What the heck are “nickel” and “dime” defenses?
You’d think from their names that they are not important, as in “Don’t nickel and dime me here will you”, but they mainstays of a defensive squad’s strategies when it lines up across the ball from the other team. A typical defensive formation in football has either 3 linemen at the line of scrimmage where the ball is and in back of those, 4 linebackers. Sometimes teams use 4 linemen at the line of scrimmage and then 3 linebackers behind them. The rest of the guys out there on defense (4 more allowed on the field at one time to equal a total of 11 players to play defense), are there to try and keep the offense’s wide receivers from catching the ball, or to prevent them from scoring if they actually catch a pass. Sometimes they help out the other 7 guys if a running back from the offense has made it through the front lines. A nickel defense consists of 5 (hence the term “nickel”) men playing to prevent a pass and a dime defense consists of the use of 6, count them, 6 guys in the back fie
