SoulfishHawk":73hh83wv said:
Absolutely, it was so damn good to see true adjustments to what the D was doing. Feels like it has been awhile since we saw that, let alone 3 straight TD drives.
Isn't that so awesome, awesome to see?!!
I'm going to say that it's probably Pete giving the green light to Schotty to do such a thing. A lot of us dog Pete for not being flexible, for not learning and adapting, focusing so much on "us" and "imposing our will" that he fails to adapt to the opponent to exploit their weaknesses and avoid their strengths. You know, all the things the Patriots do so well.
The truth is that Pete has grown and changed and reinvented himself several times during his coaching career. So I have my fingers crossed that this faster adaptation to opponent thing continues, by Pete's decree.
Now, back to the "RW, 2 games, 8 sacks" issue. One thing I notice about Russell is that the sacks do not generally involve big hits by speeding blitzers, but rather lower-speed grab and hold jobs or trip-tackles of a running Russell. Not saying there's anything fun for a 210 lb guy about having 600 lbs of beef suddenly laying on top of him, but in my recall, Russell's sacks rarely involve big hits. Obviously clean pockets are better, and no hits at all on our QB is always better.
Maybe that's one small reflection of our improving OL, is fewer free shots at Russell, even in a game like the 1st half in Pittsburgh, when the OL sucks and gets beat, they typically manage to engage the DL enough to keep the impacts on Russell from being extinction-level events.
In contrast, I see DeShaun Watson taking much bigger hits, for example. And Robert Griffin III, well, "Superman" turned out to be just another fragile fool. Mahomes, seems to have the gift of elusiveness, like Wilson; we shall see.
Curious what others think; does Russell take much less violent sacks than other NFL QBs, like I think, or about the same?