Video Transcript

What I want to talk about right now is the importance that the linebackers play in the 4-3 defense of stopping the run. Now, a lot of times in the younger levels of football. You are going to have teams that are predominately running style defenses. Now its a coaches option, sometimes he may want to play these linebackers right up here behind the line about a yard and a half off. And that's going to cause them to be able to come in and get stops deeper. The bad side to that is, if you play your linebackers up and they get sucked in too deep, then they are going to be able to throw short little passes here, or they are going to be able to run to the outside. So the first responsibility to each one of our linebackers is, they have got to obey their gap responsibilities. For this guy, he's got gap responsibility right here. For the middle linebacker he's got everything around the offensive center. And for this outside linebacker he's got this gap right through here. And what we're talking about is, if anybody runs through their section, they've got to come up and they are responsible for making that stop. However, if this outside linebacker comes up and he gets cut off, or this guy cuts back. This guy has to come up, read the play, react to the play and then step up and then make a tackle. So the main thing with the linebackers is, they have to be able to run defense to come up, read the play, shed the block and then come up and make a good tackle.