OPPOSING QB’s cannot be allowed to plant their feet. When a QB can stand in the pocket, our Defense has a hard time stopping an opponent. That’s true for any team, but what makes it so telling for us, is how bad we look when that one thing doesn’t go our way. It’s like pulling on a thread and unraveling a sweater.

We have been just that easy to solve for smart coaches. Forgive my analogy dear reader, but our flaw has become as easy to ignore, as a burning cross.

That’s why every defensive game plan needs to come with keys specific to each opposing offensive line, for how to attack the central part of the pocket, discard obstacles, rip apart the protective layer, and get at the QB inside.

Different o-line coaches teach different techniques, to get the desired performance from their line. Since coaches vary, techniques will vary. No matter how good a technique is, it has an Achilles heel. Every technique has, and every technique always will. We just need to determine what they use, before we can exploit it.

For example, the splits (distance between linemen) may vary. Whether pass-blockers shoot both hands early, or stagger them. The depth on a kick-slide may vary, as some coaches want full extension, and others want players more under control. There are pluses to each of these things, but definite minuses to each, as well.

Week to week, we should be attacking the weakness of the technique, in order to break the protection down at what would be it’s cellular level. Imagine if all five linemen were somehow wrong on every snap. (This next sentence might be a little confusing, so take it slow.) We’d be exploiting what was wrong, with what was right, about what an opponent has relied on since OTA’s.

On a weekly basis we should adopt and adapt tactics of Sun Tzu, not only to defeat the opponent, but to make it impossible for opponents to get a handle of us in film study. “Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.” In this way, we become impossible to solve. In this way, we no longer unravel.