fantasy question: where did the pass rush go?

After four games: Peppers, 5 sacks; Lewis, 2; Jenkins, 1


Whatever happened to Mike Rucker? Is he still on the roster?
Whatever happened to the middle push? See Drew Brees' stats...
Whatever happened to the linebacker blitz?
Whatever happened to the safety blitz?
Whatever happened to the corner blitz?

Destroyed by the Falcons, hit hard by the Vikings, has the Panthers' run defense become a pussy thing so afraid of the cutback that it cannot afford to take an occasional gamble to get to a passer? Or are the Panthers' few blitzes just totally ineffective? Sure, the run defense numbers are going down; the pass defense numbers are going up. Colin Branch should be fined for that last fuckup that could have cost a game and nobody has even mentioned it.

 

I don't really remember being a big blitz team, ever.

Pressure has been there. The short coverage has been bad, we've given up too much RAC, but that's always been our weakspot, even schematically. Brees dinked and dunked his way to 300+, though 86 of that was on that last bit of nontackling secondary bullshit. Overall, we did a good job of getting off on third down last week (4-11).

 

Pressure's fine. You face a couple three-step drop teams in a row and you're not going to have a ton of sacks.

And Rucker's fine. I see a little bit more situational pull for Wallace, after four years of having the two here, but nothing alarming and nothing to say a single thing about Rucker's performance.

 

We've been getting enough pressure with the front four, but Simms and Brees didn't take many deep drops and generally got rid of the ball quickly. You don't blitz teams like that because it just exposes more holes in your coverage.

Wake up, grandpa. It's been discussed in several different threads.

 

I missed that on Branch. No way any player deserves a fine for playing hard and just making a fuckup mistake.

 

agreed. that's an excellent way to screw up a guy's mind.

 

Yeah, what the hell?

The next time a player gets fined for a making one poor play, or even several poor plays, will be the first. That's an odd suggestion.

 

In fact, after breaking the play down for the review, I don't even know how much Branch was at fault. He had good underneath coverage and was trying to knock the pass away as it came in, but Brees put it just beyond his outstretched fingers. I could certainly buy the argument that he should have ignored the ball and just made sure he got the tackle in that situation, but in either case Colston should have been tackled short of the 50 yard line if not for Minter and Marshall both taking horrible angles. Both guys were behind Colston on the play, and both overran it.

 

Me and my big mouth

In that situation, where do you think the pass might go, fellows? Perhaps down the fucking field????? And three of the Panthers Alphonsed-and-Gastoned it??? Nobody's fault, right? Just a perfect 86-yard play between QB and rookie receiver??? OK, you win. Sorry I brought it up.

 

I still think Branch screwed up. I just don't think he deserves a fine.