[-King-]

**** it.

GIF'D UP: Dontari Poe vs Rams

by Clay Wendler on Aug 21, 2012 7:13 PM CDT


So our defense pretty much got handled by the St. Louis Rams last Saturday, but there's something positive to focus on with Dontari Poe. Most notably, his pass rush.


Poe played a lot against St. Louis. He was in the game early in the first quarter and was still playing into the fourth quarter. He got plenty of chances to make something happen, and he did just that on several snaps. I thought there was a clear difference in Poe from his first pro game to his second pro game, so that's encouraging.
Hit the jump to see the GIFs of Dontari Poe blasting off the line and into the backfield, scaring quarterbacks.





This play comes early in the first quarter on the Rams' second drive. It's third down and Poe is involved in a stunt with Tamba Hali. No sack, but he gets good pressure and forces a bit of an awkward throw from Sam Bradford, who he then lays a nice hit on. Result of the play was a third-down stop, and on the next snap St. Louis scored on fourth down.






Later in the game against the St. Louis second string, Poe picks up a definite tipped pass. No doubt this week (unlike last week where it was questionable). Stanford Routt almost picked this pass off.






Here's a nice example of Poe's quickness on another stunt. He gets into the backfield really fast on this snap and comes really close to getting a sack...twice. You'll also notice his pressure makes Kellen Clemens pull the ball down when he could have thrown it to the RB.





Here's the play in real time so you can see how fast Poe got into the backfield. Scary.






Let's take a look at Poe vs the run. This play doesn't seem like much, especially because the RB is headed for a giant hole. But Poe does a nice job holding the point and trying to get off his block. He makes the RB change direction, and had Brandon Bair not been held on this play it would have been stuffed. Since Bair did indeed draw a holding call on this, this was a positive play.






OK, this would make any quarterback soil himself. Poe destroys the middle of St. Louis' pass protection on this play and he's headed for a sure sack/QB mauling if Brandon Siler doesn't have an unblocked shot instead. Love seeing this.






And speaking of enormous Kansas City Chiefs doin' work...








Oh, that's fun.


GIF'D UP will be back tomorrow with some offensive GIFs, and we'll read 400 comments about Matt Cassel.