We don't need a strong pass rush to win SB

[Erebus]

Depending on who you listen to, there seems to be a lot of angst about the lack of pass rush. People are panicking that we still don't have Clowney and didn't sufficiently address the pass rush. But all is not lost, even without any further additions.

Let me first acknowledge that obviously a strong pass rush helps, and can make the whole defense better. But a look back at recent history suggests that although it helps, it's not a requirement. The 2018 Patriots won the Super Bowl while ranking 30th in sacks and 24th in pressure percentage. The rest of the defense was solid, as is ours. And of course they had a pretty good QB, just like we do.

Last year, although the Chiefs finished 11th in sacks, they only ranked 20th in pressure percentage. I'm getting my info from pro-football-reference.com. They only have Pressure Percentage for the last two years. Before that I have to rely just on total sacks and sack percentage. Since 2012, six of the eight Super Bowl champions finished outside the top ten in sacks and sack percentage.

What this means is that a lack of pass rush alone isn't necessarily a death sentence, as long as the rest of the team is good-to-great (which it might be). With that said, I'd still love to have Clowney back.

 

[Mad Dog]

Agree that a strong pass rush can help you win a Super Bowl but it's not a necessity. Just as an elite QB can help you win a SB but isn't a necessity.

In the end winning a SB takes a very good team with a very good coach and a whole lot of good fortune, especially around injuries. The best you ca hope for is to get to the dance and then hope you are healthy enough to make a run.

 

[ivotuk]

Excellent point. Sacks aren't the end all, be all. The Giants beat the hell out of Tom Brady, hitting him over and over and it took it's toll. QB Pressure and hits are huge and can knock a QB off of his game.

That's why New Orleans always invests in the middle of the OLine, because pressure up the middle kills Drew Brees accuracy.

The key is keeping teams below 20 PPG. Last year KC gave up 19.3 PPG and SF gave up 19.4 NE was #1 at 14.1 PPG.

Seattle, 24.9 PPG

https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/v ... me/dir/asc

So what's the secret to PPG? Stop the run (Something we were horrible last year), make a team one dimensional, have a good defensive backfield that gives the DLine time to get to the QB (something we were horrible at last year), get turnovers by forcing opposing offenses in to something they are not comfortable with.

Dave Wyman said that last year, opposing offenses were able to dump the ball of quickly because of "soft zone" or the DBs playing off the receivers. His point was that no defensive lineman could get to the QB that fast, even if unblocked.

That will change this year.

 

[Appyhawk]

Goop point Ivo, because in answer to " as long as the rest of the team is good-to-great " we were gashed by the run last year and it is debatable that we have solved that problem. If we haven't that creates problems in other areas.

IMO we have taken strides to contain the edges where we were repeatedly taken advantage of last year. But stopping the interior runs still looms as a challenge, particularly if our secondary comes up for run support, leaving huge zones of open area for receivers to make those big plays we gave up so often last year.
I think what it comes down to is whether or not our O Line really is improved, or are they just looking good against what may be an inferior D Line? If it's the latter we may be in trouble at the LOS on both sides of the ball.

 

[TwistedHusky]

On the PPG last year, to be fair, we were #26 vs the pass last year.

Some scoring on us was due to having godawful safety play. That won't be the case now. We should have a top 10 secondary, if not top 5.

Still nothing about this team screams SuperBowl.

We do usually go on a tear midway through the season because of the way we play and the QB we have. Everyone picks us as a dark horse contender, but we usually fall flat in the playoffs. Until that changes nobody should even be penciling us in for a SB.

However, who knows on the pass rush. Our line seems average. We put older players and throwaways there to fix holes. Maybe that works? But without a preseason it is just speculation.

Everyone is high on Green. I am not seeing it but hopeful. We'll need him. Somehow, Collier will have to at least be average. Didn't seem that great in college but we hope Carroll's ability to notice and develop raw talent comes through here.

Mayowa was here before. I liked him then. Was kind of a crappier Rufus Porter. Is he going to be better now?

Irvin was still producing. Maybe an older Irvin has near the impact he had for us before. We never recovered from his loss.

No preseason means we have no idea what the DL or pass rush looks like. No idea on depth or the promising rookies. Maybe it will be a nice surprise on gameday.

 

[gowazzu02]

Good points. There is only ONE hard fast rule. You must have an elite QB to have sustained success, you don't even need one to win a Super Bowl one year. (Tampa Bay, Baltimore and some may argue the Giants 2 rings)

But I'll tell you this, having a dominant Deep defensive line SURE as heck helps, it really helped us win ours.

 

[kf3339]

Sacks alone aren't the metric I would go by in reference to a strong pass rush. To me pressure from the middle and sides is far more important. They just need to get the Qb away from his comfort zone so he makes bad decisions. We just haven't been very good at that for several years.

Perhaps our back end and LB core will be greatly improved which should help this year.

I would take an average D-Line production if they do their jobs really well. This year will be a collective effort since no real game changers are on this line. Maybe a young guy will break out, but I doubt it.

 

[ZagHawk]

Depending on who you listen to, there seems to be a lot of angst about the lack of pass rush. People are panicking that we still don't have Clowney and didn't sufficiently address the pass rush. But all is not lost, even without any further additions.

Let me first acknowledge that obviously a strong pass rush helps, and can make the whole defense better. But a look back at recent history suggests that although it helps, it's not a requirement. The 2018 Patriots won the Super Bowl while ranking 30th in sacks and 24th in pressure percentage. The rest of the defense was solid, as is ours. And of course they had a pretty good QB, just like we do.

Last year, although the Chiefs finished 11th in sacks, they only ranked 20th in pressure percentage. I'm getting my info from pro-football-reference.com. They only have Pressure Percentage for the last two years. Before that I have to rely just on total sacks and sack percentage. Since 2012, six of the eight Super Bowl champions finished outside the top ten in sacks and sack percentage.

What this means is that a lack of pass rush alone isn't necessarily a death sentence, as long as the rest of the team is good-to-great (which it might be). With that said, I'd still love to have Clowney back.

The Chiefs were also an offensive juggernaut...You don't NEED all areas of the team to be top10 to win the SB, BUT the other areas of the team must make up for the slack. If you're not going to be overall great on both sides of the ball, f your offense is average, your defense better be elite. If your defense is average, your offense better be elite if you think you have a shot at a SB win. The issue is we know Pete's playcalling is never going to make the seahawks an offensive juggernaut and therefore...the defense NEEDS to be good (including pass rush) on THIS team if you want any chance to compete for a SB.

 

[rcaido]

Healthiest team usually wins.

It was unfortunate we lost all of our RB right before the playoffs.

The year before that we had no Earl Thomas. Dissley injury.

It seem like injuries has been the most devastating cause of losses so far...If Avril didn't get a concussion & Lane injured sb49...

Im happy we picked up Hyde.

 

[olyfan63]

Healthiest team usually wins.
<snip>
It seem like injuries has been the most devastating cause of losses so far...If Avril didn't get a concussion & Lane injured sb49...

Amen, brother. With Avril out, we no longer had a pass rush. With Lane injured, and Tharald "Toast" Simon in for him, it paved the way for Brady, Amendola, and Edelman to torch our D. Cost us the Owl for sure. Never known why Carroll had Marcus Burley inactive for SB49 and activated crappy-crap Simon instead.

We just need an average-decent pass rush. I expect it to improve over last year.

 

[Mad Dog]

Pass rush is about your whole D. If you can stop first down plays in base D from gaining more than 3 yds you are more than likely going to get into 3rd and long situations and those allow you to cover longer. If you can cover longer, your so-so pass rush has a better chance to create pressure.

Last year, we gave up too many yards on early downs and made life easy for QB's just to nickel and dime us with quick low risk 3rd down passes. Continually facing 3rd and 7 is more likely to lead to pressures and sacks than facing 3rd and 3 all the time.

Our secondary was not aged enough last year in coverage or run support. The DL was not good enough in run stopping. Those things made it hard to get sacks more than anything.

We have 4 young guys and 2 vets to hopefully change things around on the edges and we have 2 stud safeties and a deeper CB group to cover. I think this is a substantially improved defence even without Clowney.

 

[onanygivensunday]

Last year we allowed almost 25 points/game. That's bad. With the additions of Jamal Adams and Quinton Dunbar, together with a full year of Quandre Diggs, I expect our points allowed to improve to somewhere around 19 points/game.

Thus far in TC, LJ Collier has impressed as has Alton Robinson. Mayowa and Irvin should help our pass rush as well. I'm feeling real good about our depth in the secondary and LB corps. Jordyn Brooks is looking good as well.

On offense, the addition of Greg Olsen and getting back a healthy Will Dissly will help Russ on 3rd downs. I like the addition of Carlos Hyde as well. Damien Lewis looks like he will be starting at RG as a rookie. That's really encouraging. Missing the preseason games. Sure hope that we come out of the gate strong against the Falcons.

 

[sdog1981]

This is hard to gauge due to the Patriots skewing the numbers.

Depth in the secondary appears to be the best way to improve a team's pass rush. In the current NFL market pass rushers are very expensive, good DBs are cheaper, due to their depth.

Using the 2012/2013 Seahawks as an example, they did not get to the QB very often. They only had two players with more than 8 sacks that season. However, they applied constant pressure, the other teams QB always having to move and make a throw into tight coverage.

 

[Polk738]

This is hard to gauge due to the Patriots skewing the numbers.

Depth in the secondary appears to be the best way to improve a team's pass rush. In the current NFL market pass rushers are very expensive, good DBs are cheaper, due to their depth.

Using the 2012/2013 Seahawks as an example, they did not get to the QB very often. They only had two players with more than 8 sacks that season. However, they applied constant pressure, the other teams QB always having to move and make a throw into tight coverage.

The strength of that D-line was it's rotation, Avril and Bennett were the missing pieces to put that defense over the top when they came on board in 2013, Clemons was still an effective player even coming off a devastating injury-along with Mebane, Tony Mcdaniel, Clinton Mcdonald and Big Red that interior was pretty awesome-

As far as this defense I love the new secondary but the front four is seriously lacking IMO, there is very little depth and aside from Reed and Ford I don't see much there, I like Mayowa and Bruce coming back but he's moving back to SAM. I'm gonna say it looks like they are really banking on some of the unproven guys, Collier, Robinson, Taylor maybe even Shaqueem to really beef up the pass rush-I hope the gamble pays off.

 

[kf3339]

This is hard to gauge due to the Patriots skewing the numbers.

Depth in the secondary appears to be the best way to improve a team's pass rush. In the current NFL market pass rushers are very expensive, good DBs are cheaper, due to their depth.

Using the 2012/2013 Seahawks as an example, they did not get to the QB very often. They only had two players with more than 8 sacks that season. However, they applied constant pressure, the other teams QB always having to move and make a throw into tight coverage.

The strength of that D-line was it's rotation, Avril and Bennett were the missing pieces to put that defense over the top when they came on board in 2013, Clemons was still an effective player even coming off a devastating injury-along with Mebane, Tony Mcdaniel, Clinton Mcdonald and Big Red that interior was pretty awesome-

As far as this defense I love the new secondary but the front four is seriously lacking IMO, there is very little depth and aside from Reed and Ford I don't see much there, I like Mayowa and Bruce coming back but he's moving back to SAM. I'm gonna say it looks like they are really banking on some of the unproven guys, Collier, Robinson, Taylor maybe even Shaqueem to really beef up the pass rush-I hope the gamble pays off.

We still need a veteran DT who at minimum is a great at stuffing the run. Any interior push on pass plays would be a bonus.

 

[DomeHawk]

Excellent point. Sacks aren't the end all, be all. The Giants beat the hell out of Tom Brady, hitting him over and over and it took it's toll. QB Pressure and hits are huge and can knock a QB off of his game.

That's why New Orleans always invests in the middle of the OLine, because pressure up the middle kills Drew Brees accuracy.

The key is keeping teams below 20 PPG. Last year KC gave up 19.3 PPG and SF gave up 19.4 NE was #1 at 14.1 PPG.

Seattle, 24.9 PPG

https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/v ... me/dir/asc

So what's the secret to PPG? Stop the run (Something we were horrible last year), make a team one dimensional, have a good defensive backfield that gives the DLine time to get to the QB (something we were horrible at last year), get turnovers by forcing opposing offenses in to something they are not comfortable with.

Dave Wyman said that last year, opposing offenses were able to dump the ball of quickly because of "soft zone" or the DBs playing off the receivers. His point was that no defensive lineman could get to the QB that fast, even if unblocked.

That will change this year.

Really good points Ivo. I would add that the soft zone you mention has been our nemesis for several years now. The "bend-don't-break" philosophy will only take you so far, at some point you have to commit.

 

[Own The West]

The pass rush will be better this year because the secondary is better this year. Think 4 seconds to get to the QB instead of two...

The big question on this defense is will teams need to throw because our interior DL has no depth.