20 seconds off the clock. If that offense doesn’t have a timeout, they can afford to throw six of those passes in 120 seconds. That means they need to average around 12 yards per attempt to hit pay dirt in time. That’s nearly impossible to do by dinking and dunking. In fact, during the playoffs from 2005 to 2007, teams facing the prevent averaged just 5.6 yards per attempt.

Not that ESPN knows anything about sports, but the Prevent D when used correctly (or played correctly Troy!) should force a team to tiptoe down the field (eating up the clock) or rush a throw into coverage.