Quote Originally Posted by wist43 View Post
Capers is capable of dialing up some beautiful blitzes - but his nature is to is to take his foot off the pedal, and sit back in hopes of a pick or incompletion.

As for the "front seven"... we don't have a front seven, we have a front six... and therein lies a lot of the problem with being able to generate consistent pressure when the opposition is passing on run downs - the "jumbo nickel" was a complete disaster in terms of generating any pressure at all, b/c the 2 fat guys in the middle were there to stop the run - the opposing OC, QB, and OL all knew it would essentially be a 2 man rush, i.e. the 2 OLB's flying upfield while the fat guys in the middle just played the dancing bear game.

What you end up with is the worst of all worlds - an insufficient number of players in the box to deal with the run; fat guys that can't rush the passer on run/pass downs, and predictable rushes out of static fronts.
Even with all that, it still would have a decent shot at working if both OLB's have the ability to beat a single blocker consistently. Otherwise all LB's need to be able to cover so you can just randomly choose which two to send.

Of course combining an ineffective pass rush with at least one safety out of place makes for a defense that will at best lose in the first round, if the team makes it to the playoffs.

This year both the rush and the safety play should be better, regardless of which formation is used.