Why does man-to-man defense fall apart?

Yeah, so I took 6 weeks off the blog.  My mind was basically empty of stuff that I wanted to write about and I didn't want to spew crap just for the sake of spewing.   But, now I'm refreshed and will spew crap for the sake of my own vanity.

I wanted to write about man-to-man defense falling apart because I have been seeing a lot of it during my weekly Hat games.  Surprisingly, my team does a pretty good job of not allowing easy break throws for yards.  We still get broken, but usually it's on a dump throw that is contested.  I can certainly live with that.

Our man-to-man defense falls apart because we don't play defense as a team.  I know that, for some, the idea of team defense within a man-to-man context sounds like a contradiction.  Many people tend to think of man-to-man defense as a 1-on-1 battle where each defender is on an desert island with his man.  And because each defender is on an island, he/she must only concentrate on his/her receiver.  This notion works great when explaining man-to-man defense to a new player, but almost always fails against an experienced offensive team.

Man-to-man defense fails because, while receivers know where they're going, most defenders lack even a vague sense of where the receiver is going.  This cluelessness isn't too much of a problem on in-cuts (IE the receiver cuts toward the thrower) because the defender, alone on his island, can still see the play develop in front of him.  The defender may not be able to stop the completion, but he should be in position to mark the disc immediately after it is caught because he knows what is happening when it starts happening.  

Where the information gap between receivers and defenders becomes a very serious problem is on deep-cuts (IE the receiver cuts away from the disc). In this situation, the defender CANNOT see the play develop in front of him.  Instead, the defender must choose to either watch the receiver and ignore the thrower or watch the thrower and ignore the receiver.  Of course, an experienced defender will have his head on a swivel and peek back at the thrower to determine how threatening a given deep cut is, but this is a skill that seems to only come with experience (and then, only rarely).

Most of the time, if the receiver knows what he's doing, the defender ends up trailing the receiver by a wide enough margin that a huck becomes a very safe throw.  On the short Hat fields, any huck is usually caught in the endzone.  The beaten defender feels sad and is likely confused as to where it all went wrong.

The answer that would cut through the beaten defender's confusion is that he likely did nothing wrong. He may be guilty of over-pursuing the in-cut fake or not anticipating a deep-cut when one was likely, but these are not the causes of the breakdown.  The breakdown was, counterintuitively, caused by the other defenders, who were able to see the play develop but did nothing to help.

The deepest defender (sometimes called "last back") is sometimes unfairly saddled with the responsibility of helping on any deep cut.  While it is true that this defender will be able to see every play develop in front of him, it is also likely that his receiver will be the first from the stack and make an in-cut.  This means that the defender who was "last back" will quickly no longer be.  The former "last back" will have to be fully concentrated on his receiver.  Of course, if the "last back" has a receiver that is just standing around, then he should be expected to help on any deep-cut.

In my experience, the real deep help, however, comes from the defenders near the back of the stack.  They too will be able to see almost every play develop IE they can see every offensive player except the receiver(s) farthest downfield.  The defenders near the back of the stack also have the added bonus of covering receivers that likely will be stationary for at least a few counts.  That means that the defenders near the back of the stack have the luxury of watching the thrower and almost all other receivers without penalty.

This is where the team element of man-to-man defense comes in.  If your mark isn't doing anything threatening, it is not a rest period for you.  Instead, you become a help defender until your mark decides to threaten an offensive space.  And while you won't be able to help on most in-cuts, you will be able to help on any deep-cut where the thrower is actually in position to huck.

What I've described above is wonderful for dead disc situations or spots where the offense isn't moving the disc particularly well or particularly often.  But, what about the times when the offense is repeatedly dump-swinging the disc and it seems like all receivers are flowing?  In this spot, there won't really be a stack for the defenders to spy from in order to see a multitude of offensive threats set up and execute their cut.  Instead, in the midst of good offensive movement, the deep-ish weak-side defender(s) become the help defenders.

When I say "weak-side" I mean the side of the field where the disc is not.  Against an offense who is dump-swinging this could be force-side or break-side.  The advantage of the weak-side defender is that he/she has a much better perspective on the developing play than the strong-side defender.  

If each defender takes the responsibility of providing back-up (or help) when their mark is in a non-threatening posture or is in a non-threatening position on the field, man-to-man defense can become a very useful defensive strategy. Ultimate is hard enough for defenders without leaving them to die on an island.