Pass Coverage Vs. Defensive Line Pressure

[Commander Adama]

I know most everyone on this board states that our Defense sucked last year because of the Defensive Line. I would argue this looks like a result of a bad secondary.

Our Defense in 2005 was ranked top 10 as was the year before, yet we had basically the same Defensive Line, with a big upgrade from Andre Carter. So, what changed? Our Secondary. We lost Springs for most of the season, and we lost a veteran Safety, as well as a new Safeties Coach. We noticed a drop in the production of Sean Taylor, which also impacted our Secondary (I would argue this could have been because of or new Safeties Coach). So, if the Secondary is what changed and our Defense dropped in ranking, it would say to me that is what Greg Williams relies on most in his Defense. That being said, I would argue it is having a great Secondary that allows a Greg Williams Defense to really pressure the Quarterback by sending a Safety or Linebackers on the blitz.

Having a great Defensive Lineman would be great, but I don't see it as our Defense will crumble if we do not draft a Defensive Lineman in the draft.

What do you all think? Oh, yes I know I am an idiot, so we can dispense with having to point that out and have a good discussion.

HTTR

[Chump Bailey]

Oh, yes I know I am an idiot, so we can dispense with having to point that out and have a good discussion.

On the contrary, you just might be right. Obviously, I want a DL and think that would best serve our defense as a whole. But, I am not convinced at all that this team is even considering taking a DL at six, or even with their first selection if a trade down scenario were to occur.

[Rex Tomb]

(I put so much time and effort into this post for a similar thread and I don't feel like typing it all over again ) *edited to fit this thread better*

Our defensive line leaked like a sieve last year (150+ yards to Travis Henry of the Titans...OF THE TITANS!?!?!). Once Big Joe went down, as he inevitably will this coming year as well, we didn't have anyone to step up and be that big body in the middle of the D-line. Golston is good; he might actually be great in the coming years. So where's the problem? Oh yeah, he's the same type of DT as Griffin: not stout enough to be a 2 Gap Tackle. This opened a major hole in our line last year that numerous teams exploited time and time again. The statistics don't lie; our defensive line was our weakest point.

So the answer to that is a safety?

Draft Alan Branch. He's going to be a great player in this league and I think all of his "work ethic" problems are contrived by the media. They have to find someone to turn into the draft's pariah this year (much like Haloti Ngata last year). I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Haloti Ngata of the Ravens had such a huge impact on the defense for his team last year it was unbelieveable. Why? Because LBs like Ray Lewis didn't have to worry about shedding blockers, Ngata had already sucked them all up. A big body in the 2 Gap goes a long way. I just wish there was a way to drill this into people's heads.

[pointyfootball]

Our Defense in 2005 was ranked top 10 as was the year before, yet we had basically the same Defensive Line, with a big upgrade from Andre Carter.

It's debateable as to whether Carter was a big upgrade or not. Everyone on the DL was a year older. Griffin, your best dl by far was hurt during the season.

So, what changed? Our Secondary. We lost Springs for most of the season, and we lost a veteran Safety, as well as a new Safeties Coach.

Defense was awful in preseason games, and while losing Springs hurt some, it shouldn't be the scapegoat reason the D played poorly.

That being said, I would argue it is having a great Secondary that allows a Greg Williams Defense to really pressure the Quarterback by sending a Safety or Linebackers on the blitz.

Yes, having corners who can truly cover does allow a DC to be able to send a LB or safety on a blitz. However, a great secondary will not overcome an awful d-line. The reverse has a much better chance of happening. 19 sacks, giving up 2200 yards rushing (4.5 ypc), and 12 takeaways are indicative of a poor dline. Secondary was poor as well (gave up 30 TDs), but the additions already made there should be a significant upgrade.

DL is what the skins need, although the question is whether or not the player they draft will start.

pf

[Rex Tomb]

On the contrary, you just might be right. Obviously, I want a DL and think that would best serve our defense as a whole. But, I am not convinced at all that this team is even considering taking a DL at six, or even with their first selection if a trade down scenario were to occur.

When Quinn, Landry, or Adrian Peterson fall to us at the 6 spot (one of them will), I think we will get a pretty sweet trade offer. Buffalo could use either Quinn or Peterson. Miami, same. Atlanta might be crazy enough to move up 2 spots to take Landry and would probably have to cede at least a 3rd round pick to make it happen, if not a 2 rounder (they have 2 by the way).

It's pretty clear that the top 5 people chosen are going to be Russell, CJ, Adams, Quinn, and Thomas. Probably not in that order, but don't be surprised if we find teams jockeying to move up to our #6 spot to draft Peterson or Landry (Quinn, too, if he's still on the board).

[Rex Tomb]

Yes, having corners who can truly cover does allow a DC to be able to send a LB or safety on a blitz. However, a great secondary will not overcome an awful d-line. The reverse has a much better chance of happening. 19 sacks, giving up 2200 yards rushing (4.5 ypc), and 12 takeaways are indicative of a poor dline. Secondary was poor as well (gave up 30 TDs), but the additions already made there should be a significant upgrade.

DL is what the skins need, although the question is whether or not the player they draft will start.

pf

You make several extremely valid points pointy (love the name by the way! :laugh: ) I agree with you. As has been said multiple times before, if the QB has all day to throw, it's the defensive line's fault. If the QB has all day to throw, it doesn't matter if you have Champ Bailey and Darrell Green in their primes in the secondary, something will break down and get exposed.

[Mad Mike]

Yeah, and that's why we couldn't stop the run. :doh:

Bottom line (pardon the pun :-)... A good D line can pressure the QB, making it easier on the secondary AND stop the run. A good secondary will improve coverage but if your corners are making tackles on their running backs, you are in serious trouble.

4.5 yards per is what teams ran on us last year. Why even throw? Just run it down our throat, control the clock, and humiliate us.

http://www.nfl.com/stats/teamsort/NFL/DEF-RUSHING/2006/regular?sort_col_1=7

Still want to pass on the D line?

[Burgold]

If you look at the production of our D line alone since Williams has been here, it has not been impressive. Williams has had to rely on corner and safety blitzes to the point of absurdity. With Springs gone and AA not being a good coverage guy, Williams relied on the Dline to generate its own pressure. With the smoke and mirrors derrived from exotic blitzes gone the needs of our D line became apparent.

[Chump Bailey]

When Quinn, Landry, or Adrian Peterson fall to us at the 6 spot (one of them will), I think we will get a pretty sweet trade offer. Buffalo could use either Quinn or Peterson. Miami, same. Atlanta might be crazy enough to move up 2 spots to take Landry and would probably have to cede at least a 3rd round pick to make it happen, if not a 2 rounder (they have 2 by the way).

It's pretty clear that the top 5 people chosen are going to be Russell, CJ, Adams, Quinn, and Thomas. Probably not in that order, but don't be surprised if we find teams jockeying to move up to our #6 spot to draft Peterson or Landry (Quinn, too, if he's still on the board).

I certainly hope so. If we can get a first and second rounder via trade that would be awesome...

[Skinsfansince72]

I think it is fairly simple. Give an NFL QB 7 seconds to throw a pass, and I dont care if you have three shut down corners, an average QB is going to light it up. If pressure is achieved without using a LB or CB as a blitzer, the entire defense is going to be better. Gaines or Amobi I say.

[Veretax]

while I agree our secondary hurt us worse then our DLine play, from a purely defensive perspective we still need to draft a DL. Lets assume that we don't get a top ten pick next year and we draft a Dback, it'll be that much more difficult to find a good DL next year. This year has quite a few who may prove their worthiness to be picked in the 1st round. We need to draft a DE or a DT, I'm leaning toward DE because of Daniels age, but if Okoye or branch are the best on our board then fine get them.

[BKSkinsFan]

I started a thread looking at our defensive stats last year. Basically what I saw was around the 1st half of the season we had what would project to the 32nd ranked pass defense and the 15th ranked run d. The second half our pass d would have actually projected to the 4th ranked in the NFL, however our run d would have ranked 31st.

By saying projected, I mean if the defense's numbers would have stayed at the same average during those times, this is where they would have ranked for the season.

Looking at those numbers, you can easily see that we could somewhat take 1 thing away, the run in the beginning, but allowed teams to pass. We stopped the pass, but teams were busy easily running on us, almost as easy as people ran on the Colts during the season.

The common factor here is the d-line. The d-line has the ability to help against the pass by creating pressure, and taking up blockers allowing blitzes to be more effective. The corners and safeties do help with run support, but to stop the run effectively you need great play from your dline and linebackers.

Some can argue that taking a big DT like Branch would benefit us greatly, and I would not be upset at all if that was our pick. I however think it may be more beneficial to draft a DE that can play the run well and create pressure on the QB. It would be trying to kill 2 birds with the 1 stone that we have in the #6 pick. If that pick can help both problematic areas of our d, it will be well worth it.

[Die Hard]

Question.... how many decent corners were on the market this free agency?

And how many decent defensive linemen? You tell me where teams seem to place the most value.

I seriously can't believe people want to still build from the outside in... relying on blitzes as the only means to generate pressure.

Guys, we set an NFL record last year for defensive futility. Hello? If that doesn't grab your attention... I suppose nothing will.

[MRMADD]

I think it is fairly simple. Give an NFL QB 7 seconds to throw a pass, and I dont care if you have three shut down corners, an average QB is going to light it up. If pressure is achieved without using a LB or CB as a blitzer, the entire defense is going to be better.

Completely true. If your defense can get some pressure with the front four, that frees you up to do interesting things with the other seven guys. But if they can't, you're in real trouble. Even a pedestrian QB is going to carve you up.

Take a look at the Skins paltry five wins:

Texans: 1 sack, 1 FF, 1 INT

Jax: 4 sacks, 1 INT

Cowboys: 2 sacks

Panthers: 1 sack, 2 INT

Saints: 2 sacks, 1 INT

So in our five wins, we had 10 sacks. in our 10 losses, we had 9 sacks. That's double the rate of sacks in the games we won. And we got 5 of our 6 interceptions in those games -- because we got pressure on the QB. Why is this a mystery? Pressure the QB, win games.

[Brandon Lloyd Christmas]

this is ridiculous. our Dline in 05 was Daniels/Griff/Salavea/Wynn.

daniels wasnt that great in 05, he had a few good games. griff was good in 05 because he stayed healthy and was a year younger and fresher, same goes for salavea. wynn was decent. all of these guys are decent when completely healthy and 06 was not the case. daniels blatantly lost enough steps to make a staircase, salavea and griff were clearly unhealthy (and at their age this isnt something that just remedies itself). wynn i cant even remember, so he couldnt have made that big of an impact. but in 05, we had more blitzing going on, and our LB play was better as well. washington and even arrington were good on the field, and marshall did a fine job that year because griff and salavea were better.

now we have a crippled PD, injured griff and big joe, and added andre carter, the only good one on the line. so all we did was add a good piece to a dwindling DL. now, if carter had been there in 05, we might have gone 12-4, but he wasnt, he was added to a horrid aging d-line and we went 5-11.

our secondary struggled a bit, mostly because prioleau went down, springs went down, and arch was a bust, plus we had no depth at CB hence rumph and wright had to play, but if we had had any pressure at all from any players, our secondary would hav elooked much better.

if you look at the league leaders in INTs, most of their dlines get a ton of pressure. they go hand in hand.

[Langford78]

I agree, look at Baltimore's D. They usually didn't have to bother blitzing to get pressure on opposing QBs, their Dline did it on their own. Surprise surprise, Bmore has one of the best Ds in the NFL.

I think it is fairly simple. Give an NFL QB 7 seconds to throw a pass, and I dont care if you have three shut down corners, an average QB is going to light it up. If pressure is achieved without using a LB or CB as a blitzer, the entire defense is going to be better. Gaines or Amobi I say.

[Brandon Lloyd Christmas]

Completely true. If your defense can get some pressure with the front four, that frees you up to do interesting things with the other seven guys. But if they can't, you're in real trouble. Even a pedestrian QB is going to carve you up.

Take a look at the Skins paltry five wins:

Texans: 1 sack, 1 FF, 1 INT

Jax: 4 sacks, 1 INT

Cowboys: 2 sacks

Panthers: 1 sack, 2 INT

Saints: 2 sacks, 1 INT

So in our five wins, we had 10 sacks. in our 10 losses, we had 9 sacks. That's double the rate of sacks in the games we won. And we got 5 of our 6 interceptions in those games -- because we got pressure on the QB. Why is this a mystery? Pressure the QB, win games.

exfrigginactly.

[Mad Mike]

Completely true. If your defense can get some pressure with the front four, that frees you up to do interesting things with the other seven guys. But if they can't, you're in real trouble. Even a pedestrian QB is going to carve you up.

Take a look at the Skins paltry five wins:

Texans: 1 sack, 1 FF, 1 INT

Jax: 4 sacks, 1 INT

Cowboys: 2 sacks

Panthers: 1 sack, 2 INT

Saints: 2 sacks, 1 INT

So in our five wins, we had 10 sacks. in our 10 losses, we had 9 sacks. That's double the rate of sacks in the games we won. And we got 5 of our 6 interceptions in those games -- because we got pressure on the QB. Why is this a mystery? Pressure the QB, win games.

I think you also have to look at other stats for those games. How many yards were run against us? If they ran it down our throat all day, of course we are not going to get sacks.

I wish I had more time to look things but I'm at work. I'll bet though, that most of those losses came with our opponents running all over us like Tampa did.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

What you are ignoring is the rule changes over the years. It is now next to impossible to cover any receiver for any length of time simply because the rules have made it so. So, investing all your resources into defensive backs seems to be a poor allocation of resources.

It be like investing all your money in a fund where the government strictly regulates the rate of return. Even in a great year, you aren't going to get much.

Defensive linemen - on the other hand - can still impact a game.

[MRMADD]

I think you also have to look at other stats for those games. How many yards were run against us? If they ran it down our throat all day, of course we are not going to get sacks.

I wish I had more time to look things but I'm at work. I'll bet though, that most of those losses came with our opponents running all over us like Tampa did.

True, in only 2 of our 5 wins did the opponent run for over 100 yards -- and the Skins gave up an average of 137 yards per game. But I don't think that changes the equation much.

[Brandon Lloyd Christmas]

True, in only 2 of our 5 wins did the opponent run for over 100 yards -- and the Skins gave up an average of 137 yards per game. But I don't think that changes the equation much.

"the skins gave up an average of 137 yards per game" on the ground. and people want to draft calvin johnson. we have some smart folks around these parts.

[iceman330]

I know most everyone on this board states that our Defense sucked last year because of the Defensive Line. I would argue this looks like a result of a bad secondary.

Our Defense in 2005 was ranked top 10 as was the year before, yet we had basically the same Defensive Line, with a big upgrade from Andre Carter. So, what changed? Our Secondary. We lost Springs for most of the season, and we lost a veteran Safety, as well as a new Safeties Coach. We noticed a drop in the production of Sean Taylor, which also impacted our Secondary (I would argue this could have been because of or new Safeties Coach). So, if the Secondary is what changed and our Defense dropped in ranking, it would say to me that is what Greg Williams relies on most in his Defense. That being said, I would argue it is having a great Secondary that allows a Greg Williams Defense to really pressure the Quarterback by sending a Safety or Linebackers on the blitz.

Having a great Defensive Lineman would be great, but I don't see it as our Defense will crumble if we do not draft a Defensive Lineman in the draft.

What do you all think? Oh, yes I know I am an idiot, so we can dispense with having to point that out and have a good discussion.

HTTR

Well, I always want our D to get to the QB in 3 seconds, 4 max. The odds of a pass completion greatly icrease when a QB gets more than 3 seconds b/c DBs cannot run w/ WRs for long periods, (all things being equal). So, w/ no rush the odds of failure in pass coverage increase. Both pass rush and coverage go together but the rush must be the point of emphasis when a QB has more than 3 seconds.....IMHO

[Skin Patrol]

Our Defense in 2005 was ranked top 10 as was the year before, yet we had basically the same Defensive Line, with a big upgrade from Andre Carter. So, what changed?

Tomorrow you will be a day older than you were today. The day after that...

[JC girl]

If you look at the production of our D line alone since Williams has been here, it has not been impressive. Williams has had to rely on corner and safety blitzes to the point of absurdity. With Springs gone and AA not being a good coverage guy, Williams relied on the Dline to generate its own pressure. With the smoke and mirrors derrived from exotic blitzes gone the needs of our D line became apparent.

Perfect, totally agree with this. All of our pressure usually came from blitzes under GW's system. With that gone we saw how much it was covering the D-line, we need work there.

[Siven]

What we need, is a runstopping DE on the end opposite Carter and a big nasty 2 gap DT to eat lineman and dominate the line of scrimmage. Now if Branch really does drop into the 2nd (He won't), wouldn't it be nice to trade down, grab Jamaal Anderson or Adam Carriker, big nasty DE that can still rush the passer, especially Anderson (watch his tape, his strength right now 2 years into DE is extremely impressive) and then get a Tank Tyler (Who played with 3 first round draft picks in 05 season, yet played even better this year) or Alan Branch. With Jamaal Anderson or Adam Carriker and Tank Tyler or Branch, that's 600+ lbs of force coming at you.