Ends/OLB in Bear 46

I would suggest reading Rex Ryan's adaptation of his fathers 46. Personnel does indeed make a huge difference with this defense. The thing about pressure from the edge your are aiming at the near hip of the deepest or closest back (depending on backfield). It is not a shallow path thus, in theory, your forcing the play inside or to go deeper to get outside the pressure. If they do indeed go deeper to circumvent the pressure, your defense has got to recognize that. More often than not the Will or Sam is wrapping the edge as well, for that very reason. One has to remember that Ryan had studs and did not take kindly to folks who were not "smart enough" or athletic enough to grasp the concepts involved.

Main points:

Unrelenting Pressure from various sides and personnel.
Overload the blocking capability.
Put a clock on the QB (Play).

We run a 50 front quite a bit and our ends play head up on the TE, we still teach them to fly to the hip of the deepest back and the only time we adjust that much is against a team that runs jet/rocket a lot. We still make plays on toss etc. I'm not that familiar with the 4-6. Does the base look have that much to do with that technique? We have found that we have way more problems if the kid comes upfield too much rather than if he angles in too much. Just curious as to the differences here and how you think it should be played.

Coach, The ends/olbs in the 46 the way Shurmur and Ratledge play them is quite different from the standard 50 ends, they are more like the ends in the Florida State 43. They are tilted at a 45 degree angle and have an aiming point in the backfield anywhere from the near/deepest back to 4 yards behind the LOS. Their reads can be the TE, OT, near back, pulling lane or any combination. They are on the attack.

what JFLCOACH has it good, that is how I would play them if I had them contain. When we play the 46 we have our OLB's spill contain to our mike and SS. The ends just come down hill and make it happen. We got the idea from Steve Szabo, he has a video were he details the techinque called Adapting the 46 defense to high school football. You used to be able to get it off of sysko sports but im not sure if you still can.