Stopping Deion Sanders

[David Sklansky]

In his prime he returns a kick that he takes at his goal line and the defenders are 180 lb thirty year old decent shape average guys who line up at mid field. How many of them are required to make it less than fifty percent that he will score? Suppose he is accompanied by one NFL expert kickoff return blocker?

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In his prime he returns a kick that he takes at his goal line and the defenders are 180 lb thirty year old decent shape average guys who line up at mid field. How many of them are required to make it less than fifty percent that he will score? Suppose he is accompanied by one NFL expert kickoff return blocker?

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Four. The blocker is pretty inconsequential b/c he's only blocking 1 man anyway. I think Deion would then be able to beat two other guys ~65-75% of the time. I think his speed is pretty much nullified (at least a substantial amount) against 3 unblocked defenders and he'd score maybe 15% of the time.

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[.Alex.]

It's way more than four. An average guy has little chance of getting more than an oustrectched hand on Deion, let alone tackling him. With three unblocked defenders, Deion could easily just run straight through them and score. Once we start adding more people, he'd have to run around until there was only a couple people in his way, which he can power through. If he's running at full speed, it would take probably at least five or six people facing him head on to slow him down. To get to that point, we'd need something like 20-25 people on the field.

[ALawPoker]

I was also thinking 4. But it might be more than that. I've never played organized football so I don't have a good grasp how hard it might be for an average guy to actually tackle a world class athlete. You have to assume the defenders don't necessarily have much tackling ability/knowledge, and some may even be near useless.

[The4Aces]

around 10

[jogsxyz]

Four may be enough if it were touch. Also if just one finger would be considered a touch. Still Deion would run untouched around half the time. He doesn't need the blocker. Just need a little space at the start between him and the four tacklers.

[BadBoyBenny]

Somewhere between 8 and 15. Probably 11 or 12.

Edit: Can we assume that he gets it in the middle of the goal line and the defenders can line up however they want at midfield and his blocker can line up where he wants behind the 40?

[Phanekim]

I'd put the number at 5 or 6. Depends on how coordinated they are....and how wide the field is.

[UpstateMatt]

[ QUOTE ]
It's way more than four. An average guy has little chance of getting more than an oustrectched hand on Deion, let alone tackling him. With three unblocked defenders, Deion could easily just run straight through them and score. Once we start adding more people, he'd have to run around until there was only a couple people in his way, which he can power through. If he's running at full speed, it would take probably at least five or six people facing him head on to slow him down. To get to that point, we'd need something like 20-25 people on the field.

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I agree that it is more than four, but i think the first few responses are misjudging a few point here. So I have a few thoughts:

1)Deion is not that difficult to take if you hit him squarely. His advantage was always his speed, NOT his size. He wouldn't be able to easily just blast through 3 average-size men. He didn't weigh that much, and he certainly wasn't built like a truck.

2) THIS iS A VERY IMPORTANT POINT: Keeping someone from scoring is a vastly different exercise than participating on a kick-return defense team. The goal of the kick-return team is to minimize the return, but our goal here is simply to keep him from scoring. That's VERY different. The defense could employ a strategy that might yield him lots of yards, but funneled him toward a sideline, for a 60 yard gain, but no touchdown. It makes the task much, much easier. It also means we can use rugby-style tackles (ceding an extra few yards by just getting a hold of him and leaning back, allowing his momnetum to bring him down; these are no good in standard football, because they give up too many extra yards).

3) The blocker. I believe the blocker is far more important than you might imagine. if he's truly an NFL sized fullback, he could cause major problems by just running straight through defenders. He would eat up a lot more than simply 1 defender.

Overall, using a strategy that gave up a lot of yards but was designed to minimize touchdowns, I'd think 8 or 9 guys who practiced their defensive coordination and were used to wearing football equipment would suffice.

[tolbiny]

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In his prime he returns a kick that he takes at his goal line and the defenders are 180 lb thirty year old decent shape average guys who line up at mid field. How many of them are required to make it less than fifty percent that he will score? Suppose he is accompanied by one NFL expert kickoff return blocker?

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Four. The blocker is pretty inconsequential b/c he's only blocking 1 man anyway. I think Deion would then be able to beat two other guys ~65-75% of the time. I think his speed is pretty much nullified (at least a substantial amount) against 3 unblocked defenders and he'd score maybe 15% of the time.

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The best NFL special teams blocker would only block 1 average guy? What are you kidding? He could easily block 2-3 guys during an entire run back. with no blockers the bare minimum would be 6, anything less and Deon has to much space to run to using his absurb speed compared to your average yokel. And 1 guy ain't making the tackle. I think 7-8 guys with no blocker and you have a good chance to stop him (i'm assuming the kick goes directly to him, ie no squib kicks). With a blocker 9-10 guys to get to the 50% range.