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This will be for those of us who just don't get football and aren't wanting to learn a full technical breakdown of a teams defense. It's a little too complicated to explain play formations in an article so this will be about defensive players roles.

Football is played with twenty-two people, eleven on each team. Defensive players are either one of two things, really big or really fast. These players don't necessarily have the skills to move the football down the field, but, are more suited to stop the other team from doing so.

There are 3 groups of defensive players: Linemen, Linebackers, Corners and Safety.

-Linemen are the big guys on the line of scrimmage in front of the ball. They usually play a man-on-man style of coverage. Which typically ends up being man-on-ball as soon as the ball is in play. These guys are always in blitz mode trying to the tackle the quarterback or the guy who is running the ball. All-the-while doing so as quickly as possible before the offense executes a distance-gaining play.

-Linebackers are the guys behind the linemen. They help linemen stop the run, but also give protection against the short pass. They also play man-on-ball defense. They have 3 basic strategies: Stop the run up the middle or sides, cover the short to medium length pass and to sack the quarterback at all costs (the all out blitz), usually the coach's decision. These guys are constantly guessing what the offense will do which makes this position the most difficult of them all.

-Corners and Safeties defend the pass. Corners are the guys on the sides of the field while Safeties are in the backfield, they both chase the offenses wide receivers. Corners mainly play a man-on-man coverage but sometimes are only responsible for covering certain areas WHILE the linemen and linebackers are blitzing the quarterback.
There is usually only one Safety whose job is to cover the backfield against deep passes and to aid the corners by helping them tackle offensive players that made a catch or ran around the linemen/linebackers. These are the guys that get most of the interceptions.

All these guys work together to stop the offense from moving the ball down the field. Their formations are based on the formations of the offense.

Basic Defensive Formation

S
LB
LB LB
C C LM LM LM LM C
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OFFENSE

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