Quote:
Originally Posted by O.city
I don't give a shit about his run defense. That's to be expected of him with what he's being paid.
Go sack the QB. Alot.
I dunno what the deal is with pass rushers these days, but they don't seem to be what they were even 5 years ago in terms of production. Khalil Mack had a down year for him.
Is it just easier to neutralize outside guys?
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This has been a trend for a few years now. QB s are getting rid of the ball earlier. Lok at Brady for the last few years in NE. He's been gradually decreasing the time between snap-to-throw for at least a couple seasons now. Last year when we played him, someone in the pregame said he had reached a career-low for that time, 2.4 seconds?
Rothlisberger was averaging 2.2 seconds this season. Baker about the same, but he threw a lot of passes in under 2 seconds vs. PIT.
And the best sack-rate DL couldn't get a single sack, and just a few pressures. I'm not sure they recorded a hit.
Now part of that you could say had to do with the fact that CLE finished the season with the best OL, if you believe ESPN, FOXSports, PFF, etc. And their back-ups might be the best in football, since they replaced their LT and one of their Gs (one of them twice ) in that game, and PIT still couldn't get to Baker.
Whatever. Point is, that yeah there's a trend of QBs throwing quicker. A lot of OCs have built their schemes on the idea. Not all teams yet, maybe not even a majority, but look at GB, for example. LaFleur has built a running game, and a quick pass offense. TB is finally trending that way.
Bottom line, no DL is getting to the QB in 2.5 seconds.
Anyone that was paying attention knew we weren't going to get a bunch of sacks vs. CLE. As I posted in the "LTACLE" thread, We'd be lucky to get a couple sacks (and that Sneed would probably get it, so I'm psychic I guess), but the important thing would be to make Baker uncomfortable, by taking away his roll out to the left, since that was basically his best 'punch,' don't let him escape into the flat behind an undisciplined rush, defend the HB screens better than PIT did.
Not rocket science. If the best DL in football couldn't record a sack vs. CLE, and they got taken to the woodshed by allowing L-rollouts and HB screens between the hashes, Spags would've been an idiot to try and expend extra resources/gameplan to sack Baker.
Lucky for us he's not that dumb.
EDIT: Correction, Spags would've been Bob Sutton. Thank God he's not.