Grizzly sez,

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I honestly cannot remember such a vanilla defense being this great. Maybe those 70's Steeler defenses, I guess, but I was so young that I don't remember. Very little blitzing and few gimmicks - they pretty much play a plain 4-3 with some substitutions on passing downs. It'll be interesting to see if Quinn can repeat it with the Falcons or if he can only do it in Seattle because of the extreme level of talent and speed. 

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The 1971-73 Dolphins played a base 4-3 defense, and relied on an all-world secondary, freeing up the front 7 to "cheat" on stunts, stacks, etc.  Their front 7 was good, but not super intimidating.

By a strange coincidence, that team also had a power tailback* who advanced the state-of-the-art in terms of being hard to tackle.  Larry Csonka would veer towards defenders in the secondary, sometimes literally throwing punches at them as he arrived.  He was flagged in a Super Bowl for illegal contact.  "Illegal contact, my left cleat," he thundered, "It was a right cross."

Jack Tatum, in They Call Me Assassin, gave props to Csonka and only Csonka among offensive players.  "He warded tacklers off with those elbows," Tatum said.  "I was never able to sting him."  But Marshawn is an improved version of Csonka, faster and more elusive.

They had a super-efficient and super-unassuming quarterback, Bob Griese, whose stats were derided, but whose "percentage play" was off the charts.  It created a synchonicity that led to the last undefeated season in the NFL.  I don't relish the comparison, but the fact is that the 2014 Seahawks are an eerily-close comp for the Csonka Dolphins.

Sometimes you need three legs in place, if a stool isn't going to fall over.  Secondary-based defense, unstoppable power runner, quarterback who plays chess.

The 1981-84 49'ers got good, first, with a dominating secondary (Ronnie Lott, Eric Wright, Dwight Hicks) ... I remember my best friend telling me, before the 49'ers ever won anything ... "You gotta see this secondary.  Their receivers don't even want to practice against them."  It echoes the way the Legion of Boom dominates Seahawk practices.

The '72-78 Steelers, as I recall, did play base defense also.  As y'know their front four simply won its individual battles by such a wide margin that it warped the X's and O's downfield.

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But, to me, to try to win based on a great secondary ... that's doing it the hard way.  That said, in the John Madden era, the Oakland Raiders always thought secondary play was the key to the whole game of football.

Any time in the NFL, you have one defender like Richard Sherman who "unfairly" wins his area, it warps the flow for the other 10-on-10.  The Steelers had maybe three J.J. Watts doing this on the DL.

Deion Sanders can't stop talking about how he is greater than Sherman because he used to "flip."  Sherman himself did a terrible job of replying to this, in their 1-on-1 interview.  "Why don't you flip?"  I wish he'd just have said, "Because it's not about ME, Deion.  It's about Earl and Kam being able to cheat right, and blow people up."

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Agree with you Grizz -- I wouldn't have thought it possible to construct a defense that simply won its individual battles the way the Seahawks do.  I mean, *everybody* likes defenders with great SPARQ scores, right?  But Carroll has somehow done what every other NASA organization was trying to do.

It's fascinating, because the secondary players are sort of bigger than other teams', and the linebackers sort of faster.  It's like they've got five Kam Chancellors out there, but why is that unusual?  San Fran has four All-Pro linebackers.  It's not like "deathbackers" are Carroll's invention.

Would be delighted if somebody would really explain to me why Carroll could come up with Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright and Bruce Irvin as his prototype when other teams haven't, really.

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The Seahawks do it completely without smoke and mirrors.  They're the Randy Johnson of NFL defenses.