man press

All posts tagged man press

#7 DISRUPT TIMING ROUTES

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/03/08
Posted in: breakdown, Coaching, Defense, NFC East, NFL, The 12, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

EARLIER in the THE 12, I covered taking away a TE’s clean release. Here we’re going to get into disrupting a QB’s rhythm with his WR’s. The idea is to get one of two things to happen:

1) The QB either holds the ball a little longer, as he goes to his next read, giving the pass rush time to get to him.

or

2) The QB forces an ill-advised pass, in an attempt to “make something happen”.

Again, disrupting the TE was covered earlier. That said, trying to treat a WR like a TE can set an entire secondary on fire. So the approach has to be different. It has to be more cerebral. Generally a defender cannot rely on one approach all game long, but here are just a few that they can mix and match for 30 minutes or so.

Man Press gets a CB in the WR’s face, and makes the QB sort out whether the WR can win that down and get open. As long as the CB can keep the WR in front of him, this approach is golden. Problem is, when the WR gets past the CB, the defender is left in the trail position. Given the speed, and leaping ability of many WR’s, man press played wrong, could be a death sentence. (High risk/High reward)

Darrelle Revis demonstrates top-shelf, Man Press vs Calvin “Megatron” Johnson.

Hand-fighting is for WR’s who like to stem their routes to get the defender off balance. Hand-fighting at the line of scrimmage, gets the defenders hands into the chest/shoulder area of the WR. It doesn’t allow the receiver to lean quite the way he wants. This erases the time the receiver would use to stem, and forces him to go directly into the route.

Hand-fighting is not quite the same as press, because hand-fighting “feels” the route and bails sooner than press. All a defender is doing, is taking away what the early part of what the receiver wants to do. The idea isn’t to stop, it’s to delay, and maybe get the QB to look elsewhere. (Moderate risk/Low reward)

The next two are a one-two combo, that not only affects the receiver, but it can make offensive coordinators question how they utilize their players, and call the game.

The 100 Yard Defender. The sideline is a defensive player. Stepping on it end plays, and a receiver who steps on it prior to catching the ball, can’t catch a forward pass on that down. If the WR lines up close enough to the sideline, shoving him out of bounds (within the first 5 yards), is totally legal, and basically takes him out of the play. (Low risk/High reward)

Lowering The Boom comes with a great deal of risk, since refs are very aggressive about throwing flags for the same hits that used to comprise the entire opening sequence of a Madden game. Still, a CB taking away the sideline, basically “opens up” the middle of the field for the receiver. Which is where beasts like LB’s and S’s roam.

While a ref may throw a flag and award 15 yards as a result of that play, coaching staffs may think better of running that player into harm’s way again. Question: Is a potential 15 yard penalty during the first possession, worth limiting how the opposing team calls the rest of the game? Answer: You bet your ass! (Just don’t do this in the second half.)

Not to mention how rattled the QB would be for getting his buddy fucked up, to start the game.(Sky high risk/Sky high reward)

So there are tools. We just have to be willing to use them.

#2 PLAY SOME DAMNED PRESS

Posted by The BEAST on 2019/04/03
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Players, stats, The 12, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

2-PLAY SOME PRESS

DEFENSIVE Coordinator Jim Schwartz is not going to abandon the principles that have built his career thus far. However, it’s clear that the old dog needs to learn a couple of new tricks. We need to become more disruptive of opposing passing games. We need to play some damned press coverage.

We don’t need to do it every down. That’s not who we are. But a 3rd and 7 should never come with a clean release off the line. Especially given how rarely this team blitzes. (We’ll also get into that soon, in another edition of The 12.) Adopting and adapting tactics that work, is just being smart. Observe:

Schwartz like to use off-coverage. He likes his Cornerbacks to play with a “cushion” of 5 or so yards off the line of scrimmage, so that they can read the intent of the receiver. (Is it an inside route, an outside route, a GO route, etc.?) That allows the CB to constrict their area of responsibility, release (if needed) the receiver to underneath LB coverage, and inform the Safety about where they have to be to help deep.

Last year the Eagles defense allowed opposing QB’s a 66.6 completion percentage (9th worst in the NFL). We also allowed 4,308 passing yards (3rd worst), 60 passes of 20 or more yards (tied for 3rd worst), collected just 10 interceptions (only 7 teams had fewer)*.

On the plus side, we only gave up 6 passes of 40 or longer (only 3 teams allowed fewer), and only 22 touchdowns all year (only 7 teams allowed fewer). Then again why would a team gamble if we keep giving them easy completions?

We aren’t giving up the big plays, but we also aren’t getting our Defense off the field. Plus, the longer the opponent has the ball, the more opportunities they have to do something dangerous with it.

We simply aren’t doing enough to get teams off the field. We aren’t doing enough to create turnovers. We aren’t doing enough to turn so many hurries into sack/fumbles. We aren’t doing enough to be disruptive. That 66.6 completion percentage (9th worst) tells that tale. New Orleans (both games) tells that tale.

Good but not good enough. If the mission is to win, then similar to the Patriots, we need to adjust to the situation, then adopt and adapt those tactics that will help us accomplish our goal. One of those things would be more of this:

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*NOTE: I use the “only x# teams had fewer” line, because of the screwy way the NFL ranks ties in a category. Note that both the Eagles and Bengals are ranked 9th , and how there is is no 10th ? As you can see, I made the adjustment and placed us 9th worst, not tied for 9th worst.

NFL ties

Both teams allowed a 66.6% completion rate, but going one decimal place over (Cincy .6660, Philly .6661), would allow for a definitive ranking. The NFL however, stops shy of that for some reason. This is just lazy stat keeping on the NFL’s part.

Keeping inaccurate stats helps fans make silly mistakes in debates, and look foolish for doing so. This can’t happen to you, because I do the homework to keep you looking good out there.

THE 12: #4 PLEASE PLAY SOME PRESS

Posted by The BEAST on 2018/03/04
Posted in: Defense, Rants, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

122018#4.jpg

Any idiot can say “Hey let’s sign every high-priced Free Agent on the market”. The 12 focuses on what we can do with what we already have, to fix or improve our team.

************

WEEK 15 against the giants. Our Defense was beaten for one uncontested Slant route after another. It looked almost like Eli Manning was out there playing catch with his receivers. Oh yeah, it also looked that way Week 2 vs the Chiefs.

The rest of the season didn’t look nearly as bad as those two weeks, but during the season two things became clear. 1) That the Slant was 7-11, if an opponent wanted it, and 2) That they could use the Slant, to set up the inside-out double-move on Go routes.

Our inside-out/double-move weakness, became glaringly, unsettlingly apparent in Week 15. It got to the point where we kept seeing teams try to exploit it, (especially against CB Jalen Mills) in the playoffs. Expect teams (especially division rivals) to write plays designed to attack that very Achilles Heel, in 2018. If we can’t take away the Slant, we’ll be setting our Secondary up for failure this year.

The best way to stop the Slant is to (PLEASE, DEAR GOD!!!!!!) play some man-press at the line. Yes, after a couple moments of press, the receiver will get into his route. That’s true. The Slant however, is a timing route. If the receiver is late to the spot, the QB is already on the next read in his progression. Pass rushers are closing in. The pressed route is defended.

sidney.jones.jpg

Rookie CB Sidney Jones presses WR Dez Bryant, keeping him pinned outside, despite Bryant’s clear desire to run inside. This is near-perfect coverage.

The other way to defend the Slant is with a LB with no brakes, arriving just as the ball does. The message gets clearly sent, and receivers look for other ways to make money. Also opposing coaches would be less reckless with health of their QB’s favorite targets.

However, since the NFL likes handing out fines and suspensions, The smarter option is to focus on option one. Play some press. Disrupt opponent’s timing. Force opponents to learn the Eagles Defense all over again, then exploit their ignorance.