You can blitz plenty but you have to plant a seed of doubt in the QBs mind early on.

Obviously the zone blitz looks are one way to do it and I think they helped. But stuff like Bolton getting to the sidelines quickly helped a lot because Burrow was clutching a bit when he was looking to his hots expecting Bolton to get there and blow it up (which is where Bolton's physicality, typically only discussed in the run game, helps in the short passing game). You also had the play where McDuffie jumped the underneath route early on and should've had a pick on it.

So you mix up your coverage looks and occasionally call those zone coverages to give your guys a chance to jump a route. You drop DEs into coverage on occasion. You give your LBs some freedom to attack; though yes, that will often come at the expense of your run defense because those guys aren't coming downhill as much as they're reading and reacting.

You can't just say 'fuck it - send the house' because yes, that's gonna yield short throws to the hots that can defeat your blitzes pretty easily. You have to get the QB thinking just a little bit first and once that happens, he's in a LOT of trouble.

That's what happened to Burrow last week. By the end of the first quarter he'd seen enough change-ups in coverage, he'd seen the different ways we were using our 'backers and he'd seen pressure coming from all over the formation. So suddenly he couldn't just smile and dial back there - he had to take a beat to process and once that happened the pressure started getting him off his spot and out of rhythm.

It really was textbook.
[Reply]

:-)
[Reply]

What can create problems with the blitzing against the Eagles is two things, IMO.

1) Hurts ability to break contain. He's not a super-fast processor, but he'll use his legs to get outside of the pocket or underneath the rush. Then he can either pick up yardage on the ground or use the scramble drill to get a throw downfield.

2) Their commitment to the running game. Philly can run you out of blitzes because they can attack the interior. Suddenly any simple inside handoff can get housed because you sent one of the guys who may have been there to keep that thing at 3-4 yards.

As anything, sequencing and moderation will be the key. Do it at the right times and you may not get a ton of sacks or pressure, but it only takes one really well timed blitz to create a turnover and flip the game.

Spags is dialed in right now. I think we'll see him dial one up at some point for a massive turnover.
[Reply]

I agree with pretty much all of that. I'm not sure Hurts is going to have the processing speed of Burrow at this point in his career as a passer. Of course, he tends to take off if he's unsure of the coverage downfield-just based on a small sample size of what I've seen, which is a couple of games. To me, he's kind of like Lamar in that when in doubt, he tucks it and runs. He's a much better passer, but I'm not sure coverage recognition is his strong point at this stage.

That's kind of why I want to have a spy on him every down, but use any one of three or four guys to do it; so you can confuse him with mixing coverages.
[Reply]

The last couple years here with Spags and watching around the league, I've just come to the conclusion that so much of defense is first off having talent, but secondly having intelligence.

You just can't amass enough talent anymore in the league to be like the early 2000 Ravens where you just say "this is what we do". You've gotta mix and match and play chess.

I think this group is really smart first, but they've also just hit a threshold of talent we didn't have before.
[Reply]

2 great examples of how stupid people get even though they literally watch what happened.

Absolutely certain people were screaming for Spags to get fired. After the Hurst play in chat it happened and I asked how it was Spags fault McDuffie slipped?

The Chase catch on 4th was a perfectly thrown YOLO ball to one of the best high pointers in the game and it worked, I have zero idea what else you do there.

I wonder were Cincy fans calling to fire Anarumo when Kelce caught a 4th down TD or MVS caught one on 3rd and long or Mahomes got roughed out of bounds on the last offensive play?

Sometime the other team wins a play folks.

Last year I spent a ton of time defending Spags early in the season because it was clear the players were struggling early, they came around like they always do.

Dude knows how to coach, anyone who thinks otherwise is a complete moron.
[Reply]

Usually when a call doesn't work.....unless it's just egregiously bad, it's a personnel thing

The 4th and 6 call they had on was fine. You just need one of the DL to get there. THey got him to hold on to it for a beat or two longer, Chase just made a great play. Shit happens.

But it's a play Brian Burns would have made had we..........nevermind.
[Reply]

The call was good. They had 2 people on him and should have easily broken it up if they played the ball right.
[Reply]

This reminds me, where is that retard Womble at? Dude just couldn't resist flipping out about Spags in the chat every game and would lose his shit when anyone defended him.
[Reply]

Cook should probably have found the ball, but man, that's just an elite guy making a play.
[Reply]

Here's where I keep getting back to with Hurts - an it's going to sound like an insult but it really shouldn't.

Take a look at Alex Smith's 2017 season. That's Jalen Hurts right now. Hurts, like Smith, isn't really a fast processor but he DOES know where his outs are and he's typically sound when it comes to playing risk-free football and getting the ball to his playmakers. When Smith was under duress, he'd use his legs - though Hurts can use his better than Alex. And when shot plays were dialed up and blocked up, Smith could hit them just as Hurts can.

2017 Smith, Peak Alex, was a very good player over large sample sizes. But in the Steelers game when we needed him to make some big plays off script, he just didn't have it in him. To this point Hurts simply hasn't had to do that. He hasn't had that big game where he needed to make a critical play at a key moment because Philly has steamrolled everyone.

And you don't know what you don't know. That is, to me, EASILY the biggest question mark. If Hurts turns out to be a guy who can go out there in that key moment and make that big play that Alex couldn't make, they're gonna be a real tough out.

But if he's really just a faster 2017 Alex Smith? Well...Smith was a real nice QB that year but I don't expect that level of performance to be good enough.
[Reply]

The question for this upcoming game is how healthy he's going to be. If he's a dinged up 2017 Alex Smith...then he's limited in what he can do.
[Reply]

This is my biggest complaint in the GDT every week. People scream about how the defense sucks when they give up a first down or allow the other team to score points.

No...this defense doesn't suck. The 2018 defense sucked. Learn the fucking difference.
[Reply]

The one complaint I had with the coverage called on the 4th down play was that he had the CB playing outside leverage. That really put Cook in no man's land.

Because like I said in the other thread, Cook just didn't have much choice but to bite on that in-fake. He couldn't just play off him and leave an easy completion for a 1st down. He had to respect the possibility of a deep in.

And once he did, Chase is just really damn good and exploded by him. Cook at that point had to put so much energy into simply getting back into phase with him that it wasn't surprising that he couldn't also get his head around. And despite all that it STILL took an outstanding play for Chase to come down with the ball.

It was, at worst, a defensible call if maybe not the one I'd have made. I'd have probably preferred to see a more conventional 'over/under' bracket vs. the outside/inside leverage we played. But that's also going to leave Cook in a 1v1 scenario on a double move which was exactly what played out because I'm not sure Watson could've hung with Chase on a trail there.

We got beat by a great play - shit happens.
[Reply]

Yeah, outside inside like that wasn't the best with the route they'd called there.
[Reply]