Why Defenses Need to "Contain" to have Success

Containment is a concept forced onto football players from the very beginning. How else would 8-year-olds stop those sweeps that are so common at the Peewee level?

Yet, that very concept confounds players at every level. From the high school game I covered for my day job last week, in which a physically dominant team continued to give up big outside runs and thus allowed the lesser opponent to stay in the game, to the Baltimore Ravens big win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, containment is a crucial concept that too often goes ignored.

The Steelers ran several end-arounds in the game last week, some of which were well defended and others less so. Let's take a look at these plays to get an idea about the critical concept of containment.

First of all, being the man responsible for outside containment is stressful. There's a lot that can go wrong, and it requires intense discipline.

When the containment man sees a hard fake inside, words cannot describe how tempting it is to crash inside to stop the assumed inside run. Staying outside and forcing the play back to the inside requires discipline and focus.

Further, the containment man will often be a focal point of the opposing blocking scheme. There are occasionally plays (you'll see one below) where the containment man is left unblocked to be read by the quarterback, but just as often, the containment man will be tasked with taking on a block and winning that battle.

We'll start with a well-defended end-around, in which Darian Stewart had outside contain and forced the play inside as he was supposed to.

This first play illustrates two points well: The importance of forcing runs back inside and how difficult it can be to determine who has contain from the TV copy.

On this play, a Cover-3 Sky call, Darian Stewart (circled) lines up in the slot across from Antonio Brown. Brown motions to the other side of the ball, but Stewart stays put to act as the "force" player versus the run.

The call is an end-around to Antonio Brown. Pernell McPhee (left of the ball carrier) crashes down along the line of scrimmage on the play. My first inclination was to assume McPhee was supposed to have outside contain, but looking at the coaches film, it was Stewart who had the containment responsibility.

Fellow All-22 analyst Dan Bryden pointed out that McPhee following the guard and crashing down was a solid decision with a containment defender (Stewart; yellow) outside of him. Crashing down the line of scrimmage on runs "away" seems to be McPhee's preferred method of run defense, but it can get him in trouble.

You can see that Stewart succeeded in forcing the play back inside. Stewart effectively took on the block, ensuring that the ball carrier (Brown) could not get to the outside. Stewart could probably have taken on the bock with more force and stopped the play for a shorter gain, but in terms of responsibilities, Stewart was in good shape.

Brown would eventually be tackled for a nine-yard gain. The interior defense crashed too far inside, hence the decent gain, but the containment here was solid.

There are two main ways to fail in keeping containment: crash too far inside or get blocked. The Ravens were guilty of both at different points in the game.

On this play, Pernell McPhee (circled) is tasked with containing the run, an end-around to Markus Wheaton (11).

McPhee fails, crashing too far inside, again reading the nearside guard, to stop an assumed Bell (27) run away from his side. McPhee played this like he did the previously described play, but this time he didn't have any outside help, making this a major mistake on his part.

Asa Jackson was lined up to the outside, but he was so far off the ball he was really a non-factor on the play.

Wheaton gets outside with ease. There is nobody there to defend him, and Wheaton has a blocker (an "arc" block from the backside) in front. The play would go for a 21-yard gain, but would be called back on a holding call.


This last play, this time a Cover-3 Buzz call, again illustrates the difficulty in initially determining who has outside containment responsibilities. In this case, it's actually the inside linebacker, C.J. Mosley, who allows Terrell Suggs to wreak havoc by crashing inside.

Mosley (circled) lines up at his typical inside linebacker spot in a 2-4 look. Terrell Suggs, to the left of Mosley in this picture, crashes inside the left tackle as a part of a "gap exchange" stunt.

Here you can already see how far inside Suggs crashed, as well as Mosley's quickness in getting to the outside. Heath Miller, the Steeler on the far left of the screen, is responsible for sealing Mosley, a difficult block by any measure.

The problem arises when Mosley does in fact get blocked. Notice how Miller, who was facing to the left of the screen at the beginning of the play, manages to execute the reach block and push Mosley back inside. This allows Markus Wheaton to run for an easy 11 yards.

Mosley actually was expected to be blocked on the play. The point of containment is not always to make the tackle on the outside, but to force the play back inside, back into traffic where an unblocked linebacker, lineman, or safety can make the play.

But instead of taking on the block with strength and proper positioning, Mosley engages softly and gets pushed back inside, allowing Wheaton to get to the edge with open field ahead of him.

Give some points to Miller for his perfect execution on a difficult block in the open field.

Again, there was a defensive back on the far outside. This time it was Jimmy Smith, who was slow to read run and instead covered the receiver well downfield, essentially taking himself out of the play. 

This is an easy concept to understand yet difficult to execute. But it is perhaps the most crucial of all responsibilities in defending a strong ground game. After some of the struggles the Ravens had in this area against the Steelers, don't be surprised if opposing teams try to attack this weakness with more end-arounds and counters.

Specifically, the Browns' boot-action passing game off of zone-run-action can take advantage of overly aggressive outside linebackers (Suggs, McPhee).  However, with the dirth of threatening wide receivers on the Cleveland roster, aggressive edge play can be accounted for by rotating safeties closer to the box.