Why This Is Going To Be A Great Season

[wist43]

I like the priorities on the defense. The team is packed with outside and inside passrushers, and looks to have an embarrassment of riches in the secondary. If this team can pass and stop the pass that'll work. I'm not sure if they'll be any good against the run but that's ok because this isn't 1970.

Pass rush wasn't really that big a problem last year - when dunderdummy dialed up blitzes. We had a goodly number of sacks.

But the secondary was a monstrous mess, and Capers would routinely follow up a blitz and sack, with a 3 man rush that generated no pressure, and there would be receivers running wide open all over the field. 3rd and 14 after a sack, was a very makable conversion for our opponents b/c of how Capers called his defense.

We got absolutely run over in the running game, and our back end was a mess - getting run over in the running game, I put all of that on Capers; the mess in the secondary is not all Capers fault, but at the end of the day - he is the general, and that is where the responsibility lies.

Hopefully MM has read him the riot act, and the influx of Clinton-Dix, and the maturation of the 2nd and 3rd year guys will be enough for us to realize some improvement.

[3irty1]

Pass rush wasn't really that big a problem last year - when dunderdummy dialed up blitzes. We had a goodly number of sacks.

But the secondary was a monstrous mess, and Capers would routinely follow up a blitz and sack, with a 3 man rush that generated no pressure, and there would be receivers running wide open all over the field. 3rd and 14 after a sack, was a very makable conversion for our opponents b/c of how Capers called his defense.

We got absolutely run over in the running game, and our back end was a mess - getting run over in the running game, I put all of that on Capers; the mess in the secondary is not all Capers fault, but at the end of the day - he is the general, and that is where the responsibility lies.

Hopefully MM has read him the riot act, and the influx of Clinton-Dix, and the maturation of the 2nd and 3rd year guys will be enough for us to realize some improvement.

Disagree that the passrush was good enough last year. We couldn't get there with 4 and often couldn't get there with blitzes leaving powerplays in the backfield. Even our shitty secondary last year was better than anything the Giants won their last two superbowls with. The difference is that they had an endless stream of fresh stud passrushers to hose down their pedestrian linebackers and secondary with febreze. They could stay effective against the run with run by using those same stud passrushers to 1-gap.

I can see our front 7 using a similar strategy to keep the pressure up with Matthews, Peppers, Neal, Perry, Daniels, and Jones. Our secondary will all of a sudden look like pro bowlers again. There is a lot of ball hawk potential back there.

[wist43]

Sacks last year did not tell the whole story about pressure. On key downs, passers had far too long to sit and wait. The sack total could stay the same and pressure and hits could increase and the define will go up 5-8 spots in the rankings. It needs to be more constant.

Disagree that the passrush was good enough last year. We couldn't get there with 4 and often couldn't get there with blitzes leaving powerplays in the backfield. Even our shitty secondary last year was better than anything the Giants won their last two superbowls with. The difference is that they had an endless stream of fresh stud passrushers to hose down their pedestrian linebackers and secondary with febreze. They could stay effective against the run with run by using those same stud passrushers to 1-gap.

I can see our front 7 using a similar strategy to keep the pressure up with Matthews, Peppers, Neal, Perry, Daniels, and Jones. Our secondary will all of a sudden look like pro bowlers again. There is a lot of ball hawk potential back there.

Rushing 3 is the same as rushing none - and static 4 man rushes, i.e. 2 DL, and 2 OLB's, without prensap movement or stunts are easy enough to block, as the OL knows exactly what is coming, and who is coming. At that point, it is all about physical ability - absent any presnap deception, or attempts to manuever the OL out of position, by missing an adjustment.

You can't blitz every snap, and you can't stunt, zone blitz, etc, on every snap - but what we've been witness to with Capers is hell bent for leather blitzes on 2nd down, backed up by 3 man rushes on 3rd down - combined with heavy doses of static rushes most of the time. It's easy to block, the QB has forever, and the secondary gets picked apart.

It is true that at some point our guy has to defeat their guy - but there are a lot of things the DC can do to assist in that.

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.

[MadScientist]

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.