Was giving this some thought, and I have an impression which I wonder whether anyone else shares?
You have to say that there are essentially 2 types of pressure - one where the defensive player wins his matchup with a blocker, and one where there is a breakdown in the protection scheme and a pass rusher is effectively left with a clearer path to the QB than he should have had in that situation. I feel - with zero research - that we don't get much of the second type of pressures, and wonder whether our rush schemes are too vanilla?
Before anyone points it out, I KNOW that our D is based upon rushing only 4, but that doesn't need to from the 4 DLs lining up and trying to beat the guys immediately opposite them. In terms of exoticness, I don't remember seeing anything more than aDE running a stunt inside the DT. When we send a LB he invariably speeds up to the line yoo early, walks back a couple of feet, then rushes after the snap to the surprise of almost no one. You don't need to send the house - Arizona got big pressure on us last year just by sending an ILB on an A gap blitz and requiring our protection scheme to adjust.
Obviously our 4 DLs can't simply get pressure from beating their men straight up, so I think it's time to vary things and test teams' ability to adjust. The comment has already been made re the lack of interior pressure, but there are certain QBs (e.g. Brady, Brees) who I would quite willingly sacrifice edge pressure to get some interior push and knock them off their spot or stop them climbing the pocket.
You have to say that there are essentially 2 types of pressure - one where the defensive player wins his matchup with a blocker, and one where there is a breakdown in the protection scheme and a pass rusher is effectively left with a clearer path to the QB than he should have had in that situation. I feel - with zero research - that we don't get much of the second type of pressures, and wonder whether our rush schemes are too vanilla?
Before anyone points it out, I KNOW that our D is based upon rushing only 4, but that doesn't need to from the 4 DLs lining up and trying to beat the guys immediately opposite them. In terms of exoticness, I don't remember seeing anything more than aDE running a stunt inside the DT. When we send a LB he invariably speeds up to the line yoo early, walks back a couple of feet, then rushes after the snap to the surprise of almost no one. You don't need to send the house - Arizona got big pressure on us last year just by sending an ILB on an A gap blitz and requiring our protection scheme to adjust.
Obviously our 4 DLs can't simply get pressure from beating their men straight up, so I think it's time to vary things and test teams' ability to adjust. The comment has already been made re the lack of interior pressure, but there are certain QBs (e.g. Brady, Brees) who I would quite willingly sacrifice edge pressure to get some interior push and knock them off their spot or stop them climbing the pocket.
