Lack of QB pressure; coaching, players or both?

[ZoEd]

Been texting with my brother from a different mother, fellow Skins fan and CO resident about this weeks game. It started with a text "took Skins over Falcons in office pool, heart over head?". Of course I'm an optimist, I mean you HAVE to be to be a Redskin fan, or a glutton for punishment and a laughing stock among friends for following faithfully through the Snyder era...anyway, let me get to the point.

I told him I definitely feel we can win, especially if our secondary shows up. He agreed but raised me with "our DL has to get pressure up the middle on Ryan". Well touché! So that led into 9 hours of intermittent texting between classes and during a much needed BM. Lol.

My assessment is we don't have any dominant D-lineman who can get manhandle OL's on a consistent basis so we have to have the schemes to create opportunities. However, from Ive seen our blitzes are not well disquised at all and actually are pretty damn obvious. I look at the teams we've played and see how other teams succeeded against them and wonder why we can't do the same. Especially when our D's seem evenly matched. Coaching or players?

Are we still trying to put a square peg in a round hole by switching to the 3-4 and Has doesn't have the personnel to scheme effectively?

Or is it a little bit of both? I know I have an inflated opinion of our talent, especially considering my blindness caused by burgundy and gold cataracts.

One more thing, has anyone else noticed Alexander outrunning nearly everyone on ST? With his size and speed how can we not devise a scheme to get him free on a speed rush? I don't see many OT's being as fast as him. I mean, atleast situationally.

What say you ES?

[SWFLSkins]

Something haz to change.

[Hitman21ST]

We have the personnel to run the 3-4. Not having Orakpo hurts, because Jackson isn't good enough to replace him. Our front seven is one of the best in the league. The weakness of our D is the secondary, not the scheme. Gomes and Doughty are good depth players, but they shouldn't be full-time starters.

In our 3-4, we don't really need the DL to get pressure per se. We need them to get a push up front, and not allow Ryan to climb the pocket.

[beachboy757]

Something haz to change.

Lol! I see what you did there!

[Burgold]

The defense is too predictible. If they know what's coming it makes it easier to counter. It's one of the reason the kitchen sink blitzes never work.

[ZoEd]

We have the personnel to run the 3-4. Not having Orakpo hurts, because Jackson isn't good enough to replace him. Our front seven is one of the best in the league. The weakness of our D is the secondary, not the scheme. Gomes and Doughty are good depth players, but they shouldn't be full-time starters.

In our 3-4, we don't really need the DL to get pressure per se. We need them to get a push up front, and not allow Ryan to climb the pocket.

We're stout against the run, no doubt, no one has really run wild on us and honestly that's where Doughty excels. Personally I like him better against the run than I did LL, I mean, when LL was actually on the field. Do you think our blitz packages are so straight forward because we're trying to protect our secondary?

I'm ok with our LB's, it's our front three that I'm not seeing as effective as I'd like. I mean, they get the push but it seems like our OLB's get pushed wide and when our ILB's do go they seem to get caught up in the line. I don't know, just seems like we bring the same stuff every game, no matter who we're playing. How can Detroit get 4 sacks and 8 QB hits against the Rams and we turn around the next week and sack Bradford twice with three hits? That's a difference of 7 licks on the QB! Now, don't get me wrong Fairley and Suh are both beasts, but are they that much better than our DL?

---------- Post added October-4th-2012 at 09:16 PM ----------

The defense is too predictible. If they know what's coming it makes it easier to counter. It's one of the reason the kitchen sink blitzes never work.

And that's what I see Burgold, if I'm predicting what the defense is about to do, is it impossible to think a starting NFL QB and coaching staff with hours of film can't do it? I swear I see the exact same blitzes, week in and week out, even against teams with QB's we know we have to put on their asses. I agree, too damn predictable, too easy to counter or audible out of. Not to mention all you have to do is call a play where DHall gets man coverage and the WR does a double move. Lol

[NIKKI8]

Bowen & Cofield don't seem to be getting as much pressure on the quarterback this year as they did last year. I know people say that it isn't the DL's job to get sacks in a 3/4 defense but it seems to me that these two guys are making way to much money not to be doing a better job of rushing the passer. If the Redskins defense is modled after the Steelers or Cowboys defense Aaron Smith(de) of the Steelers always got to the QB and Jay Ratliff(nt) of the Cowboys as well. I wish the played Arizona this year, the Rams have been teeing off on Kolb every time he goes back to pass. I don't think I ever saw a worse OL than the Cardinals are playing right now.

[NIKKI8]

Bowen & Cofield don't seem to be getting as much pressure on the quarterback this year as they did last year. I know people say that it isn't the DL's job to get sacks in a 3/4 defense but it seems to me that these two guys are making way to much money not to be doing a better job of rushing the passer. If the Redskins defense is modled after the Steelers or Cowboys defense Aaron Smith(de) of the Steelers always got to the QB and Jay Ratliff(nt) of the Cowboys as well. I wish the played Arizona this year, the Rams have been teeing off on Kolb every time he goes back to pass. I don't think I ever saw a worse OL than the Cardinals are playing right now.

[Lavarleap56]

Our problem is we have all 4-3 coaches running a 3-4 using Lou Spanos playbook he brought from Pittsburgh. Yep let that sink in for a minute.

[windsofcreation]

Our front seven is one of the best in the league.

I hate to say it Hitman but I believe that to be homerism at its finest.

[Hitman21ST]

I hate to say it Hitman but I believe that to be homerism at its finest.

Orakpo, Riley, Fletcher, Kerrigan make for a top 5 LB corps. That takes a big hit with Rak being out, but it's still fairly lethal. (49ers, Steelers, maybe Ravens, maybe Packers - but that's really it with a better LB group)

Bowen, Cofield, and Jenkins is a good DL. Room for improvement, definitely, but still good.

The DL and LBs are a top 10 unit

[Renegade7]

It's talent, guys.

London is the closest thing we have to an All-Pro player, but his age shows every time he's caught in coverage by pass catching TE. We have players that are good to above average on that side of the ball, but no one that strikes the fear of God in opposing teams coaching schemes. For example: Houston runs a 3-4 just like us, but has a DE with 7.5 sacks already. It's week f'n 5...

[windsofcreation]

Orakpo, Riley, Fletcher, Kerrigan make for a top 5 LB corps. That takes a big hit with Rak being out, but it's still fairly lethal. (49ers, Steelers, maybe Ravens, maybe Packers - but that's really it with a better LB group)

Bowen, Cofield, and Jenkins is a good DL. Room for improvement, definitely, but still good.

The DL and LBs are a top 10 unit

I guess that argument could be made.But many teams could claim the same. This is a "what have you done for me lately?" league.

When I ask myself that question, the answer is "not much at all".

[Enter Apotheosis]

Without question it's both. Our coaching staff hasn't shown much of a propensity for creative, unpredictable playcalling which can certainly go a long way towards putting guys in position to get quick pressure. Teams have seemingly had no problem identifying and picking up blitzes from the secondary or from the ILBs when we've dialed those plays up. It also wouldn't be too far-fetched to suspect that there are certain technical elements that the staff is not addressing well on a positional basis. However, I'd have to say that when it comes strictly to getting pressure that execution by the players is probably most to blame for the difficulties we've had.

Out of our down linemen SOMEONE needs to step up their game and actually collapse the pocket every now and again to help our edge rushers out. Cofield has been pitiful in this regard and Bowen has been less consistent than he was a year ago. The edge rushers themselves also seem to be fairly limited in terms of technique and don't seem to have much of a repertoire of inside moves to mix things up with instead of just trying to get around the outside of the tackle on most plays (Orakpo always stands out as being exceptionally shoddy in this regard but all of our OLBs are guilty to varying degrees).

[Oldfan]

Without question it's both...

Agreed. I think it's likely that these factors are involved:

1) Mike Shanahan ran through several DCs in Denver. It's likely that Haslett was the best he could do;

2) Going to the 34, meant the on board personnel didn't fit, so Mike had to start over. Early adopters of the 34 had an advantage in the draft because there was a lack of competition for personnel. But, Mike was not an early adopter so our personnel is sub-par overall.