Defending the short passing game

[ghz in pittsburgh]

From the Raiders game on, our opponents have slowly figured out ways to attack our defense. The Cardinals finally put the whole puzzle together yesterday.

The short passing game. Tha slants. The backs catching the ball out of backfield.

Our DBs have speed to hang with most receivers. If you go max protect and sending out two to three ball catchers, our DBs can stick with them with enough time to allow the D-Line with the combination of Linebacker blitzes to force bad throws or sacks. If you run the ball, our D-Line with the linebackers generally do a good job stopping you on your track.

So comes the multiple targets, short passing game. And it puts us in a bad position. Our D-Line is not that great to break them down for a QB in a 3 - 4 steps drop. Our DBs are not that physical to beat up on receivers in the first 5 - 7 yards (save for Youboty). And our linebackers are not that good in coverage, especially Poz - as good as he has played so far, his position calls for a big coverage area and he's not up to the task yet.

We scored 17 points by the middle of 3rd quarter. The Redskins scored 17 points to win against the same Cardinals with all of their receivers healthy. The difference: The Redskins CBs can play physical man-to man coverage. They did it against the Cards, they did against the Cowboys, and they did it again yesterday. That freed up linebackers and safeties to do other things.

I can see why we drafted McKelvin and Corner because the current talent there won't allow us to do that. Warner did the best Tom Brady impression in that game to us, picking us apart.

In hindsight, and maybe in the future, we might as well take some chances and play more man and just send people after the QB. We'll lose some battles, but we may get some turnovers in return.

[hydro]

I agree with all of that. It is sad that we basically just gave up on D. What would have it hurt to change to blitzing with bump and run? We got blown out anyway!

[Mahdi]

From the Raiders game on, our opponents have slowly figured out ways to attack our defense. The Cardinals finally put the whole puzzle together yesterday.

The short passing game. Tha slants. The backs catching the ball out of backfield.

Our DBs have speed to hang with most receivers. If you go max protect and sending out two to three ball catchers, our DBs can stick with them with enough time to allow the D-Line with the combination of Linebacker blitzes to force bad throws or sacks. If you run the ball, our D-Line with the linebackers generally do a good job stopping you on your track.

So comes the multiple targets, short passing game. And it puts us in a bad position. Our D-Line is not that great to break them down for a QB in a 3 - 4 steps drop. Our DBs are not that physical to beat up on receivers in the first 5 - 7 yards (save for Youboty). And our linebackers are not that good in coverage, especially Poz - as good as he has played so far, his position calls for a big coverage area and he's not up to the task yet.

We scored 17 points by the middle of 3rd quarter. The Redskins scored 17 points to win against the same Cardinals with all of their receivers healthy. The difference: The Redskins CBs can play physical man-to man coverage. They did it against the Cards, they did against the Cowboys, and they did it again yesterday. That freed up linebackers and safeties to do other things.

I can see why we drafted McKelvin and Corner because the current talent there won't allow us to do that. Warner did the best Tom Brady impression in that game to us, picking us apart.

In hindsight, and maybe in the future, we might as well take some chances and play more man and just send people after the QB. We'll lose some battles, but we may get some turnovers in return.
The whole problem in that game was that we played too much man... Greer was playing man all day and couldn't handle it. We should have been playing more cover 2 and undercutting those short routes and force Warner to make the tough throws down the seem. That would at least give our DEs more time to rush and would bracket their WRs with our CBs and a safety over top. The Bills thought they were going to see more long routes from the Cards which is why they played so much man defense. Cards were smarter though, found our weakness.

[hydro]

The whole problem in that game was that we played too much man... Greer was playing man all day and couldn't handle it. We should have been playing more cover 2 and undercutting those short routes and force Warner to make the tough throws down the seem. That would at least give our DEs more time to rush and would bracket their WRs with our CBs and a safety over top. The Bills thought they were going to see more long routes from the Cards which is why they played so much man defense. Cards were smarter though, found our weakness.

First you say we don't run a zone blocking scheme and now you think we were in man all game? Who plays man defense 5-10 yards from the line of scrimmage? You bump and run on man and we didn't do that at ALL.

[EDS]

The Bills haven't been able to stop well executed short passing games for years now. Fewell has to get the corners to play with less of a cushion.

[TrentLeeLynch]

Some good stuff here. Perry should be reading this and getting some ideas.

[Ingtar33]

The whole problem in that game was that we played too much man... Greer was playing man all day and couldn't handle it. We should have been playing more cover 2 and undercutting those short routes and force Warner to make the tough throws down the seem. That would at least give our DEs more time to rush and would bracket their WRs with our CBs and a safety over top. The Bills thought they were going to see more long routes from the Cards which is why they played so much man defense. Cards were smarter though, found our weakness.


we were not in man to man much...

sometimes we were in mixed coverages... with a soft man... which is common when you blitz.

but mostly we were in zone.

the trick is this, the tampa 2 is designed to force you to take the short pass... then depends on the sure tackle to prevent it from being better then 4 or 5 yards. The idea of the defense is that you'll never string together a 14-15 play drive. Get some pressure from the front 4 and you force the team to play small ball.

what i found interesting was the cards didn't beat us how most teams beat the tampa-2.


to beat the tampa 2 you tend to flood zones by giving the zone a man short and long. most zone defenders come up, when a man runs into their zone underneath... this opens a seem in the back of the zone for the guy running behind him.

the cards never bothered to flood a zone... and found seams in the zone without any trickery.

most of those seams were found against our linebackers...

but of course that's how the cards work. they eat alive zone coverages. you need to press them in bump and run.

[zone]

Fewell apparently did not watch the Jets D dismantle the Cards with the blitz.

[gr8slayer]

I was at the game, fifty yard line, 12 rows up, we ran 10x more zone than we did man.

What we "should have done" is play more bump and run coverage and take away that five yard slant; but that's not the kind of defense we run.

[RedEyE]

I was rather dissappointed with the lack of adjustment by Fewell coming out of the half. I thought for sure they were going to man up and get in Warners face because every time they did in the first half he was rattled and didn't handle the pressure well. Not to mention the stupid penalties. The neutral zone infractions were ******ed and if the players fail to correct it on the field it is up to the coaches to see to it that it doesn't happen again. This was a poorly managed defensive game.