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In American football, a nickel defense (also known as a 4–2–5 or 3–3–5) is any defensive alignment that uses five defensive backs, of whom the fifth is known as a nickelback. The original and most common form of the nickel defense features four down linemen and two linebackers .
In American football, a nickelback is a cornerback or safety who serves as the additional defensive back in a nickel defense. A base defense consists of two cornerbacks and two safeties, making the nickelback the fifth defensive back on the field, thus tying the name of the position to the name of the North American 5-cent piece .
American football positions have slowly evolved over the history of the sport. From its origins in early rugby football to the modern game, the names and roles of various positions have changed greatly, some positions no longer exist, and others have been created to fill new roles.
First Football League match: 0–1 vs. Reading, 28 August 1920 (Football League Third Division). First FA Cup match: 6–1 vs. Mond Nickel Works, 1st Qualifying round, 27 Sep 1913. First League Cup match: 2–2 vs. Southampton, 10 October 1960. First Welsh Cup match: 1–0 vs. Mardy, Extra preliminary round, 1912.
Veteran college football defensive coordinator Joe Lee Dunn is widely credited with being the main innovator of the 3–3–5 scheme. [ 1 ] This alignment is generally used when the defense is trying to confuse the offense by applying different blitz pressures on the offense while playing mostly zone or sometimes man coverage.
The formation was used extensively by Fielding Yost's Michigan Wolverines in their early history, and was the base formation for the Benny Friedman led New York Giants in 1931. [ 13 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] In the 1956 NFL Championship, the Chicago Bears shifted into a short punt formation in the third quarter, after falling way behind.
American football, with 1.1 million high school football players and nearly 70,000 college football players, is the most popular sport in the United States, [140] [141] with the annual Super Bowl game accounting for nine of the top ten of the most watched broadcasts in U.S. television history. [142]
There is no mention of a two man front. Likewise, in the book Defensive Football Strategies, copyright 1990, there is no mention of the nickel front in the chapter on nickel backfields. The first two man front I am aware of is the one used by Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick in the 1991 Super Bowl (Halberstam, "Education of a Coach", Ch. 9 ...