Our Defense Can't Tackle, But At Least Our Pass Rush Is Good.

[RemoveSnyder]

With the exception of the Eagles game, Rak has been going up against the best lineman on the team. He rarely gets moved around on the line. So, I think that's a little misleading to say the least.

Vs Oakland he went against Khalif Barnes who is a back up RT playing in place of injured Jared Veldheer (their real starting LT). He only started significant time in 2011 at RT. Of his 5 years in Oakland (2009 - 2013), this year is his 5th, 3 of the previous 4 years he barely played and was a back-up or rotational player, often benched. At one point Barnes was replaced by Stephon Heyer, who is currently out of the league.

 

Barnes is only starting because of the injury to Velhdeer and additionally because the Raiders line has 3 starters lost by injury from their o-line.

The team lost starting left tackle, Jared Veldheer in the preseason and placed him on partial season injured reserve. Then his replacement, Menelik Watson, suffered a knee injury and has yet to play in a game this season. This caused the team to shift Khalif Barnes to left tackle and start recently acquired Tony Pashos at right tackle.

 

And Watson was a RAW rookie from FSU, still learning the game and their staff wanted to go with him before Barnes.

 

On top of that they have had horrible cap issues and basically had to cut players, not re-sign starters, in order to get under the cap. They have sustained themselves the past two years on supplemental draft picks and undrafted rookies having to make significant contributes, play significant minutes.

 

Barnes is really not that good.

 

I have game rewind, do you? - I ask because we can both look at the same tape and see what happened on each sack. It would be easier if we both were sitting in-front of the same screen with a coaches clicker and able to illustrate the play, rewind, hash over it ... I'll try with words and stills.

 

'Po's 1st sack of the game was when Flynn bailed the pocket and tried to run. I timed it by way of stopwatch, from snap to first contact. My 1st attempt: 3.84 seconds // My 2nd attempt: 4.02 seconds.

 

Orakpo got pushed wide and shielded. Flynn had time but he couldn't find a receiver. He held onto the ball.

 

While Flynn held the ball he eventually decided to bail the pocket through the gap created by 'Po's outside charge.

 

Right as Flynn decides to take off 'Po wheels around and Barnes, who has already shielded him well, allows him back up field.

 

And Flynn is dragged down from behind.

 

This was not a sack by way of otherworldly effort. Barnes actually did his job and pushed 'Po wide, little did he know his QB was starting to run to the open hole. Flynn is not much of an athlete and was easily tracked down.

 

When you watch it in real time, you'll realize the time and tempo of the play and it will give you all you need to know, which is, it was a coverage sack - Flynn created the sack by holding the ball and then bailing.

...

The 2nd sack of the game for 'Po vs the Raiders occurred in the tail end of the 3rd quarter and happened conveniently right after a Cofield sack. And this sack was by way of Orakpo's own individual efforts.

He bullrushed Barnes got him off balance:

 

Then kept driving him as Barnes ends up on roller skates:

 

'Po drove him back into Flynn, then grabbed Flynn:

 

^ That was an individual effort by 'Po. Again, Barnes is not a league-wide force nor the team's original starter.

...

As per facing the opponents best lineman, I disagree again. I'd say the Eagles best tackle is Lane Johnson and he's currently playing RT. Peters didn't actually look bad, I know he's coming back from a twice torn achilles from last year. I mean, I recognize that Peters is a former, multi-year pro bowler, but again, with a reconstructed achilles.

 

The Green Bay offensive line has been a bit of a punch line the last couple years.

 

The only other sack 'Po has this year was week 2 vs the Packers. And as I illustrated before, that sack was caused by Cofield's pressure up the middle and flushing Rogers who bailed the pocket and in so doing, ran right into 'Po.

 

Versus the Packers Orakpo was facing a 4th round rookie. Now many people liked Bakhtiari, saw his natural athleticism & such for zone based offenses. However, the Packers had slated Bryan Bulaga (Iowa, former 1st rounder) as their starting LT, moving him over from RT where he had played from Day 1 as a rookie. Bulaga suffered a torn ACL and was lost for the season, thus Bakhtiari starting at LT. And well, the rookie took care of 'Po in my estimation.

 

See a trend here ... regular starter goes down, back-up comes in ... two of the three sacks are basically the QB trying to run & head right into Orakpo.

 

Vs the Lions 'Po faced another Iowa tackle, Riley Reiff. He's in his 2nd year but this is his first year of any real game play and first at LT. And as it was illustrated earlier, we had 1 sack vs the Lions and that was a Fletcher A-Gap blitz set-up by Cofield who drowned out the Center. Cofield also had another great pressure, like in the 2nd quarter, down in our redzone, which caused an errant throw by Stafford.

 

Cofield has actually been a monster setting up others with his individual efforts. Likewise so too has Kerrigan - imo.