How many times we blitzed

Collin's a dick.


And he's right, again. Y'all can pick on him, but that doesn't make him wrong.


Know why? Because he's not. He's right. You might hate him. He's still right.


I figure maybe if I say what he says, people will understand it's true, and realize that blitzing 55 times will not make us a better football team.


GP40, good work putting some thought into it. The problem is, of course, you came into it thinking that we don't blitz enough, and then used the numbers to say "here's a random stat - we don't blitz enough."

Meat's right. You play the WCO by keeping guys in coverage underneath (which, by anyone's logic, makes blitzing harder). You play the WCO by having guys execute and tackle. You don't beat the WCO by throwing 9 guys into lanes and hoping nothing gets past the free safety.

And Collin's right. In case you didn't catch that the first time.
You don't blitz a continuous 3-step drop. You kill yourself doing that - if you liked watching a lumbering FB like William Henderson get 20 yards on you because he's uncovered, feel free to blitz all day. Otherwise, you sit in your zone, you execute, and then you're successful.

I don't know when 90% of Panther fans around here became Jerry Glanville, and the saddest part is that most of you won't even get the reference.*

Sackem90's right, by saying that cushion's killing us. Where she fails us, of course, is by not coming out and saying "Chris Gamble is the problem here." If Gamble played up, the WRs wouldn't have cushion, because Lucas and Manning line up for press.


When we blitz, it doesn't work. When we blitz more, it doesn't work. If it rushes the QB into a decision, great. The fact is, we have good pass rushers, and those rushers are getting blocked by 6 guys. That makes it that much easier for the teams to adjust into blocking 6 guys. Face facts - we blitzed New England all day and we had two sacks.

Not to mention, Favre only gets heartier against the blitz.


*Glanville, as a DC, was often fond of sending 11 at the QB, just to do it. Somehow, that midget redneck got a head coaching job, and even kept it for a while.

 

Even if the blitzes are not as effective as they should be, we still need to change things up as the game goes along on defense, weather it is a change in coverage or a blitz doesn't matter (a zone blitz would be a good change). It seems that in every game (especially the Monday game), our D looks good for a while (usually with the exception of one early drive), but by the time the end of the third quarter rolls around, it is so obvious what we are doing that the other team can beat it easily. Then when a team is having a ton of success on our D (like the 4th quarter Monday), we still make no changes to counter it. It is almost like all the defensive playcalling desicions are made before the game, and they don't change at all. The decisions seem to have nothing to do with the situations we are in.

 

Hey now, no knocking on Jerry. That man was just funny as hell and had he kept his job we may just have finally found Elvis!

 

Go, what were the results of those plays?

 

From what I remember, the only time we blitzed and it made a difference, was when we sent 7 and Favre had to throw it away.

The sack and fumble on the first drive was from only rushing 4. I believe Lucas INT was from only rushing 4.

To back up what Mags said, usually when we sent 5 (10 of the 13 times we blitzed) they found open guys underneath.

I understand the point of being useless to blitz when QBs are taking 3 step drops. Fact is, it's useless to think we would get much more pressure from sending 5 when teams are keeping 6 (or more) in to block.

My thinking was to blitz more often on obvious passing downs. Bring more than the offense can pick up and play tighter coverage on the receivers.

One of the sacks Miami got on us was when they overloaded the right side of the line with a blitz. They dropped Jason Taylor into coverage to help compensate for the pass coverage that was missing from the blitz. In essence, we were trying to block 5 guys with 3 linemen and Wharton on the other side had nobody to block. Jake was sacked and the call worked as planned. I thought it was a creative way to bring pressure. It seems when we bring pressure, it rarely seems creative. I know we also use zone blitzing techniques. They just usally don't work too well.

Everyone has their opinion on this board. We should be able to speak it without people like Collin trying to belittle us. I am a student of the game. I watch every game on tape the following week. I slow down most plays and watch the blocking techniques and defensive schemes. I officiate Varsity football games on Friday night. I drove to Miami two weeks ago with my daughter then to Charlotte for the Monday night game last week. There is nothing (other than my family) that I love more than Panthers football. I'm sure that I am no different than many of the Panthers fans on this board. Do not tell us we don't know anything about football. The aneurysm you may get will be from pulling your head out of your ass.

 

I'm confused. Didn't you just agree that what I said was correct and that what you suggested in your opening post was wrong?

 

We do need to change things up a little more, especially in formation and blitz faking. .

What people forget, of course, is that we do change things up. A 3 man rush against 7 blocking is actually a great switch - but it does lose its potency when we don't execute behind it, and/or line up with just 3 guys as if that's all we're going to bring. Faking the blitz is as effective as bringing the blitz, especially when we have such shitty blitzers. 3 man rush works a couple times a game. Just like coming out in a 3-4 or bringing that 6-man rush where everyone lines up on the line at the snap, that works a couple times, IF you can call it in the right place.

But yeah. That's where I come away a little disappointed. We actually do change things up, a lot. GB's tackle-elgibles were negated by our 5-man DL schemes. Great job. But we don't fake the blitz enough.

I think getting us into an obvious passing situation, over and over, is what happens there. It's not that the D gets soft, it's that now you have to adjust to constant passing. We're simply not as good there.

it won't be comforting to know, since we did put our best stuff for that situation out there, but we did adjust once GB was down by 3 scores and passed every down. That's not static play calling. We changed up and had to play, I'm assuming, at least 70% nickel defense by then.

And when you're playing nickel, you're not blitzing all that much (which is why I favor the 3-3 alignment that Philly uses, it gives you more options). Add that into our defensive weaknesses, and you just have to hope they execute. Sending 6 against an O front that still has 7 in, theoretically (incl. a back and a TE), when they have 3 WR in formation and short passing, is lethal. You can't get there fast enough. You're literally playing straight man-free, when you're not having enough success against zone. It's not healthy to do.

 

I'm not sure it got noticed, but on Tuesday I pointed out that Rucker's forced fumble was caused by us faking the blitz with Morgan and WW. GB's tight end tried to slip down to pick up the blitzers (not sure why he did that), which walled off Clifton and allowed Rucker to reach Favre immediately.

And for what it's worth, I agree that we should be more creative and bring more overloads and corner blitzes when possible. I think we don't because we're so worried about exposing our already suspect coverage.

 

I like to play the Collin/dick card, partially because we all know it, and partially because it refocuses people toward the idea that what he's saying is right.

I know he can overbear a point. But don't lose the damn message in it. When people consistently blame "x" when much, much more than just "x" is a problem, it gets old.

I think we could all agree that more blitzing would look great.
I think, deep down, we also know that pass rush alone doesn't get it, and doesn't get rid of our other pass problems. And I get as irritated as he does that everyone consistently blames the playcall for bad execution.

I don't know how we could have blitzed that much out of nickel. I don't think it's wise to blitz 3-step, if they keep showing it. I don't think it's wise to blitz Favre every down anyway.


Josh McCown? Him, I want to blitz more. I could see them wanting to give more help to Manning and/or Wesley at times, but their OL isn't that good, and we can pressure McCown into big mistakes. You can occasionally do that with Favre, but more often he'll just give you a mistake.

 

I don't think it took, if I did read it.


And yeah, you block inside to outside. You don't slide off a DE to get a blitzer.


FWIW, I'm worried about our coverage being (more) exposed, too. At this point I'm almost willing to give Lucas his side of the field just so we can hide our young guys, though I think I could see Manning playing better this week than Gamble last week.

I have no idea why, though.