“The junior defensive tackle is being recruited by most teams as a defensive end, but the Hokies like him as a 3-technique.”

“At 6’3, 331, the transfer was a stalwart nose tackle for his old school, and at Tech he projects as a 1-technique.”

Long-time TSL readers have seen sentences like the above a time or two: a defensive tackle is assigned “X-technique” as an adjective. Sometimes it’s used as a style descriptor: a 3-technique means the DT is a quick slasher off the snap, while a 1-technique implies he’s slower but a load. Sometimes it just tells you how big a guy is, e.g., “I haven’t seen him play, but he’s on the lighter side, so he’ll probably be a 3-technique.”

But that’s us as readers. For coaches and players, these “techniques” (or just “techs”) convey alignments and assignments to defenders: they tell a defensive lineman where to line up and, to a degree, also what to do at the snap. Bear Bryant is credited with inventing this system. Presumably, Bryant got tired of telling his defensive tackles: “I want you in the middle to line up right in front of the center, nose-to-nose. And I want you two guys to line up across from the nearest guard, but not right in front of him…get out to the side a little bit, so you’re looking at his outside ear.”

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