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Capers said Perry fits well into our nickle scheme. He also said they are going to continue to play far more nickle than base in another interview.
If you're playing to Perry's strengths, you're going to have to let him loose at the QB far more often than dropping him into coverage early in his career.
This means Matthews is going to have to drop into coverage more often
With the addition of the interior pass rushers, I actually think this is a positive. Here's why:
1. Raji is going to be able to stay more fresh
2. Matthews was consistently doubled and tripled last season. If he's showing blitz and dropping into coverage more, teams will be committing extra attention to our star pass rusher and it will expose the rest of their pass protection to single blocks or even free shots on some blitzes. YOu might even see two pass protectors standing around wondering what to do after Matthews drops into coverage while the other side is getting overloaded with shock and awe.
3. We have Raji, Perry, Hargrove and two quick, gap shooting rookies who will be playing in the nickle setup. For a change, overcomitting to Matthews is going to come back to haunt offenses.
4. Since over-committing to Matthews is causing havoc, Matthews will see more one on ones when he does rush (and it will still be a fair amount of the time.)
Matthews pass rush attempts may go down by 10-20%, but the single block opportunities should go way up. And it looks like we're going to get some steady pressure up the middle. A single block on Matthews with interior pressure is going to be like taking candy from a baby.
Summary:
Last year you could double Matthews and Raji, single block everyone else and sit back in the pocket like the QB was skipping through a field of daisies. This year, you cannot double Raji and Matthews and skip through a field of daisies because it appears we have legitimate pass rushers who can beat single blocks. It went from skipping through daisies to nightmare on elm street. We went from predictable (no choice but to rush Raji and Matthews because it's all we had) to unpredictable (we can use our star defenders as decoys, opening up favorable one on one's AND we can (rush our star pass rushers, only this time getting favorable matchups) This draft helps us become unpredictable.
We put up points. Our ST's are rock solid. Teams are going to have to come at us and we just went all out to fortify our pass defense. Look out. On paper, in concept, this looks like a nightmare defense to pass against.
If you're playing to Perry's strengths, you're going to have to let him loose at the QB far more often than dropping him into coverage early in his career.
This means Matthews is going to have to drop into coverage more often
With the addition of the interior pass rushers, I actually think this is a positive. Here's why:
1. Raji is going to be able to stay more fresh
2. Matthews was consistently doubled and tripled last season. If he's showing blitz and dropping into coverage more, teams will be committing extra attention to our star pass rusher and it will expose the rest of their pass protection to single blocks or even free shots on some blitzes. YOu might even see two pass protectors standing around wondering what to do after Matthews drops into coverage while the other side is getting overloaded with shock and awe.
3. We have Raji, Perry, Hargrove and two quick, gap shooting rookies who will be playing in the nickle setup. For a change, overcomitting to Matthews is going to come back to haunt offenses.
4. Since over-committing to Matthews is causing havoc, Matthews will see more one on ones when he does rush (and it will still be a fair amount of the time.)
Matthews pass rush attempts may go down by 10-20%, but the single block opportunities should go way up. And it looks like we're going to get some steady pressure up the middle. A single block on Matthews with interior pressure is going to be like taking candy from a baby.
Summary:
Last year you could double Matthews and Raji, single block everyone else and sit back in the pocket like the QB was skipping through a field of daisies. This year, you cannot double Raji and Matthews and skip through a field of daisies because it appears we have legitimate pass rushers who can beat single blocks. It went from skipping through daisies to nightmare on elm street. We went from predictable (no choice but to rush Raji and Matthews because it's all we had) to unpredictable (we can use our star defenders as decoys, opening up favorable one on one's AND we can (rush our star pass rushers, only this time getting favorable matchups) This draft helps us become unpredictable.
We put up points. Our ST's are rock solid. Teams are going to have to come at us and we just went all out to fortify our pass defense. Look out. On paper, in concept, this looks like a nightmare defense to pass against.
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