Apparently the buzzword around the NFL for sounding like you know what you’re talking about is the phrase “wide nine.” This refers to a technique the Philadelphia Eagles have used this season, where the defensive end in a four down lineman front slides a few inches or a foot or so to the outside and sometimes will tilt towards the quarterback. It is, in short, the defensive end getting in pure position to rush the passer. It’s called a “wide nine” because the technique, i.e. the specific alignment, of defensive linemen is categorized by a numerical system often credited to Bear Bryant (and also to Bum Phillips). The “nine” technique is the one outside the tight-end.

Greg Cosell of NFL films gives a decent version of the overly glowing if not mystical analysis of the technique below. (Of course the offense has only one tight-end, so the right defensive end isn’t really even playing a nine technique at all, but such details must bow before the intrinsic coolness of calling something “THE WIDE NINE.”)

Obviously there’s no magic to this: it’s just telling your defensive ends to pin their ears back and to rush on passing downs. Indeed, moving those defensive ends out that wide opens up all manner of attendant issues, issues that the Eagles opponent’s have routinely exploited this year. Specifically, by aligning the defensive end so wide the end has farther to go to get to the quarterback and, in the clip above, the left defensive end is so focused on rushing the passer he doesn’t bother getting a jam or chip on the tight-end. Moreover, this technique (it’s a technique if anything, there is no such thing as the “wide nine defense”), obviously opens up all kinds of issues in the run game: the defensive end aligns so wide the interior offensive linemen can quickly get up to the second level defenders like the linebackers, and the defensive ends are easy marks for traps, draws and counter plays as they sprint upfield.

Further, it’s not going to happen in the pros, but if anyone tried this at the lower levels you’d see coaches immediately going to plays that option off of this single minded defender, be it the veer, the speed option, the shovel option, or even the inverted veer. All that “track stance” stuff wouldn’t do him much good, and his wide alignment would mean the other blockers would be up on the rest of the defense. (Of course, to be fair, at the lower levels it’s likely that the “wide nine” defensive end would be a total DNA freak of nature than it is in the NFL.)

Finally, I can’t believe that this is as new as people are making it out to be. I remember being at a Florida State practice in the 1990s and seeing Mickey Andrews telling his guys to use a technique on passing downs that looked a lot like the “wide nine.” Except he didn’t call it the “wide nine” or anything else fancy. He simply told his guys to take as much room as they needed and to “kick ass.”