Defense is for stopping the other *team*
AKA: the one true goal
I recently wrote about using your brain on the frisbee field. Roughly, I focused on noticing things and making decisions. Those decisions are based on what goal you're trying to accomplish. All too often, especially when playing defense, ultimate players have the wrong goal. That is the topic of this essay.
On defense, there is only one end goal:
Generate a turnover before the other team scores.
But this is a little too simplistic. I like it as a simple summary. However, there's always luck involved in any play. And offense has a general advantage over defense in ultimate, so sometimes the offense will score even if the defense plays "perfectly". So really our true goal is this:
Maximize the likelihood that the offense will turn the disc over before they score.
Too many players play (or perhaps, too many coaches coach?) as if the goal of defense is shutting down a 1-on-1 matchup. There is no such thing as individual success on defense, if it is not also helping to achieve the one true goal.
When playing defense, you shouldn't ask yourself how do I stop my assignment from catching the disc? The only real question is how do I stop the other team from scoring? You might have sub-goals ("don't let them break the mark", "force them forehand", etc) that are carefully chosen to aid in your pursuit in the one true goal.
But those sub-goals can and should be questioned. The one true goal will never change, it is literally the point of the game. It's written into the rules of ultimate that the other team will win if they score enough goals. It's not written into the rules of the game that you've succeeded if the person you're "assigned" to doesn't catch the disc.
Although we use the term "matchup" (or person-to-person, or man-to-man, etc) defense, that is a description of the main theme of that style of defense, and not a description of the only thing you can/should do in that defense. No matter what type of defense you are playing, and what name it has, you, personally, should always try to stop the other team from scoring, and not only try to stop one particular player that was "assigned" to you.
To quote this guy on Twitter:
If only we played defense focused on stopping the offense rather than stopping the players in the offense...
Some examples: last back & summer league
If the point is to stop the other team, does that mean it's sometimes good to let your assignment catch the disc? In my opinion, yes!
Here's one classic example: you're the "last back" and your assignment makes an under cut while someone else's assignment gets wide open on a deep cut. Anything your cutter might do on an under cut is better for the defense than someone catching a wide open throw in the endzone. You should always prevent a wide open throw to "someone else's" cutter in the endzone before stopping "your" cutter from gaining a few yards on an under. (Of course, that all is assuming that the thrower can make an accurate throw, and the cutter can catch it.)
Sometimes before the point starts, the coach will tell the team that they're playing a "last back" defense, and everyone is expected to keep it in mind. But even when you're coach doesn't tell you to play "last back", you should always stop the offense from throwing an open pass into the endzone!
Here's a more nuanced example: I am pretty athletic, so in summer league I often match up against the other team's best cutter. I often let the cutter I'm guarding catch the disc on an under cut without much pressure (even if no one is open in the endzone like in the example above). A summer league teammate who plays Regionals-level club ultimate asked me a couple years back: you seem like you're pretty athletic, why don't you stay closer to your man on defense? Here's why:
If I try to shut down everything that my person does, I can stop more unders but will increase the risk of giving up a huck to the person I'm guarding. I'm not athletic enough to shut everyone down, and offense will always have the advantage of being able to move first. I can't shut down more unders without also leaving myself open to giving up more hucks.
In summer league, the difference between the most skilled players and the least experienced players is bigger than in high-level club ultimate. The longer a team possesses the disc in summer league, the more likely that one of their inexperienced players (or even one of the experienced players) will make a mistake.
On the other hand, just about the best thing that could happen for the offense is their best thrower throws one long pass to their best cutter. I prevent that from happening, and in exchange I let my cutter catch a few unders. My goal on defense is not to stop my assignment from getting the disc, it's to maximize the likelihood that the offense will turn the disc over before they score.
(On good club teams, the calculus might change: they can endlessly complete 5-yard passes, so giving up 5-yard passes to guarantee no hucks is less clearly a smart choice.)
Judging the threat level
In basketball, help defense is taught from the beginning. Like in frisbee, there's no point in shutting down your "assignment" if someone else is walking right up to the hoop and scoring. If ten-year-olds can learn to play help defense on a basketball court, there's no reason we can't teach college students to play help defense on the frisbee field.
There's no need to watch the video I've linked in the paragraph above, but if you do you'll hear the coach talking about the different ways defenders should position themselves if they are "one pass away", "two passes away", etc. When the player they're guarding isn't an immediate threat, the defenders are taught to move further away from them and into spaces where they can help clog up the offense's open spaces:
Being "two passes away" doesn't fully translate to the frisbee field, but perhaps we could frame it this way:
You should constantly adapt your focus and positioning based on the threat level posed by your 'assignment'.
The 'threat', of course, is the threat of the offense scoring. If the person you're 'assigned' to is the one who's about to make a play that helps the offense improve its chances of scoring, then you should play them tight, focused only on them. On the other extreme, if the offense is definitely about to score you should ignore your 'assignment' to stop the immediate threat. To give specific examples:
You're guarding the dump handler and it's stall eight. You can focus on staying close to your assignment without paying too much attention to what's happening downfield.
You're guarding someone 30 yards from the endzone the offense is trying to score in. Another cutter just caught a pass a few yards from the end zone. You can ignore your assignment and run back to the endzone to make it harder for the offense to score. Who cares if you're near your assignment—in the end, stopping a goal is always more important than staying near your assignment.
Let's look at an in-game situation that's pretty similar to the second example. Watch this 15-second clip from Raleigh Radiance vs. Medellin RevoPro in the 2022 PUL playoffs:
Medellin scores an easy goal when multiple Raleigh players are focused on "guarding" RevoPro cutters who are in unthreatening positions. The disc is on the goal line, and two cutters are 10 yards or more behind the play. Another cutter, the threat worth worrying about, is facing 1-on-1 defense in a completely empty endzone. To me, the defensive positioning on this play is a clear indication of players whose mindset is "stop my assignment" instead of "stop the other team from scoring":
Be as far from your assignment as you "can"
In the image above of basketball help defense, the "two passes away" defenders have dropped away from their 'assignments' to take up space closer to the ball and the basket. The defense makes it as hard as possible for the offense by taking up valuable space while still being close enough to their assignment to defend them as they become more of a threat.
Like basketball, frisbee is all about creating and using (on offense) or clogging up (on defense) open spaces. There's a (maybe unintuitive?) truth that is epitomized by that picture above: good "help" defense is staying as far away from your assignment as you can—while still keeping them from being open.
If you're right next to your assignment, the two of you are taking up almost no space on the field. The further you are from your assignment, the more you're clogging up the valuable spaces the offense wants to use. The trick is learning to find exactly what that distance is. It depends on a number of factors: your own athleticism, which throws the thrower has, what the thrower is currently looking at, etc.
I think of it as making it my goal to "even out the thrower's options". If my assignment is standing still on the break side, 25 yards from the disc, and I'm standing right next to them, the thrower will take a quick look at us and think to themselves: that's not open at all — 1% chance that throwing it there helps the offense. The cutter I'm guarding is far away and obviously covered: clearly a poor option. Then they look to the open side and see a wide open under cut: they're wide open, 95% chance that this improves the offense's situation.
My goal is to move far enough away from my assignment that the thrower is forced to consider that option—while still staying close enough that it doesn't become a good option. At the same time, as I position myself closer to the valuable spaces (open side in this example), what was previously an obviously good option on the open side now becomes a slightly worse option, as there's less open space on that side of the field.
Previously we had a set of options where one had a 1% chance of success and the other had a 95% chance of success. My positioning made it a set of options where one has a 25% chance of success and the other has a 65% chance of success. It's much harder for the thrower to decide what to do, and a mistake is much more likely. (But again — it's not just about "evening out the options". Better positioning makes the offense's overall situation worse, because there are less open spaces.)
The "even out the thrower's options" strategy epitomizes the one true goal. You often want to make the person you're guarding a better option for the thrower. Yes, if the cutter you're guarding is one of the most threatening options, you want to guard them tightly. But when your assignment is relatively un-threatening, you should shade away from them and towards threatening spaces.
Remembering the one true goal vs. 'switching everything'
Hive Ultimate recently sparked some discussion on Reddit about Clapham's "switch everything" defense (video here). Although I do think that more switching is the future of ultimate, this essay is not about switching more. Choosing to switch all the time has to be a decision made by the whole team, together. But no matter what type of defense your team is playing, you as an individual can play better by making decisions based on the one true goal.
The video above from Raleigh vs. Medellin is a perfect example of the difference between these two concepts: the problem wasn't that Raleigh defenders missed an opportunity to switch. They just didn't care about evaluating threatening spaces and making it harder for Medellin to score.
The long and short of this is:
Always be poaching, unless you can't be poaching.