84HuskerLaw
New member
I would say the thing our secondary guys and to some extent our LBs and DEs lack is 'closing speed' and quickness. You can call it 'talent' or not but if your defenders can't cover and close as the ball is coming in so they have a legitimate chance to break up the pass or knock the ball loose with their hands or a solid hit well timed, then you are at best following the receivers around and tackling them after they make the catch. In such defenses you are going to basically only have incomplete passes IF either the QB throws a poor pass or the receiver drops it or there is a miscommunication as to route or something, or perhaps wind or weather make the completion tough or you have a strong pass rush who hit the QB or deflect or make the throw go awry.
You are very limited in your pass rush if you are fully dedicated to stopping the run as your front seven have to focus heavily on making sure it is not a delayed action run such as a draw or option or other slow hitter running design or a screen pass or other similar play which is designed to take advantage of hard rushing DL / LBs after the QB. Thus, you are only going to get heavy pass rush from either brute force or outstanding play by your DTs or DEs or by gambling with blitzes and sacrificing in your pass or run defense / prevention schemes.
Riley and Company have chosen to play pretty basic, 'honest' defense whereby we are attempting to force the opponent to 'execute' their plays successfully and repeatedly and to score in so doing. We are focused on stopping running plays primarily. We remain in our base 4-3 alignment a lot even in obvious passing 3rd & longs and or running 2nd and shorts plays. Keep it simple and stop the run first, and defend the pass with the mindset of giving up the short completions as opposed to the long ones. That in a nutshell is our defensive philosophy. At least as I 'see' it from reading and listening since I do not get to watch the games on TV or live.
I personally feel this is a good approach and would concur. I, however, think there are times when the defense ought to change up and go into a 'pass defend first mode' and dare the opponent to run it, in 3rd and over 12 cases when we are playing on the opponent's end of the field. Dare them to run for big yards against the pass defense alignment. Or at least substitute LBs for your speediest DBs and Safeties to flood the passing areas with extra quick bodies. Yes a safety is not as tough a tackler as the LBs but he doesn't have to stop the RB in his tracks, just bring him down before he gains the first down. Make 'em punt.
All this is of course pretty elementary and I would not presume to have anywhere close to the X & Os knowledge of the coaches or many others. I am also assuming these basic approaches are what we are trying to do - perhaps just not very well. Players make mistakes and sometimes are not quite fast enough or tall enough or strong enough or something. Sometimes opponents execute well and we get blocked, tackled, fooled and out guessed in plays. That is football!
