O and D mentality
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Loading ...Thinking about it, I imagine there’s gotta be some fundamental difference in the way people perceive and play the game that makes some people decidedly D players and some decidedly O (beyond factors such as “well, he’s got throws, but can’t play defense worth a lick. o-line it is!”).
And I think I might have something. Well, maybe. I figure, the fundamental difference lies in how one thought processes playing the game–generally speaking, your D-types are better/more inclined to be reactionary players, while your O-types are more…manipulative? subversive?
Whoops, my D player is showing. But seriously. When I’m playing, I’m aware of a few possibilities that might happen/things to look out for (such as helping when last back), but largely I’m simply reacting to what’s happening. That makes intuitive sense, of course–it carries over to when I’m playing O to an extent, though, in that I’m usually looking and reacting to what’s happening (which is why I tend to better with continuation cutting than initial cutting–opportunity cuts, and setting up for them, comes more naturally to me), rather than “creating” offense so to speak. When I go to cut I’m usually cutting to a point to see what my defender gives me, and then I’ll take it, rather than thinking where I’d be the biggest threat and setting my cut up to get there–I often find myself cutting from the back, faced with a halway decent face mark, and starting a deep cut from 25+yards away from the disc–not ideal at all.
I figure effective O-line players (at least, a good portion of them) tend to be more ‘in control’ of their games so to speak, knowing what needs to be done and doing it.
I feel like this is really well embodied by the stack of inaction. A combination of factors–defensive positioning, disc position, timing–and a lack of anybody willing to just bite the bullet and try and make something happen leads to a bunch of players standing in the stack waiting for somebody to cut off of. This also has a cousin, the stack of one mind, where several people all make the same cut simultaneously, reducing the effectiveness had just one cut (you see this often with the break-side continuation cut off a dump).
Anyways, I doubt very seriously people are locked in to one style of play or the other, though I suspect some are more inclined towards one, with the reactionary mindset being easier and more common.
It ties into why I think Offense is more highly valued than defense, and what all that VORP stuff is getting at–any decent athlete can run around and chase a disc with a bit of positioning, but it takes a lot more practice to develop one’s throws and cutting and field sense and all that jazz that makes for an effective offense.
Took yesterday easy, and got in a weightless workout again today. Pretty much the same as Monday’s workout so I won’t bother retyping it, though I did replace handstand pushups (too hard to do several before burning out) with a modified version of an elevated pushup. Basically just tried my best to put as much weight on my hands as I could…needs some tweaking, but it’s got potential. Upper body lifting session tomorrow…it’s supposed to be above freezing, too, so I’m considering giving running another try tomorrow, see how the ankle responds.
I think Jim talks about this somewhere in his archives.
Another, more psychological difference is that good D players have to make the big play happen themselves. It’s okay to get socred on 3 or 4 times in a row as long as you eventually get one. In other words, the D player has something to prove.
Good O players have to not screw up. He knows he’s better than the defender and simply has to do his job–get ‘er done…
Kind of like an underdog/favorite difference in mentality.
It seems to me that being reactionary as opposed to dictating what is happening is not necessarily a difference in O and D team mentality because good players do both, regardless of whether they are on the O or D team.
Individual D players react to things that the offense is doing, but they are also anticipating what the O wants to do and trying to capitalize on that. For team D strategy, you are trying to come up with a defense that dictates what the offense can do. The goal is to make the offense react to how you play.
In turn, O players often react to the defense by taking what is open (“take what the D is giving you”), although they then go a step further to turn it into what the O player wants.
Whoa, Gwen Ambler. I voted for you. Welcome to the blog!
I definitely see what you’re saying. Of course, good defenses dictate what an offense is doing to an extent, and an offense adjusts to find the path of least resistence through a given defensive setup. I may have been unclear in how I wrote it, but there are certainly necessary elements of both in offense and defense.
I do think, though, that the extent to which you excel at one or the other makes you more naturally inclined for O or D to an extent. As a D player, you do try to dictate what your cutter is doing, but inevitably your ability to react to fakes, the changing position of the disc, etc are what makes the difference. I consider anticipation part of reacting–you change your expectations as the situation changes.
Likewise on O, you do take what is open, but a good defense will usually make the route they want you to take a well-contested one, athletic mathups notwithstanding. I’ve not a ton of hands-on experience with high-level offense, but I feel like an O-team’s ability to beat the defense and create a path to the goal using their strengths is a bigger factor than taking what the D gives you.
Yeah, there’s definitely that sort of difference in mentality on O and D. You never hear an O say “we got beat,” it’s always “we mis-executed” or “we aren’t playing up to potential,” never giving the defense credit.