Mike Tomlin - New Vikings Defensive Coordinator

[Rick]

Gruden may have a tougher time keeping his coaching staff in tact. Mike Tomlin appears to be the choice of new Vikings head coach Brad Childress to run the Minnesota defense. The Bucs defensive backs coach acknowledged a report that he would be leaving Tampa Bay, telling the St. Pete Times that the rumors are "legit" that he is going to Minnesota.

[mnvikingsfreak]

bring on the "tampa 2" defense!!

[Big Pine Walleye]

I agree--if he can bring over the schemes from Tampa and the Vikes are willing to spend some of that 22 million--we should see an upgrade on D!!!

[JIvers]

The Tampa 2 works great...if you have the right personnel in place. Denny Green ran the Cover 2 defense put in place by Tony Dungy; during the mid and late-nineties and early 2000 seasons, the Vikings and Bucs ran the same defensive scheme. However, Minnesota's defensive performance in those years in no way compared to Tampa Bay's. This was because of Denny Green's judgement of defensive talent, which was just plain terrible. Green drafted Derrick Alexander to play tackle for the Vikings, while Tampa Bay took Warren Sapp with the following pick that year. Dimitrius Underwood vs. Derrick Brooks, Duane Clemons vs. Hardy Nickerson, Corey Fuller vs. John Lynch...you see the pattern here.

The key to the Cover 2 and its Tampa 2 variant is in having the front four put pressure on the offense, thus allowing the safeties and corners to play deep and stop the big play, while the linebackers clog up the middle. If the front four can't put pressure on the QB, and the LBs have to step up and help out, the middle of the field is left open for the medium-length passing plays that killed the Vikings so many times during Denny's stay here. Green had people like Wasswa Serwanga and Kenny Wright playing corner (was that the same Kenny Wright playing this weekend?), and that level of "talent" could not be counted on to play decent receivers in one-on-one coverage, which is what they had to do because of Green's horrible decisions on defensive personnel up front.

[Bobby Bass]

Well here is one choice I can agree with, going to need some linebackers with speed though... Now if Wilf will upgraded the cheerleaders with the same passson!!

[lawdog]

As I understand the Tampa 2 its really more like cover 3 than cover 2 except it drops the mike or weakside linebacker deep to cover the middle that cover two naturally leaves open instead of another d-back like cover 3 does. What you need is a good athletic linebacker and a decent pass rush. Cover 2's main weakness is leaving the middle of the field in "no-man's" land.

[The Donk]

The Vikings' Ranall Smith is just that kind of linebacker, not real big but extremely fast. If he can learn the defense that Tomlin brings in, he could be huge... I predict the vikes to have a top ten D next year for the first time in ages... Now if we could get a running back for our offense to control the clock, we could be talking here!

[196thDLR]

Donk: The Vikes could of had Barry Sanders running for them this year--and it would have made NO, NO, NO, difference!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For, ANY, running back to have any chance to succeed, the team has to have five or six big, big guys up front, {and it does not hurt if these guys have some athletic talent} in order for that running back to get past the LOS. That has not changed since the game was first played. The QB's and RB's whom do do not recognize the big boys up front, rarely do anything other than blame everybody else for for their failures. I believe, that is why it is called a Football TEAM. The Vikes do not need just one player whether it is a RB, QB, OLB, ILB, OT, OG, THEY NEED TO LEARN TO PLAY AS A TEEEEAAAAMMM. I hope Childress can do that..