re: Harold Perkins looking good

quote:

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Why would you say that? As good as our front 4 should be, we shouldn't need to blitz to get pressure.

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I say that because of that front 4 being THE strength of our defense. And to be clear I'm not talking bringing the house- 6, 7, or 8 every play... not even that often. I'm talking bringing +1 very often.

1. That dominant front 4 will cause teams to keep in blockers thereby reducing their effectiveness. It won't be an adjustment. By the time SEC foes have film to study it will be a given. Teams will have to game plan that way. He will want to bring a rusher to the opposite side of every blocker held in (or in another zone). Keep a TE in to the field side, S comes on the boundary side. RB stays in to help LT, send Perkins on a loop over the A gap and so forth. This is to maximize the effectiveness of that strength- the DL and to prevent your opponent from 'blunting' it letting them open the playbook up. It's why our max protect never worked for passing; we had more sacks in max protect than 11 personnel with 4 or 5 in routes. When your DL is that good (and DBs as a group sorta weak) you don't want to let them take that away.

2. If you do it "in moderation", by that I mean sending one or two, but do it often from all over the front of the formation you confuse the shite out of their OL and QB protection calls. Remember, a confused OLman is the same as sending an extra rusher because they either block the wrong person or uncover a rush zone/lane in zone protection. So doing it often, sowing the seeds of confusion, without too much risk (that moderation) also increases the effectiveness of that DL, your strength, and gives you many more opportunities as a D as a whole. If you don't do it often, blockers held in (e.g. a RB) have a higher chance of identifying and blunting the rusher when you do and the OLmen are more comfortable only being confused every now and then knowing that a TE or RB usually has their back. It's almost a Sun Tzu principle of keeping the pressure on a larger force with a smaller force by forcing them to guess thereby diluting that larger force's effectiveness.

So this type of blitzing one one hand prevents you strong DL from being weakened and at the same time enhances that strength more than it would being stand alone.

That's why I think it will be "surgical" blitzes very often.