After the game coach Bene said something like: "We can dial up the pressure whenever we want to."
That got me wondering whether our relatively low sack totals for the last few years are due more to a philosophy of containing the QB, rather than the all out rush, and doesn't at all reflect the pass rush ability of our linemen and linebackers. Instead of our ends rushing beyond the quarterback to try to get to him they're staying even with him, to retain better angles if the quarterback decides to run out laterally. If the QB tries to sneak up field through one of the four inside gaps, you've got five defenders positioned to make a play on him.
Think about it: what is the one thing you really can't game plan against, unless you decide to spy someone? It's the running quarterback, the guy like Damon Allen, Darian Durant, Hank Burris, Doug Flutie, you know, guys who just kill you by extending plays on second and long with their feet, spoiling your secondary doing a great job of coverage. Of course any team can send a blitzing player from anywhere, anytime, but most of the time we're blitzing we're rushing any combination of Solly, Biggy and Johnson and playing man-to-man in the secondary plus whichever linebacker drops in coverage. Personally I'd rather see more of a pressure defence with four or five rushers, six or seven here and there, with plenty of guys to react to the ball if we can't get to the QB.
I think coaches are really cagey guys who try to save their best stuff for the huge games late in the year. I'm sure Chappy was that way with predictable "here it is, try to stop it" offence for 18 games and then, BANG, all of a sudden we're doing things in the post-season we wish they'd been doing all year. Smart coaches try to do what BC did with their running backs this year, getting multiple guys involved, spreading the work around, to hopefully have your best guys available for the big games in November. Of course that requires a buy-in from the all the players; tough to get it if you have a selfish feature back who wants all the touches like Nick Grigsby. It didn't work out that way for us this year, because you just can't predict when someone is going to get his leg rolled up on in a pile up. Remember all those years where you'd see a guy like Wes Cates, Chad Kackert or Mike Strickland be so banged up by the fist of October they either weren't available or were innefective in the post-season. Cornish had to take a maintenance week last week for just that reason. I'm pretty sure he's more banged up than they're letting on.
I've also been wondering about a few players who've been parked on the one-game injured list for most of this month: Logan, Marsh and Yell. Don't be surprised to see those guys moved back to the active roster before its all over this year.
Dooger in Surrey :cowboy: